Old page wikitext, before the edit (old_wikitext) | '{{short description|Slavery during the medieval period in Europe}}
{{slavery}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}Slavery, or the process of restricting peoples’ freedoms, was widespread within Medieval Europe. Europe and the Mediterranean world were part of a highly interconnected network of slave trading. Throughout Europe, wartime captives were commonly forced into slavery. Likewise, as European kingdoms transitioned to feudal societies, serfdom began to replace slavery as the main economic and agricultural engine. Throughout Medieval Europe, the perspectives and societal roles of enslaved peoples differed greatly, from some being restricted to agricultural labor to others being positioned as trusted political advisors.
==Early Middle Ages==
[[File:Costumes of Slaves or Serfs from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries.png|thumb|Costumes of slaves or serfs, from the sixth to the twelfth centuries, collected by H. de Vielcastel, from original documents in the great libraries of Europe.]]
Slavery in the early Middle Ages was initially a continuation of earlier [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] practices from late Antiquity, and grew more widespread in the wake of the social chaos caused by the [[barbarian invasions]] of the Western [[Roman Empire]]. With the continuation of Roman legal practices of slavery, new laws and practices concerning slavery spread throughout Europe. For example, the [[Welsh laws]] of [[Hywel the Good]] included provisions dealing with slaves. In the Germanic realms laws instituted the enslavement of criminals, such as the [[Visigothic Code]]’s prescribing enslavement for criminals who could not pay financial penalties for their crimes<ref>{{cite web |url=http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg4-4.htm#l1 |title=Book IV, Title IV: The Visigothic Code: (Forum judicum)}}</ref> and as an actual punishment for various other crimes.<ref>[http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-1.htm#l3], [http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-3.htm#l3], & [http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-4.htm#l1].</ref> Such criminals would become slaves to their victims, often with their property.
As these peoples [[christianization of Europe|Christianized]], the church worked more actively to reduce the practice of holding coreligionists in bondage.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} [[St. Patrick]], who himself was captured and enslaved at one time, protested an attack that enslaved newly baptized Christians in his [[:q:Saint Patrick#Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus (c. 450)|letter to the soldiers of Coroticus]]. The restoration of order and the growing power of the church slowly transmuted the late Roman slave system of Diocletian into [[serfdom]].{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}
Another major factor was the rise of [[Balthild of Chelles|Bathilde]], queen of the Franks, who had been enslaved before marrying [[Clovis II]]. When she became regent, her government outlawed slave-trading of Christians throughout the [[Merovingian]] empire.<ref>Paul Fouracre, Richard A. Gerberding (1996), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=uifpAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA111 Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, 640–720]'', Manchester University Press, {{ISBN|0-7190-4791-9}}, p. 97–99 & 111.</ref>
About 10% of [[England]]’s population entered in the [[Domesday Book]] (1086) were slaves,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.domesdaybook.net/helpfiles/hs2970.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227083435/http://www.domesdaybook.net/helpfiles/hs2970.htm|url-status=dead|title=Domesday Book Slave|archive-date=27 February 2009|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> despite [[chattel slavery]] of English Christians being nominally discontinued after the [[Norman conquest of England|1066 conquest]]. It is difficult to be certain about slave numbers, however, since the old Roman word for slave (''servus'') continued to be applied to unfree people whose status later was reflected by the term ''serf''.<ref name="PAF">Perry Anderson, ''Passages from antiquity to feudalism'' (1996) p 141</ref>
==Slave trade==
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Demand from the Islamic world dominated the slave trade in medieval Europe.<ref name="dictslave">''Slavery, Slave Trade.'' ed. Strayer, Joseph R. Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Volume 11. New York: Scribner, 1982. {{ISBN|978-0684190730}}</ref><ref name="britannicasurvey">{{cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24159|title=Historical survey The international slave trade|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref><ref name="battuta">{{cite web|url=http://ibnbattuta.berkeley.edu/5anatolia.html|title=Battuta's Trip: Anatolia (Turkey) 1330–1331|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> For most of that time, however, sale of Christian slaves to non-Christians was banned.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} In the ''[[pactum Lotharii]]'' of 840 between [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] and the [[Carolingian Empire]], Venice promised not to buy Christian slaves in the Empire, and not to sell Christian slaves to Muslims.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="lotharii">Il ''pactum Lotharii'' del 840 [[Roberto Cessi|Cessi, Roberto]]. (1939–1940) – In: Atti. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Classe di Scienze Morali e Lettere Ser. 2, vol. 99 (1939–40) p. 11–49</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arielcaliban.org/PX_pacta_veneta.pdf|title=Pacta Veneta. A chronology in four steps. PAX TIBI MARCE Venice: government, law, jurisprudence Venezia: istituzioni, diritto, giurisprudenza|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> The Church prohibited the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands, for example in the Council of Koblenz in 922, the [[Council of London (1102)|Council of London]] in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1171latrsale.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks Project|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
