Ethnicity alone did not bar non-Europeans from high status in Crusader Jerusalem

Evidence

Similarly, we know of other ethnic non-Westerners, such as Armenians and Byzantines, who were significant landowners in the kingdom of Jerusalem in the twelfth century. These examples suggest that ethnicity by itself was not a bar to promotion or social status. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 198 (#expands, via linked claim)

The Jews, in principle, shared one further characteristic with another of the categories with which they are placed in close juxtaposition by the author of the Tractatus and Jacques de Vitry. Within Western Christian kingdoms, Jews had the legal status of ‘royal serfs’. They were the personal property of the king and, although they thereby came under his protection, they were also susceptible to arbitrary taxation or other treatment. This does not appear to have been the case in the kingdom of Jerusalem at any point in its two-hundred-year existence. The legislation governing Jewish conduct and dress promulgated by the papacy in 1179 and 1215 was never, so far as the evidence indicates, applied in the Crusader States. Yet the conceptual and legal category of ‘royal serfs’ did exist in the kingdom of Jerusalem—applied to the Bedouin rather than to the Jews. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 219 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Non-Western ethnicity alone did not bar social standing in Crusader Jerusalem. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in…, 198; Religious difference did not bar Europeans from top ranks in Egypt’s new army — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1378; In Crusader Jerusalem, the royal-serf status of Jews attached to Bedouin instead — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in…, 219

Broader Connections

• Non-Western ethnicity alone did not bar social standing in Crusader Jerusalem. #expands (0.97) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 198
• In Crusader Jerusalem, the royal-serf status of Jews attached to Bedouin instead #complicates (0.78) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 219