Denying Sameness, Making Race: Medieval Anti-judaism

Abstract

In the Middle English romance The King of Tars, a Muslim sultan’s skin color famously transforms upon his conversion to Christianity. “His hide that blac and lothely was / Al white bicom thurth Godes gras.” Much has been written about the racial fantasy thus enacted within the poem, but in the contexts of this essay, I’m particularly struck not by the transformation itself but rather by its utility as a visual sign. For when the Sultan’s Christian wife beholds his new appearance, “wist sche wele in hir thought / on Mahoun leved he nought / For chaunged was his hewe.” In other words, the Sultan’s skin color becomes a semiotic display of the authenticity of his review essay