As a result, most Christian slave merchants focused on moving them from non-Christian areas to Muslim Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East, and most non-Christian merchants, although not bound by the Church’s rules, focused on Muslim markets as well.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="britannicasurvey"/><ref name="battuta"/> Arabic silver [[dirham]]s, presumably exchanged for slaves, are plentiful in eastern Europe and Southern Sweden, indicating trade routes from Slavic to Muslim territory.<ref name="dirhams">Jankowiak, Marek. Dirhams for slaves. Investigating the Slavic slave trade in the tenth century.[https://www.academia.edu/1764468/Dirhams_for_slaves._Investigating_the_Slavic_slave_trade_in_the_tenth_century]</ref>
=== Italian merchants ===
By the reign of [[Pope Zachary]] (741–752), [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] had established a thriving slave trade, buying in Italy, among other places, and selling to the Moors in Northern Africa (Zacharias himself reportedly forbade such traffic out of Rome).<ref>Duchesne, Louis Marie Olivier. ''XCIII Zacharias (741–752).'' Le Liber pontificalis; texte, introduction et commentaire par L. Duchesne (Volume 1). 1886. p. 426–439. [https://archive.org/details/duchesne01 Available on archive.org]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15743b.htm|title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pope St. Zachary|website=newadvent.org|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref><ref>Reverend Alban Butler. "St. Zachary, Pope and Confessor". ''The Lives of the Saints'', Volume 3. 1866. [http://www.bartleby.com/210/3/152.html]</ref> When the sale of Christians to Muslims was banned (''[[pactum Lotharii]]''<ref name="lotharii"/>), the Venetians began to sell Slavs and other Eastern European non-Christian slaves in greater numbers. Caravans of slaves traveled from Eastern Europe, through Alpine passes in Austria, to reach Venice. [[Raffelstetten customs regulations|A record of tolls paid in Raffelstetten (903–906)]], near St. Florian on the Danube, describes such merchants. Some are Slavic themselves, from Bohemia and the Kievan Rus'. They had come from [[Kiev]] through [[Przemyśl]], [[Kraków]], [[Prague]], and [[Bohemia]]. The same record values [[Ancillae|female slaves]] at a ''[[Tremissis|tremissa]]'' (about 1.5 grams of gold or roughly {{frac|1|3}} of a [[dinar]]) and male slaves, who were more numerous, at a ''saiga'' (which is much less).<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="rafftolls">MGH, Leges, Capitularia regum Francorum, II, ed. by A. Boretius, Hanovre, 1890, p. 250–252 [https://archive.org/details/capitulariaregum01bore (available on-line)].</ref> Eunuchs were especially valuable, and "castration houses" arose in Venice, as well as other prominent slave markets, to meet this demand.<ref name="dirhams"/><ref name="valante">Mary A. Valante, "Castrating Monks: Vikings, the Slave Trade, and the Value of Eunuchs", in ''Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages'', ed. Larissa Tracy [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt2tt1pr]</ref>
Venice was far from the only slave trading hub in Italy. Southern Italy boasted slaves from distant regions, including Greece, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Slavic regions. During the 9th and 10th centuries, [[Amalfi]] was a major exporter of slaves to North Africa.<ref name="dictslave"/> [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]], along with Venice, dominated the trade in the Eastern Mediterranean beginning in the 12th century, and in the Black Sea beginning in the 13th century. They sold both [[Balts|Baltic]] and [[Slavs|Slavic]] slaves, as well as [[Armenians]], [[Circassians]], [[Georgians]], [[Turkish people|Turks]] and other ethnic groups of the Black Sea and [[Caucasus]], to the Muslim nations of the Middle East.<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5q9zcB3JS40C&pg=PA45&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800]''. Robert Davis (2004). p.45. {{ISBN|1-4039-4551-9}}.</ref> Genoa primarily managed the slave trade from Crimea to Mamluk [[Egypt]], until the 13th century, when increasing Venetian control over the Eastern Mediterranean allowed Venice to dominate that market.<ref name="lughod">Janet L. Abu-Lughod, ''Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350'' Oxford University Press {{ISBN|0195067746}}</ref> Between 1414 and 1423 alone, at least 10,000 slaves were sold in Venice.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081223185836/http://www.roxie.org/books/shoulders/ch02-labor.html Rawlins, Gregory J.E. Rebooting Reality — Chapter 2, Labor (archive from December 23, 2008)]</ref>
=== Jewish merchants ===
{{see also|Jewish views on slavery#Post-Talmud to 1800s}}<!--don't remove on title alone, this section discusses relevant content-->
Records of long-distance Jewish slave merchants date at least as far back as 492, when [[Pope Gelasius I|Pope Gelasius]] permitted [[Jew]]s to import non-Christian slaves into Italy, at the request of a Jewish friend from [[Telesina Valley]].<ref>Graetz, H. History of the Jews, volume 3: Chapter 2, Jews in Europe, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1894 [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43337/43337-h/43337-h.htm#CHAPTER_II]</ref><ref>Abrahams, Israel. Jewish Life in the Middle Ages. New York. The Macmillan Company, 1919. pp. 98–100 [https://archive.org/details/jewishlifeinthem008412mbp]</ref><ref name="jewencyclopedia">{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13798-slave-trade|title=SLAVE-TRADE |website=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> {{Obsolete source|reason=This is ultimately a replica of an encyclopedia from 1902.|date=September 2021}}
By the turn of the 6th to the 7th century, Jews had become the chief slave traders in Italy, and were active in [[Frankish Gaul|Gallic]] territories.
