In recent years medieval scholarship has increasingly turned its attention to marginalized social groups in the Middle Ages, such as the poor (see Michelle Mollat, Les pauvres, 1978), goliards, performers, and artists (E. Schubert Fahrendes Volk, 1995). The study of Jews and of anti- semitism has reached extensive proportions, whereas the history of the "Gipsies" is still waiting to be written. Reimar Gilsenbach makes a first, comprehensive attempt to provide, for readers who understand German, access to the available sources which deal with Gipsies, and here, in the first volume, covers their history from ca. 800 B.C. to 1599 A.D.
The word "Gipsy" is politically incorrect, moreover it is a term which was coined by the "Gadsche," i.e., the non-Gipsies. The people we are dealing with call themselves "Roma," and some of their ethnic subgroups are: Sinti, Kelderari, Karaci, Manouche, etc. Classical-antique and medieval sources use a wide range of other derogatory terms for the Roma, such as 'Egyptians,' 'Ismaelites,' 'Sons of Ham,' 'Saracens,' 'Heathens,' or 'Taters.' Since the Roma have always been a nomadic people and have never been settled to form any kind of statehood or have established cultural centers with libraries or the like, their world has primarily always been one of orality. Consequently the researcher must rely in most cases on written sources created by Gadsche who, as a norm, viewed the Roma critically, mostly with hostility.
Gilsenbach created a database for the early history of the Roma by summarizing a vast range of written sources produced all over Europe. Because of the multiplicity of languages, he refrained from quoting directly from these sources, instead provides brief summaries of the documents' content and what they tell us about individual Roma or larger groups of them. He begins with Homer's Iliad where Hephaistos is said to have found refuge among the Sintians after Zeus had expelled him from the Olympus (I, 594). The similarity between the names "Sintians" and "Sinti," however, seems to be nothing but happenstance and does not confirm the presence of Sinti in ancient Greek. Instead, Sintians are of Greek origin, as the author would have discovered if he had consulted, for example, Pauly's Real-Encyclopadie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft.
The first historically authenticated Roma seem to have appeared in Greece in the late twelfth century, in Hungary at about 1232, in Bohemia in 1242, in Poland in 1256, in the Netherlands in 1392, and in Germany in 1407 (here known as 'Tartars').
Since that time more and more historical sources report about Roma who migrated to Europe and disseminated all over the entire continent. Gilsenbach's database takes us through many centuries and many cultures, summarizing each time what the sources report about Roma and, at least in most cases, their conflict with the native population. Each entry represents a summary of the historical document, which is identified later, following the bibliography, in the apparatus. It would have been much easier for the reader, without requiring much more space at all, if these references would have been added to each entry. As the book is arranged, the reader is forced to leaf back and forth all the time to find out where the individual reference can be discovered. Gilsenbach's linguistic abilities would have been amazing if he indeed had translated all his sources, ranging from Ethiopean, Arabic, Polish, Hungarian, German, Old Norse, Dutch, Swedish, etc. The bibliography indicates, however, that he mostly culled his information from secondary sources and did not examine the vast number of texts "in situ" or in their original. Unfortunately, as a consequence the scholarly value of this database suffers because of this strategy to some extent, as the reader is not able to verify for him/herself the statements about the Roma in the historical documents. The author uses 1599 as the cut-off date for the first volume, concluding this part of the history of the Roma well after the Reformation and before the Thirty- Years War. At the end Gilsenbach provides brief discussions of key aspects in the history of this people, such as their origin in India, the identity of the Zott people in the Arabic world, their existence in the Byzantine Empire, particular subgroups such as the Saracens, Taters, Ismaelites, etc., the history of settled Roma in Modon/Methone in Greece, Roma dukes and other leaders, the myth of a golden age of Roma, and the destiny of the Roma in the time of the witch craze. The volume concludes with a detailed and highly welcome index of names and subjects.
The second volume, to appear in 1998, will cover the years 1600 to 1799, the third volume, to appear in 1999, the years 1800 to 1929, and the fourth volume the years 1930 to 1960.