Since the other comment has been knocked below the threshold, let me just answer you by saying that this is not really a question anyone should feel confident in being able to answer. Race is a sociological construct, and there exist no good methods of mapping modern ideas of race to those in the distant past.

As several of the books quoted in the other thread show, there are many examples from literature which use terms modern readers would associate with modern "black" or "african" racial categories. There is, however, no evidence that these categories were identical or even similar to those in the minds of the historical authors who used those terms.

To the contrary, we know many places where they would not have mapped. For example, Roman understandings of "race" seem not to have the same indelibility that modern ideas have. Additionally, many such categorizations seem to be more political or rhetorical in origin than anything else. This latter point has come to prominence recently in the study of the fall of the western Empire, where many historians have challenged the legitimacy of assuming that the ethnic/racial/tribal divisions described by contemporary authors really had parallels to distinct ethnic or racial groups, either in the modern or the historical sense.

In short, there's not much information which might allow us to form a conclusion either way. It's certainly possible - Europe saw lots of travel and trade, even during the darkest of the so-called "Dark Ages", but assertions of fact on this point tells you more about those making those assertions than historical truth.

Sorry that this isn't really a satisfying answer, but anything else is pushing our sources farther than they actually go.

As you all probably know Jesus was from Jewish decent, so that is not very plausible. Black Catholic Saints in Ireland are not common in the Medieval iconography, nor are they common in the surviving texts.

Why should Sub-Saharan Africans have come to Europe in Medieval times? Europe was not exactly the centre of trade, science or technology. It was dangerous to travel over land and the ships were bound to coastal waters and fit for short distances. Since there is a lack of natural harbours on the African Atlantic coast, shipping was not very developed there. Trade was mostly done over land, by Caravan routes. To reach that far north you need to be able to travel large distances by boat. Also, Africa was in comparison to Europe very prosperous at that time. The push and pull factors were very different.

After the turmoil of the disintegrating Roman Empire, the Arabs dominated North Africa and parts of Southern Europe. There were very few reasons for a Sub Saharan African to travel that far north: the Arab world was the centre of wealth, wisdom, culture and trade. By incident there must have been black Africans in Europe, but not in large numbers.

The only medieval black saint I know about is Saint Maurice, his depiction until sixteenth century were as an African in full armor. Since he commanded a legion from Egypt that is quite possible. How were the black people viewed during the middle ages, I guess it depends largely on how the image of the black man changed. While Jesus was not black, he certainly was not white Nordic blue eyed giant, but more likely a semitic looking fellow you see in present day Palestine. Perhaps the idea of black person over time came to encompass everyone that was not seen fit to be a decent Christian, so the ideas get mixed up and the notion of black person from someone spiritually impure came to someone of a different skin color.

Hi there. I'll speak to only those things I am sure of, and leave aside areas of history that I don't know about (even if I suspect I do know).

I am assuming that by "were common," you mean "were present in Europe."

So...there were black people in Britain before there were English people there. What I mean by this is that there were African people in what we now call Britain before the people we now call the English lived there. In fact, that's how Fryer begins his famous book on the black British. As you can see, if you skim Fryer's book, there is evidence of African people in Britain as far back as the 3rd century.

And, well, just think about it: all of humanity began in Africa. And when, 100,000 years ago, a small group of us left Africa, it's no surprise that Europe was one of the first places humans went and settled--it's not very far from Africa.

However, that relative proximity shouldn't fool us into thinking that Africans casually wandered over into Europe whenever they pleased, or vice versa. We're still talking about an era during which long distance travel was arduous and dangerous. So I don't imagine you'd have seen casual travelers everywhere. Still, while it's reasonable to assume that some African people were out and about in Europe a very long time ago, research does suggest that Africa's trade relationships with the Mediterranean world are much more ancient than its connections to Europe.

To some extent, the circulation of peoples in the past remains a mystery to us, one that isn't helped by the fact that folks have continually tried to write themselves in as "the first ones here," thus erasing who else might have been there, too. The recent discovery of ancient African coins in Australia is an example of how we keep finding out more about the past and how people circulated from place to place.

edit: It was uncivil of me to delete this, so I have restored it.