Slavery in medieval Europe

It is a bit of a misnomer to classify these men as "slaves", because in the Ottoman Empire, they were referred to as kul, or, slaves "of the Gate", or Sultanate.^[94] While not slaves per se under Islamic law, these Devşrime alumni remained under the Sultan’s discretion.

The Islamic Near East extensively relied upon professional slave soldiers, and was known for having them compose the core of armies.^[89] The institution was conceived out of political predicaments and reflected the attitudes of the time, and was not indicative of political decline or financial bankruptcy.^[86] Slave units were desired because of their unadulterated loyalty to the ruler, since they were imported and therefore could not threaten the throne with local loyalties or alliances.

Ottoman Empire

As a result of the crusades, thousands of Muslims and Christians were sold into slavery. Once sold into slavery most were never heard from again, so it is challenging to find evidence of specific slave experiences.[31]

In the

In 1120, the Council of Nablus forbade sexual relations between crusaders and their female Muslim slaves:^[104] if a man raped his own slave, he would be castrated, but if he raped someone else’s slave, he would be castrated and exiled from the kingdom.^[104] But Benjamin Z. Kedar argued that the canons of the Council of Nablus were in force in the 12th century but had fallen out of use by the thirteenth. Marwan Nader questions this and suggests that the canons may not have applied to the whole kingdom at all times.^[105]

Christian law mandated Christians could not enslave other Christians; however, enslaving non-Christians was acceptable. In fact, military orders frequently enslaved Muslims and used slave labor for agricultural estates.^[31] No Christian, whether Western or Eastern, was permitted by law to be sold into slavery, but this fate was as common for Muslim prisoners of war as it was for Christian prisoners taken by the Muslims. In the later medieval period, some slaves were used to oar Hospitaller ships. Generally, it was a relatively small number non-Christian slaves in medieval Europe, and this number significantly decreased by the end of the medieval period.^[31]

The 13th-century Assizes of Jerusalem dealt more with fugitive slaves and the punishments ascribed to them, the prohibition of slaves testifying in court, and manumission of slaves, which could be accomplished, for example, through a will, or by conversion to Christianity. Conversion was apparently used as an excuse to escape slavery by Muslims who would then continue to practise Islam; crusader lords often refused to allow them to convert, and Pope Gregory IX, contrary to both the laws of Jerusalem and the canon laws that he himself was partially responsible for compiling, allowed for Muslim slaves to remain enslaved even if they had converted.

Slavery in Iberia

Communities of Muslims, Christians, and Jews existed on both sides of the political divide between Muslim and Christian kingdoms in Medieval Iberia: Al-Andalus hosted Jewish and Christian communities while Christian Iberia hosted Muslim and Jewish communities.

See also:

Slavery in Al-Andalus, Slavery in Morocco, and Saqaliba

An early economic pillar of the Islamic empire in Iberia (Al-Andalus) during the eighth century was the slave trade. Due to manumission being a form of piety under Islamic law, slavery in Muslim Spain couldn't maintain the same level of auto-reproduction as societies with older slave populations. Therefore, Al-Andalus relied on trade systems as an external means of replenishing the supply of enslaved people.^[109][110] Forming relations between the Umayyads, Khārijites and 'Abbāsids, the flow of trafficked people from the main routes of the Sahara towards Al-Andalus^[111] served as a highly lucrative trade configuration. The archaeological evidence of human trafficking and proliferation of early trade in this case follows numismatics and materiality of text.^[112] This monetary structure of consistent gold influx proved to be a tenet in the development of Islamic commerce.^[113] In this regard, the slave trade outperformed and was the most commercially successful venture for maximizing capital.^[114] This major change in the form of numismatics serves as a paradigm shift from the previous Visigothic economic arrangement. Additionally, it demonstrates profound change from one regional entity to another, the direct transfer of people and pure coinage from one religiously similar semi-autonomous province to another.

