Afro Europe Moors on the Court of Arms of the Royal Families of Europe

It is generally known that black people have been residing in European countries since the early colonial times. But even before the 15th century and during Roman times, a time when colour of skin still wasn’t a racist stigma but just another physical feature, black people lived in Europe. Remains of a man with black African features were found in England recently, dating his life back to the 13th century.

Black people were part of European imagination and reality from very early times.  more We can say with certainty that there were black people in Europe before that white people reached the area south of the Sahara. North Africa, Iberia and the Middle East were the crossroad where black and white intermingled. In Europe references to blacks was a positive sign of strength and military power. Still today you can find many blacks in coat of arms for towns all over Europe, central, south and north, dating back to the middle ages.

Your Family Coat of Arms and Other Myths

Many people, mostly Americans, believe that every family was once issued a coat of arms and then everyone born with that family name automatically gets to use the same coat of arms. If you believe that, it is time to correct the myth.

NOTE: There is an exception. I am told that Samurai families in Japan do have family coats of arms although they do not resemble British or European coats of arms. In any case, if your ancestry is 100% Japanese Samurai, the rest of this article does not apply to you.

To begin with, coats of arms are never issued to families; they are issued to individuals. Coats of arms are issued by heralds and there are different heralds in each country in the United Kingdom and in Europe. A coat of arms is granted by the King of Arms in England and in Ireland, while the court of the Lord Lyon King of Arms grants that right in Scotland.
 

England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland have the most rigid system of heraldry (coats of arms). Other European countries do record and permit coats of arms, but do not restrict their use as much as do the English and the Scottish heralds. A repository called the College of Arms holds an official register of all granted coats of arms that exist in England and Wales.
 

The United States has never accepted the concept of nobility and therefore has no officially-recognized heralds. Several American organizations claim to be able to issue coats of arms but any such arms issued by an American organization have to be considered as "unofficial." There is no official issuing body in the U.S. Most Americans who wish to obtain legitimate coats of arms apply first in the name of a foreign-born ancestor with the heralds in the country where that ancestor lived.
The American descendant may then apply to use the ancestor's coat of arms as his own as his "inherited right to arms."
 

Throughout history, an individual could apply for a coat of arms and the heralds would decide whether or not to approve it. Coats of arms generally are issued to men although there are numerous exceptions. The Queen of England always has a coat of arms, as do many high-ranking officials. For instance, Margaret Thatcher was issued a coat of arms when she was prime minister.

In medieval days, coats of arms were issued only to knights and to noblemen as an emblem to be displayed on shields and on various banners for use in battle. After all, it was difficult to see through the eye slits in the helmets they wore and every soldier wanted to make sure he was swinging the broadsword at the enemy, not at his commanding officer. The brightly painted coats of arms helped identify the combatants back in the days before uniforms.
 

As the years passed and the battles decreased, a wealthy merchant class began to flourish and many merchants obtained coats of arms as well. So did clergymen, elected officials, and a few others. In every case, the coat of arms has always been issued to an individual, not to a family. You might find a coat of arms issued to someone with the same family name as yours, but that doesn't mean that you are entitled to use the same arms.

 

A Western Misrepresentation of The Jews

The time period between 1160 and 1680 saw the ending and beginning of two different ages, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Both of these ages experienced a large development in the Arts, specifically the icons, or religious images, representing the Jews. Of all of the great Biblical, or religious, icons, representing the Jews, created before, during, and after this period, strangely, there are very little representing, or including, people of color: especially since the Jews were people of color. The current representation of the Jews may have occurred because of interpretations, perceptions, and attitudes displayed towards the Caucasian Jews and Black Moors, or black people in general, living in Medieval Europe. This representation may have also occurred as a result of the approved, or accepted, versus the unapproved, or unaccepted, historical representation of these people. This representation of history, because other theories concerning the Jews, even when backed by a substantial amount of evidence, are not even acknowledged, is called whitewashing (meaning to cover up). This form of history was thrust upon the inhabitants of the world and is still taught in schools today. Whether or not whitewashing was accidental or intentional remains to be disputed. The icons, as proven by various documents concerning the history surrounding the Jews, were originally paintings of a dark-skinned people. Whitewashing contributes to European thought and culture by making Europeans appear as if they have a history of great people and events, thereby elevating them to a status of greatness in the world’s eye.   Whitewashing, in relation to the icons, is the act of covering up, by painting over or recreating, the true image of a painting in order to conceal the truth concerning a people’s history. Whitewashing, of course, is not limited to recreating history, which is a mental genocide, but can also, in the extreme sense, involve a physical genocide. On March 22, 1999, The Sunday Morning Herald contained a present day example of whitewashing, because of racial prejudice. The title of this article is “Whitewashing Our Dark Past,” written by Robert Manne. This article deals with “breeding out the color” of Australia’s Aborigines by the Commonwealth Government. Robert Manne writes:   Between the wars, the Aboriginal children removed to the ‘half-caste’ homes in Darwin and Alice Springs were placed in conditions of utmost squalor. In Darwin, in 1930, 76 infants were locked up in a cottage big enough for a single family. In Alice Springs the children were confined in a fetid, insanitary, sweltering tin shed. And yet, in his address, Douglas Meagher, with a completely straight face, spoke of the Commonwealth’s nobility of purpose in rescuing these ‘half-caste’ children from poverty and the ‘degradation of the black camp.’   Another example of whitewashing depicting the mental aspect of genocide, which deals with the color of the Biblical Hebrew Israelites, is explained in Rudolf Windsor’s The Valley of The Dry Bones. He states: The Europeans had the reason to lie: to develop white supremacy. They reinforced their lie by placing white pictures throughout the Bible, with white pictures on religious calendars, and producing lily-white television programs and religious movies. As a result…the modern generation (white and black) just assumes, without the facts, that the ancient Hebrews were white. (54)