Pope Gregory the Great issued a ban on Jews possessing Christian slaves, lest the slaves convert to Judaism.<ref name="jewencyclopedia"/><ref>''Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great'', Book IX 109–110, Book IV 21, Book IX 36 [http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3602.htm]</ref> By the 9th and 10th centuries, Jewish merchants, sometimes called [[Radhanites]], were a major force in the slave trade continent-wide.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref>[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=849&letter=S "Slave Trade"]{{Obsolete source|reason=This is ultimately a replica of an encyclopedia from 1902.|date=September 2021}}. ''[[Jewish Encyclopedia]]''</ref><ref name="radhanites">Olivia Remie Constable (1996). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=M-CVlhPb21MC&pg=PA203&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f= Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500]''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 203–204. {{ISBN|0521565030}}</ref>
Jews were one of the few groups who could move and trade between the Christian and Islamic worlds.<ref name="radhanites"/>
Ibn Khordadbeh observed and recorded routes of Jewish merchants in his [[Book of Roads and Kingdoms (ibn Khordadbeh)|Book of Roads and Kingdoms]] from the South of France to Spain, carrying (amongst other things) female slaves, eunuchs, and young slave boys. He also notes Jews purchasing Slavic slaves in Prague.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="jewencyclopedia"/>{{Obsolete source|reason=This is ultimately a replica of an encyclopedia from 1902.|date=September 2021}} Letters of [[Agobard]], archbishop of Lyons (816–840),<ref>Anna Beth Langenwalter, AGOBARD OF LYON: AN EXPLORATION OF CAROLINGIAN JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS. PhD Thesis, Page 28 [https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/19051/1/Langenwalter_Anna_B_200911_PhD_thesis.pdf]</ref> acts of the emperor [[Louis the Pious]], and the seventy-fifth canon of the [[Council of Meaux–Paris]] of 845 confirms the existence of a route used by Jewish traders with Slavic slaves through the Alps to Lyon, to Southern France, to Spain.<ref name="dictslave"/>
Toll records from [[Walenstadt]] in 842–843 indicate another trade route, through Switzerland, the [[Septimer Pass|Septimer]] and [[Splügen Pass|Splügen]] passes, to Venice, and from there to North Africa.<ref name="dictslave"/>
As German rulers of Saxon dynasties took over the enslavement (and slave trade) of Slavs in the 10th century, Jewish merchants bought slaves at the Elbe, sending caravans into the valley of the Rhine. Many of these slaves were taken to Verdun (whose location is disputed, though most read it as [[Verdun]] on the Meuse, with some scholars seeing [[Verdun-sur-le-Doubs]] as a better candidate)<ref name="OPENEDITION">{{cite journal|url= https://journals.openedition.org/mefrm/2408#ftn23|last= Grabowski|first= Antoni|title= Eunuch between economy and philology. The case of carzimasium|journal= Mélanges de l'École française de Rome|date= March 13, 2019|issue= 127–1|doi= 10.4000/mefrm.2408|access-date= October 12, 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20211012151458/https://journals.openedition.org/mefrm/2408|archive-date= October 12, 2021}}</ref> which had close trade relations with Spain. Many would be castrated and sold as eunuchs as well.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="valante"/>
=== Iberia ===
A ready market, especially for men of fighting age, could be found in [[Umayyad Spain]], with its need for supplies of new [[mamelukes]].
<blockquote>[[Al-Hakam I|Al-Hakam]] was the first monarch of this family who surrounded his throne with a certain splendour and magnificence. He increased the number of mamelukes (slave soldiers) until they amounted to 5,000 horse and 1,000 foot. ... he increased the number of his slaves, eunuchs and servants; had a bodyguard of cavalry always stationed at the gate of his palace and surrounded his person with a guard of mamelukes .... these mamelukes were called Al-l;Iaras (the Guard) owing to their all being Christians or foreigners. They occupied two large barracks, with stables for their horses.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite book|title=Early Medieval Spain – Springer|last=Collins|first=Roger|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-24135-4|year = 1995|isbn = 978-0-333-64171-2}}</ref></blockquote>
According to [[Roger Collins]] although the role of the Vikings in the slave trade in Iberia remains largely hypothetical, their depredations are clearly recorded. Raids on [[Al-Andalus|AlAndalus]] by Vikings are reported in the years 844, 859, 966 and 971, conforming to the general pattern of such activity concentrating in the mid ninth and late tenth centuries.<ref name="auto1"/> [[Al-Andalus|Muslim Spain]] imported an enormous number{{Clarify|reason=vague|date=May 2016}} of slaves, as well as serving as a staging point for Muslim and Jewish merchants to market slaves to the rest of the Islamic world.<ref name="radhanites" />
During the reign of [[Abd-ar-Rahman III]] (912–961), there were at first 3,750, then 6,087, and finally 13,750 [[Saqaliba]], or Slavic slaves, at [[Córdoba, Andalusia|Córdoba]], capital of the [[Umayyad Caliphate]].
[[Ibn Hawqal]], Ibrahim al-Qarawi, and Bishop [[Liutprand of Cremona]] note that the Jewish merchants of Verdun specialized in castrating slaves, to be sold as eunuch saqaliba, which were enormously popular in Muslim Spain.<ref name="dictslave" /><ref name="valante" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://apps.brepolis.net/LTool/Entrance.aspx?w=12&a=%2fllta%2fpages%2fToc.aspx|title=BREPOLiS – Login|website=apps.brepolis.net|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
=== Vikings ===
[[File:LSR Wikinger - Sklavenfesselschloss.jpg|thumb|Lock and key of a slave chain (Viking age) from Sweden]]
The [[Nordic countries]] called their slaves ''[[thrall]]s'' ([[Old Norse]]: ''Þræll'').<ref name="vikings">{{cite book|author=Junius P Rodriguez, PhD|title=The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery. vol 1. A – K|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATq5_6h2AT0C&pg=PA674|year=1997|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=674|isbn=9780874368857}}</ref> There were also other terms used to describe thralls based on gender, such as ambatt/ambott and deja. Ambott is used in reference to female slaves, as is deja.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kuhn|first=Hans|title=Amt. 1. Sprachlichee|publisher=RGA 1:258|year=1973|pages=258}}</ref> Another name that is indicative of thrall status is bryti, which has associations with food. The word can be understood to mean, cook, and to break bread, which would place a person with this label as the person in charge of food in some manner. There is a runic inscription that describes a man of bryti status named Tolir who was able to marry and acted as the king’s estate manager.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{cite book|last=Sawyer|first=Birgit|title=The Viking-Age Rune-Stones: custom and commemoration in early medieval Scandinavia|publisher=OUP Oxford|year=2000}}</ref> Another name is muslegoman, which would have been used for a runaway slave.<ref name=":3" /> From this, it can be gathered that the different names for those who were thralls indicate position and duties performed.<ref>{{cite web|last=Brink|first=Stefan|title=Scandinavian Slavery|date=2021-09-23|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197532355.003.0004|work=Thraldom|pages=70–76|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/oso/9780197532355.003.0004|isbn=978-0-19-753235-5|access-date=2021-11-22}}</ref>
A fundamental part of Viking activity was the sale and taking of captives.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Heebøll-Holm|first=Thomas K.|date=2020-06-04|title=Piratical slave-raiding – the demise of a Viking practice in high medieval Denmark|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2020.1748106|journal=Scandinavian Journal of History|volume=46|issue=4|pages=431–454|doi=10.1080/03468755.2020.1748106|s2cid=219919380|issn=0346-8755}}</ref> The thralls were mostly from Western Europe, among them many [[Franks]], [[Anglo-Saxons]], and [[Celts]].
