Moorish Europe

The fact that Blacks had lived in some of the same Iberian regions later occupied by Islamic Moors suggests this. In 937, Ibn Hawkal noted that Blacks were very common in Palermo. Regarding one of the city's main entrances, Hawkal wrote that it was called the "Bab es Soudan," or "Gate of the Blacks," so named after its ebony-hued residents.

Pope Leo III referred to these Blacks variously as Moors, Agareni, and Saracens. Islamic encroachment on the European mainland took place around 846. When "Saracens" landed at the mouth of the Tiber River and besieged Rome. Of this invasion, the German historian Hincmar (875 A.D.) wrote that: The Arabs and Moors assaulted Rome on the Tiber, and when they laid waste to the basilica of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, and carried off all the ornaments and treasures, with the very altar which was situated above the tomb of the famous prince of apostles, they occupied strongly a fortified hill a hundred miles from the city.

In the invasion of Rome, Pope John VII agreed to pay an annual tribute of 25,000 marks of silver to the Saracens to retreat.

Frederick It (1197-1250 A.D.), of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, developed especially close relationships with the remaining Blacks in Sicily, and retained a , Moorish chamberlain who was constantly in his presence.

While admittedly breaking the Islamic power-base, he also solicited the aid of the Moors from Palermo in his intense struggle with the papacy. After resettling conquered Muslims on the Italian mainland at Lucera, the monarch recruited an elite guard unit of 16,000 Black troops.

One of the independent sovereigns of Moorish descent with whom Frederick II came into contact was Morabit, a name whose attachment may be found with the Sanhadja Berber tribes known as Murabit.

Growing conflicts and rebellion against the expansionist policies of Frederick II eventually led to the death of Morabit. In 1239 A.D., however, another Black man, Johannes Maurus, attained a position of considerable authority at the Hohenstaufen royal court. "In South Italy and Sicily," writes Paul Kaplan, "dark-skinned Moslems had already been visible for several centuries.

Spain and Portugal, a real renaissance, when other parts of Europe were spending a thousand years passing through the dark age which the destruction of Rome by the Barbarians. Moorish domination extended to parts of Italy. In 846 A.D., they held the city of Rome in a state of siege while in 878 they captured Sicily from the Normans. Twenty years later the Moors took control of Southern Italy by defeating Otto II of Germany.

As in Spain and Portugal, miscegenation took place on a wide scale between the Moors and the Italians. The Italians at that time had large infusions of Germanic blood due to the invasion of the Goths and Like Portugal and Spain the blood of Africa permeated through all Italian society. And Africa blood found its way into the leading families, including the most illustrious royal family of the times-the Medicis.

Black Britain, Sholto the Douglas, Niger Val Dubh

McRitchie gives the names of many of these families (Moorish) whose are quite celebrated in English history. One of these is the aristocratic Douglas family, said to be one of the ancestors of the present royal family of Britain. A British authority, J.A. Ringrose, explains about the founder of this family:

Douglas family Crest

About the year 770 AD, in the reign of Salvathius, King of the Scots, Donald Bane of the Western Isles having invaded Scotland and routed the royal army, a man of rank and figure came seasonably with his followers to the King's assistance.

He renewed the battle and obtained a complete victory over the invader. The king being anxious to see the man who had done him such signal service, he was pointed out to him by his colour, or complexion in Gaelic language -sholto-du-glash-" behold the black or swarthy coloured man" from which he obtained the name Sholto the Douglas.

McRitchie further states that the most revealing evidence of the Moorish origin of these noble families are "the thick-lipped Moors" on their coat-of­ arms. Many of these families still carry the name Moore. Barry's Encyclope­dia Heraldica notes on its pages that "Moor's head is the heraldic term for the heads of a black or negro man."

McRitchie contends that the racial origin of these notable families stems from the fact that there were black peoples (Moors or Silure) domiciled in Scotland as early as the ninth and tenth centuries.

Any comprehensive account of the African presence in early Europe should include England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Scandinavia. The history and legends of Scotland confirm the existence of "purely Black people." We see one of them in the person of Kenneth the Niger. During the tenth century Kenneth the Niger ruled over three provinces in the Scottish Highlands.

The historical and literary traditions of Wales reflect similar beliefs. According to Gwyn Jones (perhaps the world's leading authority on the subject), to the Welsh chroniclers, "The Danes coming in by way of England and the Norwegians by way of Ireland were pretty well all black: Black Gentiles, Black Norsemen, and Black Host." There is also strong reason to suggest an African presence in ancient Ireland.

We have, for example, the legends of the mysterious "African sea-rovers, the Fomorians, who had a stronghold on Torrey Island, off the Northwest Coast." The Fomorians, shrouded deep in mist, came to be regarded as the sinister forces in Irish mythology. Moors also dominated the British Isles at one point in history. The archaeologist and writer David McRitchie declared that the Moors dominated Scotland as late as the time of the Saxon Kings.

He stated with scholarly authority: So late as the tenth century three of these provinces [of Scotland] were wholly black and the supreme ruler of these became for a time the paramount king of transmarine Scotland.
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We see one of the black people ­- the Moors of the Romans - in the person of a King of Alban of the tenth century. History knows him as Kenneth, sometimes as Dubh and as Niger.

We know as a historic fact that a Niger Val Dubh has lived and reigned over certain black divisions of our islands and probably white divisions also, and that a race known as the "Sons of the Black" succeeded him in history.

