The word black in the sense of sub-Saharan African can't be that old. People had all kinds of names for such limited contacts as they made like Nubian and Ethiopian. Though they were keenly aware of racial differences, conflating all Africans together doesn't make much sense until the context of slavery in the New World. Then, black vs white was keenly important, and the African's former tribe didn't matter much.
This. This is the correct take. There was no "Black men" in Malory's time, in that sense...
Also, at some point, "Africa" and "Libya" kind of swapped meanings... Not sure when that happened, but it may have been after Malory's time, too, lol...
The word black in the sense of sub-Saharan African can't be that old. People had all kinds of names for such limited contacts as they made like Nubian and Ethiopian. Though they were keenly aware of racial differences, conflating all Africans together doesn't make much sense until the context of slavery in the New World. Then, black vs white was keenly important, and the African's former tribe didn't matter much.
This. This is the correct take. There was no "Black men" in Malory's time, in that sense...
Also, at some point, "Africa" and "Libya" kind of swapped meanings... Not sure when that happened, but it may have been after Malory's time, too, lol...
Which makes it extra confusing.
See: https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/l/Libya.htm#:~:text=In%20Greek%20this%20became%20%22Libya,the%20entire%20continent%20of%20Africa.