Many Irish slaves were brought on expeditions for the colonization of [[Iceland]].<ref>See [http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/iceland/history.html Iceland History]</ref>
Raids on monasteries provided a source of young, educated slaves who could be sold in Venice or Byzantium for high prices.
Scandinavian trade centers stretched eastwards from [[Hedeby]] in Denmark and [[Birka]] in Sweden to [[Staraya Ladoga]] in northern Russia before the end of the 8th century.<ref name="valante" /> The collection of slaves was a by-product of conflict. The [[Annales Fuldenses|Annals of Fulda]] recorded that Franks who had been defeated by a group of Vikings in 880 CE were taken as captives after being defeated.<ref>{{Citation|last=Reuter|first=Timothy|title=The text – The Annals of Fulda|date=2013-01-01|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7765/9781526112736.00009|work=The Annals of Fulda|pages=88|publisher=Manchester University Press|doi=10.7765/9781526112736.00009|isbn=9781526112736|access-date=2021-11-22}}</ref> Viking groups would have political conflicts that also resulted in the taking of captives.<ref>{{cite book|last=E.g. Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill|title=The Annals of Ulster, to AD 1131|publisher=Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies|year=1983|location=Dublin|pages=311}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Tschan|editor-first=Francis J.|title=Adam of Bremen. History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=1959|location=New York|pages=190, bk. 4, ch.6}}</ref>
This traffic continued into the 9th century as Scandinavians founded more trade centers at Kaupang in southwestern Norway and Novgorod, farther south than Staraya Ladoga, and Kiev, farther south still and closer to Byzantium. Dublin and other northwestern European Viking settlements were established as gateways through which captives were traded northwards.Thralls could be bought and sold at slave markets. An account from the [[Laxdæla saga|Laxdoela Saga]] spoke of how during the 10th century there would be a meeting of kings every third year on The Branno Islands where negotiations and trades for slaves would take place.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hermann.|first=Magnusson, Magnus. Palsson|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/223343478|title=Laxdaela saga ; Translated with an introduction by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson.|date=1969|publisher=Penguin|pages=64|oclc=223343478}}</ref> Though slaves could be bought and sold, it was more common to sell captives from other nations.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Krag|first=Claus|date=1982|title=Treller og Trellehold|journal=Historisk Tidsskrift 61|volume=no. 3|pages=209–227}}</ref>
The 10th-century Persian traveller [[Ibn Rustah]] described how Swedish Vikings, the [[Varangians]] or [[Rus' Khaganate|Rus]], terrorized and enslaved the [[East Slavs|Slavs]] taken in their raids along the Volga River.<ref>Niels Skyum-Nielsen, "Nordic Slavery in an International Context," ''Medieval Scandinavia'' 11 (1978–79) 126–48</ref>
Slaves were often sold south, to Byzantine or Muslim buyers, via paths such as the [[Volga trade route]].
[[Ahmad ibn Fadlan]] of Baghdad provides an account of the other end of this trade route, namely of [[Volga Vikings]] selling Slavic slaves to middle-eastern merchants.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uib.no/jais/v003ht/03-001-025Montgom1.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001082748/http://www.uib.no/jais/v003ht/03-001-025Montgom1.htm|url-status=dead|title=James E. Montgomery, IBN FAḌLĀN AND THE RŪSIYYAH|archive-date=1 October 2013|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
Finland proved another source for Viking slave raids.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.medievalists.net/2014/04/medieval-slave-traders-go-finland/|title=Why did Medieval Slave Traders go to Finland?|date=17 April 2014}}</ref>
Slaves from Finland or Baltic states were traded as far as central Asia.<ref>Medieval slave trade routes in Eastern Europe extended from Finland and the Baltic Countries to Central Asia [http://www.uef.fi/en/-/ita-euroopan-orjakaupan-reitit-ulottuivat-keskiajalla-suomesta-ja-baltiasta-keski-aasiaan]</ref><ref>Korpela, Jukka. The Baltic Finnic People in the Medieval and Pre-Modern Eastern European Slave Trade, in 'Russian History, Volume 41, Issue 1' p. 85-117 [http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18763316-04101006]</ref> Captives may have been traded far within the Viking trade network, and within that network, it was possible to be sold again. In the Life of St. Findan, the Irishman was bought and sold three times after being taken captive by a Viking group.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Somerville|first=Angus A., trans.|title=The Viking Age: A Reader|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=2014|location=Toronto|pages=195–198}}</ref>
[[File:Mongol Empire map 2.gif|thumb|Expansion of the Mongol Empire]]
=== Mongols ===
The [[Mongol invasions]] and conquests in the 13th century added a new force in the slave trade. The Mongols enslaved skilled individuals, [[women]] and children and marched them to [[Karakorum]] or [[Sarai (city)|Sarai]], whence they were sold throughout [[Eurasia]]. Many of these slaves were shipped to the slave market in [[Novgorod Republic|Novgorod]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/rubruck.html|title=William of Rubruck's Account of the Mongols|website=depts.washington.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://geocities.com/medievalnovgorod/nov10.html|title=Life in 13th Century Novgorod – Women and Class Structure|date=26 October 2009|access-date=24 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091026193520/http://geocities.com/medievalnovgorod/nov10.html|archive-date=26 October 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=477|title=The Effects of the Mongol Empire on Russia|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
[[Republic of Genoa|Genoese]] and [[Republic of Venice|Venetians]] merchants in Crimea were involved in the slave trade with the [[Golden Horde]].<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="lughod"/> In 1441, [[Haci I Giray]] declared independence from the Golden Horde and established the [[Crimean Khanate]]. For a long time, until the early 18th century, the khanate maintained a massive{{Clarify|reason=vague|date=May 2016}} slave trade with the [[Ottoman Empire]] and the Middle East. In a process called the "harvesting of the [[steppe]]", they enslaved many Slavic peasants.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.avalanchepress.com/Soldier_Khan.php|title=Avalanche Press|website=avalanchepress.com|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
=== Great Britain and Ireland ===
In medieval [[Ireland]], as a commonly traded commodity slaves could like cattle become a form of internal or trans-border currency.<ref>
{{cite book |last1 = Campbelly
|first1 = Jamesetta
|chapter = Part I: The Romans to the Norman Conquest, 500 BC – AD 1066
|editor1-last = Clark
|editor1-first = Jonathan
|editor1-link = J. C. D. Clark
|title = A World by Itself: A History of the British Isles
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UN8CAR5EEmgC
|publisher = Random House
|date = 2011
|page = [https://archive.org/details/worldbyitselfhis0000clar/page/23 23]
|isbn = 9780712664967
|quote = Whatever currency was in use [in Ireland in antiquity], it was not coin – as in other pre-coin economies, there was a system of conventional valuations in which female slaves, for example, were important units.