Representation of Black Saracen giant in medieval literature begin with Vernagu found in the Pseudo Turpin Chronicle of Charlemagne.

Dated to the fourteenth century, the Roland and Vernagu describe a duel between the black as pitch, Saracen Vernagu, and the Christian knight Roland. Another towering figure was Alagolfare the Ethiopian giant of the Sowdone of Babylone,who’s "skin was black and hard."

British Kings, Edgar, Ethelred

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, the son of Edmund and Edgar's older brother.

King Edgar Coin

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar. A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames. Edgar became King of England upon Eadwig's death in October 959.

One of Edgar's first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester (and subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign. While Edgar may not have been a particularly peaceable man, his reign was peaceful. Right: A coin of Edgar, struck in Winchcombe (c. 973-75 AD).

The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified in that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingship's, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm. According to George Molyneaux, Edgar's reign, "far more than the reigns of either Alfred or Æthelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom".

The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England's monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald (historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement). In 963, Edgar allegedly killed Earl Æthelwald, his rival in love, near present-day Longparish, Hampshire. The event was commemorated by the Dead Man's Plack, erected in 1825. In 1875, Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a "tissue of romance" in his book, Historic Essays; however, his arguments were rebutted by naturalist William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn. Edgar the Peaceful sits aboard a barge manned by eight kings, as it moves up the River Dee.

king Ethelred the Unready

Edgar was crowned at Bath and anointed with his wife Ælfthryth, setting a precedent for a coronation of a queen in England itself. Edgar's coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). Left: The Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred the Unready (c. 968-1016)

This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.

The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee. Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.

Edgar died on 8 July 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He left behind Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by Æthelflæd (not to be confused with the Lady of the Mercians), and Æthelred, the younger, the child of his wife Ælfthryth. He was succeeded by Edward. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton.

coat of Arms of the Bishop of Munich.

She was joined there by her daughter, Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints. Some[who?] see Edgar's death as the beginning of the end of Anglo-Saxon England, followed as it was by three successful 11th century conquests — two Danish and one Norman. Top: coat of Arms of the Bishop of Munich.

The Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred the Unready (c. 968-1016) ruled the English from 978 to 1016. During his reign England was repeatedly attacked by Danish armies seeking to destroy the sovereignty of the Anglo-Saxons and to plunder their land. Born into the royal house of Wessex, which was at that time the effective ruler of all the Anglo-Saxons, Ethelred was a direct descendant of Alfred the Great and the son of King Edgar, who had ruled a united and peaceful England for 16 years.

At Edgar's death in 975, the realm passed to Ethelred's brother Edward, who was still a child. The nobles of the kingdom formed rival parties around Edward and Ethelred, and the latter's supporters murdered Edward on March 18, 978, making Ethelred king. Edward was soon widely honoured as a martyred saint, and devotion to him gave many an excuse to withhold allegiance from his successor.

St Richard of Wessex & King Alfred the Great

St Richard of Wessex

St Richard of Wessex:  More than any other race, the Anglo Saxons are distinguished for the royal patronage bestowed upon the Christian Church, and for the way in which kings and their families have worked in the spreading of the gospel in their own lands and overseas.

St. Richard and his family are outstanding examples. He was one of the kings or princes of Wessex, related to the royal house of Kent, and married to Winna, herself a descendant of Cerdic and aunt to Boniface of Crediton.

When Willibald reached manhood, he returned to his family with a desire to spread the faith abroad, and persuaded his father and brother to accompany him on a pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land.

Richard had a daughter, Walburga, by a second marriage, and she now entered the convent at Wimborne, under the Abbess Tetta.

King Alfred the Great

When Richard had renounced his royal estate, he set sail with his two sons from Hamblehaven near Southampton. They made a leisurely progress through France, spending time at various Christian centres including Rouen, and it seems that at some time during their journey Richard took monastic vows.

They reached Italy and came to Lucca, where the Cathedral had been built by an Irish monk called Frigidian, but known by the local inhabitants as Frediano.

Richard, who was growing old and had become infirm during his travels, now succumbed to the heat and died. St Richard of Wessex: Died 722 A.D. His sons saw to his burial in St. Frediano's church and then continued their journey.

Later they joined their uncle St. Boniface and their sister St. Walburga in the work of converting the Germans.Their father, St. Richard, is still venerated in Lucca. A famous account of the pilgrimage on which he died was written by his son's cousin, the nun Hugeburc, entitled Hodoeporicon (Baring-Gould). 

Canterbury Coin

In art, King Saint Richard is portrayed as a royal pilgrim (ermine-lined cloak) with two sons--one a bishop and one an abbot. His crown may be on a book (Roeder). He is venerated at Heidenheim and Lucca (Roeder1955). (Roeder). Left, Negroid gold coin pendant, about 590 A.D., found near St. Martin’s church, Canterbury, England.

King Alfred the Great: Alfred the Great (Old English: Ælfrēd, Ælfrǣd, "elf counsel" or "wise elf"; 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899. Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, and by the time of his death had become the dominant ruler in England.[1] He is one of only two English monarchs to be given the epithet "the Great", the other being the Scandinavian Cnut the Great.

He was also the first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". Details of Alfred's life are described in a work by the 10th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser. Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education and improved his kingdom's legal system, military structure and his people's quality of life.