John Blanke

Common card · No. 257397

John Blanke (also rendered Blancke or Blaaak) (fl. 1501–1511) was a musician of African descent in London from the early Tudor period, who probably came to England as one of the African attendants of Catherine of Aragon in 1501. He is one of the earliest documented Africans in what is now the United Kingdom after the Roman period. His name may refer to his skin colour, derived either from the word "black" or possibly from the French word "blanc", meaning white.

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