|url-access = registration
|url = https://archive.org/details/worldbyitselfhis0000clar/page/23
}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite book
| last1 = Keenan
| first1 = Desmond
| title = The True Origins of Irish Society
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=k2Ol_XFFH_oC
| publisher = Xlibris Corporation
| date = 2004
| page = 152
| isbn = 9781465318695
| quote = For the slave raiders, slaves were a valuable currency. You could sell them to buy wine and other luxury goods. There was always a market for them. There was always an unending supply of them, if only you were stronger than your neighbour. [...] For the Irish, slave-raiding was a lucrative extension to the cattle-raiding.
}}
</ref> In 1102, the [[Council of London in 1102|Council of London]] convened by [[Anselm of Canterbury]] obtained a resolution against the [[Slavery in Britain|slave trade in England]] which was aimed mainly at the sale of English slaves [[Slavery in Ireland|to the Irish]].<ref>{{citation |last=Crawley |first=John J. |year=1910 |url=http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/ANSELM.HTM |title=Lives of the Saints |publisher=John J. Crawley & Co.}}</ref>
=== Christians holding Muslim slaves ===
Although the primary flow of slaves was toward Muslim countries, as evident in the [[history of slavery in the Muslim world]], Christians did acquire Muslim slaves; in Southern France, in the 13th century, "the enslavement of Muslim captives was still fairly common".<ref>{{cite book|title=Aucassin and Nicolette|first=Robert S. |last=Sturges|publisher=Michigan State UP|isbn=9781611861570|year=2015|location=East Lansing|page=xv}}</ref>
There are records, for example, of Saracen slave girls sold in [[Marseilles]] in 1248,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1248serfs5.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks Project|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> a date which coincided with the fall of [[Seville]] and its surrounding area, to raiding Christian crusaders, an event during which a large number of Muslim women from this area were enslaved as war booty, as it has been recorded in some Arabic poetry, notably by the poet [[Salih ben Sharif al-Rundi|al-Rundi]], who was contemporary to the events.
Additionally, the possession of slaves was legal in 13th century Italy; many Christians held Muslim slaves throughout the country. These Saracen slaves were often captured by pirates and brought to Italy from North Africa or Spain. During the 13th century, most of the slaves in the Italian trade city of [[Genoa]] were of Muslim origin. These Muslim slaves were owned by royalty, military orders or groups, independent entities, and the church itself.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Anne Taylor|first=Julie|date=2007-04-01|title=Freedom and Bondage among Muslims in Southern Italy during the Thirteenth Century|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/13602000701308889|journal=Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs|volume=27|issue=1|pages=72–73|doi=10.1080/13602000701308889|s2cid=216117913|issn=1360-2004}}</ref>
Christians also sold [[Islam by country|Muslim]] slaves captured in war. The Order of the [[Knights Hospitaller|Knights of Malta]] attacked pirates and Muslim shipping, and their base became a center for slave trading, selling captured [[North Africans]] and [[Turkish people|Turks]]. [[Malta]] remained a slave market until well into the late 18th century. One thousand slaves were required to man the galleys (ships) of the Order.<ref>{{cite journal|title=A medical service for slaves in Malta during the rule of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.|first=P|last=Cassar|date=24 July 1968|journal=Medical History|volume=12|issue=3|pages=270–277|pmid=4875614 |pmc=1033829 |doi=10.1017/s0025727300013314}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hmml.org/centers/malta/hospitallers/hospitallers.html |title=Brief History of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem |publisher=Hmml.org |date=23 September 2010 |access-date=4 December 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090112130548/http://www.hmml.org/centers/malta/hospitallers/hospitallers.html |archive-date=12 January 2009}}</ref>
While they would at times seize Muslims as slaves, it was more likely that Christian armies would kill their enemies, rather than take them into servitude.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Zilfi|first=Madeline C.|date=2016-11-25|title=Mediterranean Slavery Revisited (500-1800): Neue Perspektiven auf Mediterrane Sklaverei (500-1800), written by Stefan Hanss and Juliane Schiel|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jemh/20/6/article-p592_6.xml|journal=Journal of Early Modern History|language=en|volume=20|issue=6|pages=594–595|doi=10.1163/15700658-00200006-05|issn=1385-3783}}</ref>
=== Slave trade at the close of the Middle Ages ===
As more and more of Europe [[Christianization|Christianized]], and open hostilities between Christian and Muslim nations intensified, large-scale slave trade moved to more distant sources.
Sending slaves to Egypt, for example, was forbidden by the papacy in 1317, 1323, 1329,
1338, and, finally, 1425, as slaves sent to Egypt would often become soldiers, and end up fighting their former Christian owners.