The medieval

Contrary to suppositions of historians such as Marc Bloch, slavery thrived as an institution in medieval Christian Iberia.^{[citation needed]} Slavery existed in the region under the Romans, and continued to do so under the Visigoths. From the fifth to the early 8th century, large portions of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Christian Visigothic Kingdoms, whose rulers worked to codify human bondage. In the 7th century, King Chindasuinth issued the Visigothic Code (Liber Iudiciorum), to which subsequent Visigothic kings added new legislation. Although the Visigothic Kingdom collapsed in the early 8th century, portions of the Visigothic Code were still observed in parts of Spain in the following centuries. The Code, with its pronounced and frequent attention to the legal status of slaves, reveals the continuation of slavery as an institution in post-Roman Spain.

The Code regulated the social conditions, behavior, and punishments of slaves in early medieval Spain. The marriage of slaves and free or freed people was prohibited. Book III, title II, iii ("Where a Freeborn Woman Marries the Slave of Another or a Freeborn Man the Female Slave of Another") stipulates that if a free woman marries another person’s slave, the couple is to be separated and given 100 lashes. Furthermore, if the woman refuses to leave the slave, then she becomes the property of the slave’s master. Likewise, any children born to the couple would follow the father’s condition and be slaves.^[120]

Unlike Roman law, in which only slaves were liable to corporal punishment,^[121] under Visigothic law, people of any social status were subject to corporal punishment. However, the physical punishment, typically beatings, administered to slaves was consistently harsher than that administered to freed or free people. Slaves could also be compelled to give testimony under torture. For example, slaves could be tortured to reveal the adultery of their masters, and it was illegal to free a slave for fear of what he or she might reveal under torture.^[122] Slaves' greater liability to physical punishment and judicial torture suggests their inferior social status in the eyes of Visigothic lawmakers.

Slavery remained persistent in Christian Iberia after the

After the Muslim invasions, slave owners (especially in the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia) moved away from using slaves as field laborers or in work gangs, and did not press slaves into military service.^[125] Slaves tended to be owned singly rather than in large groups. There appear to have been many more female than male slaves, and they were most often used as domestic servants, or to supplement free labor.^[126][125] In this respect, slave institutions in Aragon, especially, closely resembled those of other Mediterranean Christian kingdoms in France and Italy.^[127][128]

In the kingdoms of

Christians were not the only slaveholders in Christian Iberia. Both Jews and Muslims living under Christian rule owned slaves, though more commonly in Aragon and Valencia than in Castile.[131]^[132] After the conquest of Valencia in 1245, the Kingdom of Aragon prohibited the possession of Christian slaves by Jews, though they were still permitted to hold Muslim or pagan slaves.^[133] The main role of Iberian Jews in the slave trade came as facilitators: Jews acted as slave brokers and agents of transfer between the Christian and Muslim kingdoms.^[134]

This role caused some degree of fear among Christian populations. A letter from

In the early period after the fall of the Visigothic kingdom in the 8th century, slaves primarily came into Christian Iberia through trade with the Muslim kingdoms of the south.[137] Most were Eastern European, captured in battles and raids, with the heavy majority being Slavs.^[138] However, the ethnic composition of slaves in Christian Iberia shifted over the course of the Middle Ages. Slaveholders in the Christian kingdoms gradually moved away from owning Christians, in accordance with Church proscriptions. In the middle of the medieval period most slaves in Christian Iberia were Muslim, either captured in battle with the Islamic states from the southern part of the peninsula, or taken from the eastern Mediterranean and imported into Iberia by merchants from cities such as Genoa.^[139]

The Christian kingdoms of Iberia frequently traded their Muslim captives back across the border for payments of money or kind. Indeed, historian James Broadman writes that this type of redemption offered the best chance for captives and slaves to regain their freedom.

