DNA used to reveal apparent massacre of medieval Jews

[J Honeychuck]

Jewish bodies found in medieval well in Norwich

The remains of 17 bodies found at the bottom of a medieval well in England could have been victims of persecution, new evidence has suggested.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13855238

BBC TV will also present a program about this tonight. But the TV guide has panned the program in advance, so I won't be watching it.

[Brunetmj]

As tragic as that was, it seems to me, given my limited knowledge of those years in our historic past, that ethnic cleansing was more the norm in all parts of Europe . When one group of nobles went to war with another group of nobles the local peasants were often killed by the victors.
I guess what I am suggesting here is that in those years one did not have to be part of a particular ethic group to be killed , one just had to be on the wrong side of local conflict .

[nathanm]

As tragic as that was, it seems to me, given my limited knowledge of those years in our historic past, that ethnic cleansing was more the norm in all parts of Europe . When one group of nobles went to war with another group of nobles the local peasants were often killed by the victors.
I guess what I am suggesting here is that in those years one did not have to be part of a particular ethic group to be killed , one just had to be on the wrong side of local conflict .

Not just that period, but throughout human history. Modern technology has allowed dictators to kill people on an industrial scale, making the 20th century the bloodiest ever. And I fear there will be more in the future.

[Brunetmj]

Not just that period, but throughout human history.

No doubt about the 20th century being the bloodiest in the history of mankind.

I want to make it clear as to what bothers me about the article.
Before I do however I want to make it clear that I have no doubt about the content of the article. I am aware that the Jewish people have been persecuted throughout history.

The reason I find the article odd is that it takes a modern term (ethnic cleansing ) and superimposes it into the past. In today

[Brunetmj]

Darn this cut and paste issue..

The end paragraph should have read:

In today

[Brunetmj]

I give up . Never mind

[nathanm]

I give up . Never mind

The forum software can be frustrating, but don't give up. I'm guessing the passage you were quoting went something like "In today's..." But if the apostrophe in today's was a "smart quote" from Word or some other software, this forum chokes and truncates it there. You can try replacing any apostrophes with the ' on the keyboard; that one works.

I know what you mean about using modern terms to describe much older phenomena. The problem is most people (especially so-called "journalists") are pretty ignorant of history. They're probably using the only term they know to describe it, which didn't exist before 1990. But even if they did know a better word to use, editors might still dumb it down to an eighth grade reading level. The word generally used by historians for the persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages is pogrom, but even that's anachronistic. This neat visualization by the Google Ngram Viewer of the terms ethnic cleansing, genocide, and pogrom from books published 1880 til 2000 is interesting. Pogrom didn't appear in print until about 1900, genocide around 1940, and ethnic cleansing not until 1990.