Although the repeated bans indicate that such trade still occurred, they also indicate that it became less desirable.<ref name="dictslave"/>
In the 16th century, African slaves replaced almost all other ethnicities and religious enslaved groups in Europe.<ref>Klein, Herbert. ''The Atlantic Slave Trade''.</ref>
==Slavery in law==
{{more citations needed section|date=April 2013}}
===Secular law===
Slavery was heavily regulated in [[Roman law]], which was reorganized in the [[Byzantine Empire]] by [[Justinian I]] as the [[Corpus Iuris Civilis]]. Although the Corpus was lost to the West for centuries, it was rediscovered in the 11th and 12th centuries, and led to the foundation of law schools in Italy and France. According to the Corpus, the natural state of humanity is freedom, but the "law of nations" may supersede natural law and reduce certain people to slavery. The basic definition of slave in Romano-Byzantine law was:<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/535institutes.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
*anyone whose mother was a slave
*anyone who has been captured in battle
*anyone who has sold himself to pay a debt
It was, however, possible to become a freedman or a full citizen; the Corpus, like Roman law, had extensive and complicated rules for [[manumission]] of slaves.
The slave trade in England was officially abolished in 1102.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britsattheirbest.com/freedom/f_time_12th_century.htm|title=BRITISH HISTORY THE STORY of FREEDOM LIBERTY! THE TIMELINE Freedom & justice go hand in hand|website=britsattheirbest.com|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
In [[Poland]] slavery was forbidden in the 15th century; it was replaced by the second enserfment. In [[Lithuania]], slavery was formally abolished in 1588.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24160|title=Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to History|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
===Canon law===
In fact, there was an explicit legal justification given for the enslavement of Muslims, found in the [[Decretum Gratiani]] and later expanded upon by the 14th century jurist [[Oldradus de Ponte]]: the Bible states that [[Hagar (Bible)|Hagar]], the slave girl of [[Abraham]], was beaten and cast out by Abraham’s wife [[Sarah]].
The Decretum, like the Corpus, defined a slave as anyone whose mother was a slave. Otherwise, the canons were concerned with slavery only in ecclesiastical contexts: slaves were not permitted to marry or to be ordained as clergy.
==Slavery in the Byzantine Empire==
{{main|Slavery in the Byzantine Empire}}
==Slavery in the Crusader states==
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.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Allen, S. J. (Susan Jane), 1959–|title=An introduction to the crusades|date=4 May 2017|isbn=978-1-4426-0023-2|location=North York, Ontario, Canada|oclc=983482121}}</ref>
In the [[crusade]]r [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]], founded in 1099, at most 120,000 Franks ruled over 350,000 Muslims, Jews, and native Eastern Christians.<ref>Benjamin Z. Kedar, "The Subjected Muslims of the Frankish Levant", in ''The Crusades: The Essential Readings'', ed. [[Thomas F. Madden]], Blackwell, 2002, p. 244. Originally published in ''Muslims Under Latin Rule, 1100–1300'', ed. James M. Powell, Princeton University Press, 1990. Kedar quotes his numbers from [[Joshua Prawer]], ''Histoire du royaume latin de Jérusalem'', tr. G. Nahon, Paris, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 498, 568–72.</ref> Following the initial invasion and conquest, sometimes accompanied by massacres or expulsions of Jews and Muslims, a peaceable co-existence between followers of the three religions prevailed.<ref>[[Christopher Tyerman]], ''God’s War, A new History of the Crusades'' pp. 226–228. quote = "Just as non-muslim communities survived under Islam, so non-Christians lived unfree but largely unmolested in Frankish outremer. After the early massacres, displacements and expulsions of Muslims and Jews from conquered cities, coexistence, rather than integration or persecution prevailed ... At Acre, where the two faiths shared a converted mosque as well as a suburban shrine, Muslim visitors were treated fairly and efficiently. Mosques still operated openly in Tyre and elsewhere."</ref> The Crusader states inherited many slaves. To this may have been added some Muslims taken as captives of war. The Kingdom’s largest city, [[Akko|Acre]], had a large slave market; however, the vast majority of Muslims and Jews remained free. The laws of Jerusalem declared that former Muslim slaves, if genuine converts to Christianity, must be freed.<ref>Christopher Tyerman, ''God’s War, A new History of the Crusades,'' p. 230.</ref>
In 1120, the [[Council of Nablus]] forbade sexual relations between crusaders and their female Muslim slaves:<ref name="Hans E. Mayer 1982 pp. 531-533">Hans E. Mayer, "The Concordat of Nablus" ([[Journal of Ecclesiastical History]] 33 (October 1982)), pp. 531–533.</ref> 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.<ref name="Hans E. Mayer 1982 pp. 531-533"/> 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.<ref>Benjamin Z. Kedar, ''On the origins of the earliest laws of Frankish Jerusalem: The canons of the Council of Nablus, 1120'' (''[[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]]'' 74, 1999), pp. 330–331; Marwan Nader, ''Burgesses and Burgess Law in the Latin Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1099–1325) (Ashgate: 2006), pg. 45.</ref>
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.<ref name=":0"/> 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.<ref name=":0" />
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==
[[File:Iberia1300.png|thumb|Iberia in AD 1300. (Partially based on Euratlas map of Europe, 1300.)]]
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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=D.|first=Phillips, William|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/913510589|title=Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia|date=2014|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4491-5|pages=20|oclc=913510589}}</ref> Christianity had introduced the ethos that banned the enslavement of fellow Christians, an ethos that was reinforced by the banning of the enslavement of co-religionists during the rise of Islam.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fynn-Paul|first=Jeffrey|title=Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era|date=2009|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40586930|journal=Past & Present|issue=205|pages=13|jstor=40586930|issn=0031-2746}}</ref> Additionally, the [[Dar al-islam|Dar al-Islam]] protected ‘people of the book’ (Christians and Jews living in Islamic lands) from enslavement, an immunity which also applied to Muslims living in Christian Iberia. Despite these restrictions, criminal or indebted Muslims and Christians in both regions were still subject to judicially-sanctioned slavery.<ref>{{Citation|last=Fynn-Paul|first=Jeffrey|title=Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004346611_021|work=Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.)|year=2017|pages=553–587|publisher=Brill|doi=10.1163/9789004346611_021|isbn=9789004346611|access-date=2021-12-06}}</ref>
[[File:Al-Andalus732.svg|thumb|Al-Andalus in 732.]]