Towards the end of the Reconquista, however, this source of slaves became increasingly exhausted. Muslim rulers were increasingly unable to pay ransoms, and the Christian capture of large centers of population in the south made wholesale enslavement of Muslim populations impractical.[143] The loss of an Iberian Muslim source of slaves further encouraged Christians to look to other sources of manpower. Beginning with the first Portuguese slave raid in sub-Saharan Africa in 1411, the focus of slave importation began to shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic World, and the racial composition of slaves in Christian Iberia began to include an increasing number of Sub-Saharan Africans.^[144][145]

Between 1489 and 1497 almost 2,100 black slaves were shipped from Portugal to Valencia.^[146][147] By the end of the 15th century, Spain held the largest population of black Africans in Europe, with a small, but growing community of black ex-slaves.^[146] In the mid 16th century Spain imported up to 2,000 black African slaves annually through Portugal, and by 1565 most of Seville’s 6,327 slaves (out of a total population of 85,538) were black Africans.^[146][147]

Slavery in the Mediterranean

In the Mediterranean region, individuals became enslaved through war and conquest, piracy, and frontier raiding. Additionally, some courts would sentence people to slavery, and even some people sold themselves or their children into slavery due to extreme poverty.^[148] The incentive for slavery in the Mediterranean was the greed of the slavers. The motivation behind many raids was to make money from the resulting slaves, with no political or religious agenda. Also, state and religious institutions frequently participated in the ransoming of individuals, so piracy became a lucrative market. This meant some individuals were returned home while others were sold away.^[148]

For those who traded in the Mediterranean, it was the humanity and intellect of these enslaved peoples that made them valuable merchandise worth commodifying. To purchase an individual was to purchase their labor, autonomy, and faith; religious conversion was often a motivation for these transactions. Additionally, religious division was the fundamental basis of law for the ownership of slaves during this period; it was not legal for Christians, Muslims, or Jewish people to enslave fellow believers. However, the enslavement, and compulsory conversion, of nonbelievers or people from other religions was permissible.^[149]

There were markets throughout the Mediterranean where enslaved people were bought and sold. In Italy the major slave trade centers were Venice and Genoa; in Iberia they were Barcelona and Valencia; and islands off the Mediterranean including Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Chios also participated in slave markets. From these markets merchants would sell enslaved people domestically, or transport them to somewhere enslaved people were more in demand.^[148] For example, the Italian slave market often found itself selling to Egypt in order to meet the Mamluk demand for slaves. This demand caused Venice and Genoa to compete with one another for control of Black Sea trading ports.^[150]

The duties and expectations of slaves varied geographically; however, in the Mediterranean, it was most common for enslaved people to work in the households of elites. Enslaved people also worked in agricultural fields, but this was infrequent across the Mediterranean. It was most common in Venetian Crete, Genoese Chios, and Cyprus where enslaved people worked in vineyards, fields, and sugar mills. These were colonial societies, and enslaved people worked with free laborers in these areas. Enslaved women were sought after the most and therefore sold at the highest prices. This reflects the desire for domestic workers in elite households; however, enslaved women also could face sexual exploitation.^[148] Furthermore, even if freed from their stations, the former masters of these women often maintained power over them by becoming their employers or patrons.^[151]

Slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia

Slavery existed on the territory of present-day

Historian Nicolae Iorga associated the Roma people’s arrival with the 1241 Mongol invasion of Europe and considered their slavery as a vestige of that era. The practice of enslaving prisoners may also have been taken from the Mongols. The ethnic identity of the "Tatar slaves" is unknown, they could have been captured Tatars of the Golden Horde, Cumans, or the slaves of Tatars and Cumans.^[152]

While it is possible that some Romani people were slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars and

Early Slavic status

Knyaz (sovereign)

Boyar / Szlachta (noble)

Druzhinnik (retainer)

Smerd (free tenant)

Kholop (slave)

v t e

In Kievan Rus' and Russia, the slaves were usually classified as kholops. A kholop's master had unlimited power over his life: he could kill him, sell him, or use him as payment upon a debt. The master, however, was responsible before the law for his kholop’s actions. A person could become a kholop as a result of capture, selling himself or herself, being sold for debts or committed crimes, or marriage to a kholop. Until the late 10th century, the kholops represented a majority among the servants who worked lordly lands.

