The twelfth-century schools were a hotbedof ethnic stereotyping. It was ignited by studentsfrom a diversity of backgrounds organized loosely instudent or teacher guilds called nationes. From the earlystages of the twelfth century, they convened inParis, Orléans, Chartres, Bologna and Oxford tostudy the liberal arts, theology, medicine and law.In the multi-ethnic urban environment of highereducation, the young men found ethnic categories tobe workable material for practising the arts ofsatire and panegyric. Afterwards, many went on tofind employment in lay and church courts, theevolving bureaucratic institutions and chanceries,as well as to work as mendicant preachers. Overall,literacy and communication between groups of variousbackgrounds increased in this period in urbancentres, through trade networks and in warfareagainst religious others.

In this environment military strategists, court poetsand legal theorists, consulting manuals such asVegetius’s De remilitari, weighed the qualities of theideal army recruits using environmental theory andadvocated a sacrificial death for the patria. This had threeimplications. Firstly, military success and thesecurity of the domesticated space of the patria, as well as colonialexpansion, rested in the hands of military recruitsconsidered to be naturally endowed with specificmanly and rational, physical and mental qualitiesnurtured by their patria’s environment, which according toDaniel of Beccles’s manual Urbanus magnus was a divine andhealth-giving place, perfect for those who tilledthe land. The classification of qualities ofstrength and rationality by extension justifiedlegal and social inequalities pertaining to propertyand labour. Secondly, the rhetorical emphasis onsuch natural characteristics helped militarycommanders to galvanize their fighters, holding upto them the prize for which they exclusively,honourably fought for the common cause and good oftheir semi-sacred community. Thirdly, listing theenvironmentally determined traits of army recruitsin the Christian army in epic verse andhistoriographies meant that poets distinguishedexplicitly between ethnicities within the imperium christianum.

In order to see how this worked, the second part ofthis book examines how ethnic images slipped intothe sphere of social conflict and warfare, in socialand physical discord where stereotypes wereconsciously used to fire up emotions.