===Slavery in Al-Andalus===
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.<ref>Fynn-Paul, p. 26.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jankowiak|first=Marek|date=2017-01-20|title=What Does the Slave Trade in the Saqaliba Tell Us about Early Islamic Slavery?|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743816001240|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=49|issue=1|pages=171|doi=10.1017/s0020743816001240|s2cid=165127852|issn=0020-7438}}</ref> Forming relations between the Umayyads, Khārijites and 'Abbāsids, the flow of trafficked people from the main routes of the Sahara towards [[Al-Andalus]]<ref>Gaiser, A. (2014) "Slaves and Silver across the Strait of Gibraltar: Politics and Trade between Umayyad Iberia and Khārijite North Africa" in Liang, Y.G. et al. (eds.) Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean, Leiden: Brill, pp. 42.</ref> 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.<ref>Gaiser, A. (2014) "Slaves and Silver across the Strait of Gibraltar: Politics and Trade between Umayyad Iberia and Khārijite North Africa" in Liang, Y.G. et al. (eds.) Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean, Leiden: Brill, pp. 44.</ref> This monetary structure of consistent gold influx proved to be a tenet in the development of Islamic commerce.<ref>Gutierrez, J. and Valor, M. (2014) "Trade, Transport and Travel" in Valor, M. and Gutierrez, A. (eds.) The Archaeology of Medieval Spain 1100–1500, Sheffield: Equinox, pp. 124.</ref> In this regard, the slave trade outperformed and was the most commercially successful venture for maximizing capital.<ref>Gaiser, A. (2014) "Slaves and Silver across the Strait of Gibraltar: Politics and Trade between Umayyad Iberia and Khārijite North Africa" in Liang, Y.G. et al. (eds.) Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean, Leiden: Brill, pp. 45.</ref> 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 [[Iberian Peninsula]] was the scene of episodic [[warfare]] among Muslims and Christians (although sometimes Muslims and Christians were allies). Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from [[Al-Andalus]] to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back booty and people. For example, in a raid on [[Lisbon]] in 1189 the [[Almohad]] caliph [[Yaqub al-Mansur]] took 3,000 female and child captives, and his governor of [[Córdoba, Spain|Córdoba]] took 3,000 Christian slaves in a subsequent attack upon [[Silves Municipality, Portugal|Silves]] in 1191; an offensive by [[Alfonso VIII of Castile]] in 1182 brought him over two-thousand Muslim slaves.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://libro.uca.edu/rc/rc1.htm|title=Ransoming Captives, Chapter One|website=libro.uca.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> These raiding expeditions also included the Sa’ifa (summer) incursions, a tradition produced during the Amir reign of Cordoba. In addition to acquiring wealth, some of these Sa’ifa raids sought to bring mostly male captives, often eunuchs, back to Al-Andalus. They were generically referred to as [[Saqaliba]], the Arab word for Slavs.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wenner|first=Manfred W.|date=1980|title=The Arab/Muslim Presence in Medieval Central Europe|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743800027136|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=12|issue=1|pages=62, 63|doi=10.1017/s0020743800027136|issn=0020-7438}}</ref> Slavs’ status as the most common group in the slave trade by the tenth century led to the development of the word “slave.”<ref>Phillips, p. 17.</ref> The Saqaliba were mostly assigned to palaces as guards, concubines, and eunuchs, although they were sometimes privately owned.<ref>Jankowiak, p. 169.</ref> Along with Christians and Slavs, Sub-Saharan Africans were also held as slaves, brought back from the caravan trade in the Sahara. Slaves in Islamic lands were generally used for domestic, military, and administrative purposes, rarely used for agriculture or large-scale manufacturing. Christians living in Al-Andalus were not allowed to hold authority over Muslims, but they were permitted to hold non-Muslim slaves.<ref>Phillips, p. 18.</ref>
===Slavery in Christian Iberia===
Contrary to suppositions of historians such as [[Marc Bloch]], slavery thrived as an institution in medieval Christian Iberia.{{Citation needed|date=January 2016}} 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 [[Visigothic Kingdom|Christian Visigothic Kingdoms]], whose rulers worked to codify human bondage. In the 7th century, [[Chindasuinth|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.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scott|first1=S.P.|title=The Visigothic Code|url=http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-2.pdf|website=The Library of Iberian Resources Online|location=Book III, Title II, Section III}}</ref>
Unlike [[Roman law]], in which only slaves were liable to corporal punishment,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kamen|first=Deborah|year=2010|title=A Corpus of Inscriptions: representing slave marks in Antiquity.|journal=Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome|publisher=University of Michigan Press|volume=55|pages=95–110|jstor=41419689}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scott|first1=S.P.|title=The Visigothic Code|url=http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-4.pdf|website=The Library of Iberian References Online|location=Book III, Title IV, Section VI}}</ref> 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 [[Umayyad conquest of Hispania|Umayyad invasions]] in the 8th century, and the Visigothic law codes continued to control slave ownership. However, as William Phillips notes, medieval Iberia should not be thought of as a slave society, but rather as a society that owned slaves.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Phillips|first1=William|title=Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia|date=2014|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|page=10}}</ref> Slaves accounted for a relatively small percentage of the population, and did not make up a significant portion of the labor pool. Furthermore, while the existence of slavery continued from the earlier period, the use of slaves in post-Visigothic Christian Iberia differed from early periods. Ian Wood has suggests that, under the Visigoths, the majority of the slave population lived and worked on rural estates.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wood|first1=Ian|chapter=Social Relations in the Visigothic Kingdom from the Fifth to the Seventh Century|title=The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective|date=1999|publisher=Boydell Press|location=Woodbridge|page=195}}</ref>