By the 16th century, slavery in Russia consisted mostly of those who sold themselves into slavery owing to poverty.

Slavery in Poland existed on the territory of

Slavery was banned officially in 1529 and prohibition on slavery was one of the most important of the Statutes of Lithuania, which had to be implemented before the Grand Duchy of Lithuania could join the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569.

The First Statute was drafted in 1522 and came into power in 1529 by the initiative of the

The evidence indicates that slavery in Scandinavia was more common in southern regions, as there are  fewer northern provincial laws that contain mentions of slavery. Likewise, slaves were likely numerous but consolidated under the ownership of elites as chattel labor on large farm estates.[164]^[165]

The laws from 12th and 13th centuries describe the legal status of two categories. According to the Norwegian Gulating code (in about 1160), domestic slaves could not, unlike foreign slaves, be sold out of the country. This and other laws defined slaves as their master’s property at the same level as cattle; if either were harmed then the perpetrator was responsible for damages, but if either caused damage to property then the owners were held accountable.^[32] It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. According to the Law of Scania^[166] slaves could be granted freedom or redeem it themselves, upon which they must then be accepted into a new kin group or face societal ostracization.^[166]

The Law of Scania indicates free men may become slaves as a way to atone for a crime with the implication they would be eventually freed. Likewise, the Gotlander Guta Lag indicates slavery could be for a fixed period and as a method to pay for debt.^[167] Within the Older Västgöta Law widows are only allowed to remarry if an enslaved fostre or fostra could manage the farm in her absence. Likewise, the Younger Västgöta Law indicates further trust for fostre and fostra as they could occasionally be entrusted with the master’s keys. Likewise, some fostre were in such a trusted position they could undertake military actions while a slave.^[32][166] Yet, for all their independence, any children of fostre or fostra were still property of their masters.^[32]

A freed slave did not have full legal status; for example, the punishment for killing a former slave was low. A former slave’s son also had a low status, but higher than that of his parents. Women were commonly taken as slaves and forced into concubinage for lords. The children of these women had little formal rights with inheritance and legitimacy possible should they be needed for succession or favored by their parents, but nothing was guaranteed.^[168]

Slavery began to be replaced by a feudal-style tenant farmer economy wherein free men tied to the land worked farms for a lord reducing the need for slaves

British

In considering how serfdom evolved from slavery, historians who study the divide between slavery and serfdom encounter several issues of historiography and methodology. Some historians believe that slavery transitioned into serfdom (a view that has only been around for the last 200 years), though there is disagreement among them regarding how rapid this transition was.^[170] Pierre Bonnassie, a medieval historian, thought that the chattel slavery of the ancient world ceased to exist in the Europe of the 10th century and was followed by feudal serfdom.^[171] Jean-Pierre Devroey thinks that the shift from slavery to serfdom was gradual as well in some parts of the continent.^[172] Other areas, though, did not have what he calls "western-style serfdom" after the end of slavery, such as the rural areas of the Byzantine Empire, Iceland, and Scandinavia.^[173] Complicating this issue is that regions in Europe often had both serfs and slaves simultaneously. In northwestern Europe, a transition from slavery to serfdom happened by the 12th century. The Catholic Church promoted the transformation by giving the example. Enslavement of fellow Catholics was prohibited in 992 and manumission was declared to be a pious act. However it remained legal to enslave people of other religions and dogmas.^[174]

