Japheth Book of Genesis as one of the three sons of Noah, saved through the Ark. They are always in the order "Shem, Ham, and Japheth" when all three are listed (Genesis 5:32, 9:18 and 10:1), but Genesis 9:24 calls Ham the youngest, and Genesis 10:21 refers ambiguously to Shem as "brother of Japheth the elder," which could mean that either is the eldest. Most modern writers accept Shem-Ham-Japheth as reflecting birth order, but this is not always the case: Moses and Rachel also appear at the head of such lists despite explicit descriptions of them as younger siblings. Following the
Curse of Ham likely to receive a far greater reward in the next world than would the Japhetic nobility. The idea that serfs were the descendants of Ham soon became widely promoted in Europe. An example is Dame Juliana Berners (c. 1388), who, in a treatise on hawks, claimed that the "churlish" descendants of Ham had settled in Europe, those of the temperate Shem in Africa, and those of the noble Japheth in Asia (a departure from normal arrangements, which placed Shem in Asia, Japheth in Europe, and Ham in Africa), because she considered Europe to be the "country of churls", Asia of