Maurice: Patron Saint, Black Warrior and Roman Soldier

Maurice: Patron Saint, Black Warrior and Roman Soldier: "The Root) -- This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

According to tradition, Maurice was a Roman soldier who was martyred for the Christian faith in the late third century. By the early 10th century, he had become the patron saint of the Holy Roman Empire. His military prowess and stalwart faith exemplified the twin goals of territorial conquest and religious conversion fired by imperial ambition. The personification of the empire by a black man reveals a relative lack of racial prejudice in Europe before the onset of the slave trade. Just as significantly, it relates to the multifaceted ethnicity of the empire, with its face set toward far-off lands."