Thomas Percy's racialization of the European Middle Ages

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Thomas Percy (1729–1811) was influential in popularising medieval vernacular English literature, especially ballads and Old Norse poetry, in the mid-to-late 18th century. Scholarship has explored nationalist political leanings in Percy's three major medievalist anthologies, first published in 1763–1770, but to date, there has been no in-depth exploration of the significance of race in his thought and writing. This article argues that Percy's medievalist works were shaped profoundly by his conception of race as an immutable and inherited category of identity encompassing physiology, society, and culture. It draws on critical race theory to argue that Percy racialized the European Middle Ages in ways that continue to shape contemporary medievalism.