Healing of the Gadarene demoniacs.
Canterbury, circa 1200
During the Middle Ages
and extending
into the early modern period,
racial thought
was used to explain differences
between economic
and social classes,
especially
the peasantry and the nobility.
Some thinkers regarded
the peasants
as descended from Ham,
the accursed son of Noah,
and the knights from the
Trojan heroes,
who had presumably
settle in England,
Germany and France
after their defeat.
Louis Ruchames, 1969