Generally speaking, regarding how slaves differed from serfs, the underpinnings of slavery and serfdom are debated as well. Dominique Barthélemy, among others, has questioned the very premises for neatly distinguishing serfdom from slavery, arguing that a binary classification masks the many shades of servitude.^[175] Of particular interest to historians is the role of serfdom and slavery within the state, and the implications that held for both serf and slave. Some think that slavery was the exclusion of people from the public sphere and its institutions, whereas serfdom was a complex form of dependency that usually lacked a codified basis in the legal system.^[176] Wendy Davies argues that serfs, like slaves, also became excluded from the public judicial system and that judicial matters were attended to in the private courts of their respective lords.^[177]

Despite the scholarly disagreement, it is possible to piece together a general picture of slavery and serfdom. Slaves typically owned no property, and were in fact the property of their masters. Slaves worked full-time for their masters and operated under a negative

Slaves were generally imported from foreign countries or continents, via the slave trade. Serfs were typically indigenous Europeans and were not subject to the same involuntary movements as slaves. Serfs worked in family units, whereas the concept of family was generally murkier for slaves.^[180] At any given moment, a slave’s family could be torn apart via trade, and masters often used this threat to coerce compliant behavior from the slave.^[181]

The end of serfdom is also debated, with Georges Duby pointing to the early 12th century as a rough end point for "serfdom in the strict sense of the term".^[182] Other historians dispute this assertion, citing discussions and the mention of serfdom as an institution during later dates (such as in 13th century England, or in Central Europe, where the rise of serfdom coincided with its decline in Western Europe). There are several approaches to get a time span for the transition, and lexicography is one such method. There is supposedly a clear shift in diction when referencing those who were either slaves or serfs at approximately 1000, though there is not a consensus on how significant this shift is, or if it even exists.^[183]

In addition,

The absence of serfdom in some parts of medieval Europe raises several questions. Devroey thinks it is because slavery was not born out of economic structures in these areas, but was rather a societal practice.[173] Heinrich Fichtenau points out that in Central Europe, there was not a labor market strong enough for slavery to become a necessity.^[186]

Justifications for slavery

In late Rome, the official attitude toward slavery was ambivalent. According to

A major Christian justification for the use of slavery, especially against those with dark skin, was the Curse of Ham. The Curse of Ham refers to a biblical parable (Gen. 9:20–27) in which Ham, the son of Noah, sins by seeing his father inebriated and naked, although scholars differ on the exact nature of Ham’s transgression. Noah then curses Ham’s offspring, Canaan, with being a "servant of servants unto his brethren". Although race or skin color is not mentioned, many Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars began to interpret the passage as a curse of both slavery and black skin, in an attempt to justify the enslavement of people of color, specifically those of African descent.^[190] In the medieval period, however, it was also used by some Christians as a justification for serfdom. Muslim sources in the 7th century allude to the Curse of Ham gaining relevance as a justifying myth for the Islamic world’s longstanding enslavement of Africans.

The apparent discrepancy between the notion of human liberty founded in natural law and the recognition of slavery by canon law was resolved by a legal "compromise": enslavement was allowable given a just cause, which could then be defined by papal authority.^[191] The state of slavery was thought to be closely tied to original sin.^[192] Towards the middle of the 15th century, the Catholic Church, in particular the Papacy, took an active role in offering justifications for the enslavement of Saracens, pagans, infidels, and "other enemies of Christ". In 1452, a papal bull entitled Dum Diversas authorized King Afonso V of Portugal to enslave any "Saracens" or "pagans" he encountered. The Pope, Pope Nicholas V, recognized King Alfonso’s military action as legitimate in the form of the papal bull, and declared the

full and free power, through the Apostolic authority by this edict, to invade, conquer, fight, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans, and other infidels and other enemies of Christ, and ... to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude ...^[193][194]

In a follow-up bull, released in 1455 and entitled Romanus Pontifex, Pope Nicholas V reiterated his support for the enslavement of infidels in the context of Portugal’s monopoly on North African trade routes.^[195]

Historians such as Timothy Rayborn have contended that religious justifications served to mask the economic necessities underlying the institution of slavery.^[189]

See also

References