Anonymous Coward User ID: 20059601 United States 07/22/2012 03:07 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | SIR MORIEN BLACK KNIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES Sir Morien black knight of the European middle ages
I realy didnt know where to put this, but since I guess since some people dont know that there were black knights, and the word knight it self means black I decided to place it in this section.
SIR MORIEN BLACK KNIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES
By RUNOKO RASHIDI
DEDICATED TO DR. PATRICIA MPATA MC GRAW
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Few documents portray the ethnicity of the Moors in medieval Europe with more passion, boldness and clarity than the epic of Morien. Morien is a metrical romance rendered into English prose from the medieval Dutch version of the Lancelot. In the Lancelot, it occupies more than five thousand lines and forms the ending of the first extant volume of that compilation. Neither the date of the original poem or the name of the author is known. The Dutch manuscript is dated to the beginning of the fourteenth century. The whole work is a translation, and apparently a very faithful translation, of a French original. It is quite clear that the Dutch compiler understood his text well, and though possibly somewhat fettered by the requirement of turning prose into verse, he renders it with uncommon fidelity.
Morien is the adventure of a splendidly heroic Moorish knight (possibly a Christian convert) supposed to have lived during the days of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Sir Morien is described as follows: "He was all black, even as I tell ye: his head, his body, and his hands were all black, saving only his teeth. His shield and his armour were even those of a Moor, and black as a raven."
Initially in the adventure Morien is simply called "the Moor." He first challenges, then battles, and finally wins the unqualified respect and admiration of Sir Lancelot. In addition, Morien is extremely forthright and articulate. Sir Gawain, whose life was saved on the battlefield by Sir Morien, is stated to have "harkened, and smiled at the black knight's speech." It is noted that Morien was as "black as pitch; that was the fashion of his land--Moors are black as burnt brands." And again: "His teeth were white as chalk, otherwise was he altogether black." "Morien, who was black of face and limb," was a great warrior, and it is said that: "His blows were so mighty; did a spear fly towards him, to harm him, it troubled him no whit, but he smote it in twain as if it were a reed; naught might endure before him." Ultimately, and ironically, Sir Morien came to personify all of the finest virtues of the knights of the European Middle Ages.
As a sort of concluding note, the English ethnologist and antiquarian scholar Gerald Massey (writing in 1881 in his massive two-volume text, A Book of the Beginnings) noted that, "Morion is said to have been the architect of Stonehenge.... Now, as a negro is still known as a Morien in English, may not this indicate that Morien belonged to the Black race, the Kushite builders?" It should be further added, according to Dr. Jack Forbes in his scholarly work Black Africans and Native Americans, "that for a very long period the Dutch language used Moor and Moriaan for Black Africans." Among the Lorma community in modern Liberia, the name Moryan is still prominent.
SOURCE: Morien Nature Knows No Color-Line, By J.A. Rogers
Aglovale From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Question book-new.svg This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)
Sir Aglovale (or Agloval) de Galis is the eldest legitimate son of King Pellinore in the Arthurian legend. Like his brothers Sir Tor, Sir Lamorak, Sir Dornar and Sir Percival, he is a Knight of the Round Table. In romance, Aglovale never cuts as impressive a figure as his brothers Lamorak and Percival, but his valor is unquestioned. According to the Post Vulgate cycle and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, it is he who first brings Percival to Camelot to be knighted. In the Vulgate Cycle, Aglovale dies accidentally at Gawain's hand during the Quest for the Holy Grail, but in Malory he and his brother Tor are among the knights charged with defending the execution of Guinevere. They are killed when Lancelot and his men rescue the queen.
Aglovale appears prominently in the Dutch romance Morien. In a situation similar to Gahmuret's begetting of Feirefiz in Wolfram's Parzival, Aglovale visits Moorish lands where he meets a beautiful black Christian princess and conceives a child with her. He returns to his own lands, and thirteen years later, his son Morien comes to find him. After a number of adventures, father and son are reunited and both return to Morien's country to take back their rightful lands. In modern times Aglovale starred in his own novel, The Life of Sir Aglovale de Galis by Clemence Housman, and T.H. White's The Once and Future King gives a particularly endearing portrait of the knight. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 19721259 United States 07/22/2012 03:08 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: SIR MORIEN BLACK KNIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 20059601 United States 07/22/2012 03:15 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: SIR MORIEN BLACK KNIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES Quoting: Anonymous Coward 19721259 See how you have been kept ignorant? There were tons of Black Christians helping fight the Muslims during the Crusades. Blacks were all up in there From England to Turkey,owning land living and loving. The forerunners to the Nazi's erased your history. |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 20059601 United States 07/22/2012 12:06 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: SIR MORIEN BLACK KNIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES Why the cover up? Rhetorical question. |