After the Muslim invasions, slave owners (especially in the kingdoms of [[Kingdom of Aragon|Aragon]] and [[Kingdom of Valencia|Valencia]]) moved away from using slaves as field laborers or in work gangs, and did not press slaves into military service.<ref name="Phillips 19">Phillips p.19</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Saunders|first1=A.C. de C.M.|title=A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal: 1441–1555|date=1982|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|pages=84–85}}</ref><ref name="Phillips 19" /> In this respect, slave institutions in Aragon, especially, closely resembled those of other Mediterranean Christian kingdoms in France and Italy.<ref>Phiilps pages 14–15, 19</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Blumenthal|first1=Debra|title=Enemies and Familiars: Slavery and Mastery in Fifteenth-Century Valencia|url=https://archive.org/details/enemiesfamiliars00blum|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=2009|pages=[https://archive.org/details/enemiesfamiliars00blum/page/2 2]–3|isbn=9780801445026}}</ref>
In the kingdoms of [[Kingdom of Leon|León]] and [[Kingdom of Castile|Castile]], slavery followed the Visigothic model more closely than in the littoral kingdoms. Slaves in León and Castile were more likely to be employed as field laborers, supplanting free labor to support an aristocratic estate society.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barton|first1=Simon|title=The Aristocracy of Twelfth-Century Leon and Castile|date=1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=83}}</ref> These trends in slave populations and use changed in the wake of the Black Death in 1348, which significantly increased the demand for slaves across the whole of the peninsula.<ref>Phillips p.21</ref>
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Roth|first1=Norman|title=Jews, Visigoths & Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict|date=1994|publisher=Brill|location=Leiden|pages=160–161}}</ref><ref>Phillips pp.20–21</ref> 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.<ref>Roth pp.156, 160</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
This role caused some degree of fear among Christian populations. A letter from [[Pope Gregory XI]] to the Bishop of [[Cordoba, Andalusia|Cordoba]] in 1239 addressed rumors that the Jews were involved in kidnapping and selling Christian women and children into slavery while their husbands were away fighting the Muslims.<ref name="ReferenceA">Roth p.160</ref> Despite these worries, the primary role of Jewish slave traders lay in facilitating the exchange of captives between Muslim and Christian rulers, one of the primary threads of economic and political connectivity between Christian and Muslim Iberia.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Broadman|first1=James William|title=Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier|date=1986|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|page=passim}}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref>{{cite book|last1=Miller|first1=Kathryn|editor1-last=Trivellato|editor1-first=Francesca|editor2-last=Halevi|editor2-first=Leor|editor3-last=Antunes|editor3-first=Catia|title=Religion and Trade: Cross Cultural Exchanges in World History, 1000–1900|date=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|pages=131–159|chapter="Reflections on Reciprocity: A Late Medieval Islamic Perspective on Christian-Muslim Commitment to Captive Exchange."}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Constable|first1=Olivia|title=Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500|date=1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=47}}</ref> Most were Eastern European, captured in battles and raids, with the heavy majority being [[Slavs]].<ref>Phillips p.17</ref> 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]].<ref>Phillips p.61</ref>
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.<ref>Broadman p.6</ref> The sale of Muslim captives, either back to the Islamic southern states or to third-party slave brokers, supplied one of the means by which Aragon and Castile financed the [[Reconquista]]. Battles and sieges provided large numbers of captives; after the siege of [[Almeria]] in 1147, sources report that [[Alfonso VII of León]] sent almost 10,000 of the city’s Muslim women and children to Genoa to be sold into slavery as partial repayment of Genoese assistance in the campaign.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Phillips|first1=Jonathan|title=The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom|date=2007|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=260}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=O'Callaghan|first1=Joseph F.|title=Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain|date=2003|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|page=140}}</ref>
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.<ref>Phillips pp.60–61</ref> 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 black Africans.<ref>Blumenthal p.20</ref><ref>Saunders pp.5–7</ref>
Between 1489 and 1497 almost 2,100 black slaves were shipped from Portugal to Valencia.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite book|last1=Lawrance|first1=Jeremey|author-link1=Jeremy Lawrance|editor1-last=Earle|editor1-first=T.F.|editor2-last=Lowe|editor2-first=K.J.P.|title=Black Africans in Renaissance Europe|date=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=70|chapter=Black Africans in Renaissance Spanish Literature}}</ref><ref name="auto3">Saunders p.29</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> In the mid 16th century Spain imported up to 2,000 black African slaves annually through Portugal, and by 1565 most of [[Seville|Seville’s]] 6,327 slaves (out of a total population of 85,538) were black Africans.<ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref name="auto3"/>
==Slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia==
{{main|Slavery in Romania}}
'''Slavery''' existed on the territory of present-day [[Romania]] while under [[Ottoman Empire|The Ottoman Empire]] and [[Russian Empire]] rulership, from before the founding of the principalities of [[Wallachia]] and [[Moldavia]] in 13th–14th century, until it was [[Abolitionism|abolished]] in stages during the 1840s and 1850s before the independence of the [[United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia]] was allowed, and also until 1783, in [[Transylvania]] and [[Bukovina]] (parts of the [[Habsburg monarchy]] and later [[Austria-Hungary|The Austria-Hungarian Empire]]). Most slaves were of [[Roma minority in Romania|Roma]] (Gypsy) ethnicity and a significant number of ''Rumâni''[https://ro.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumâni_(categorie_socială)] in [[Serfdom]] slavery.
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.<ref>Viorel Achim, The Roma in Romanian History, [[Central European University Press]], Budapest, 2004, {{ISBN|963-9241-84-9}}</ref>
While it is possible that some Romani people were slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars and [[Nogai Horde]], the bulk of them came from south of the [[Danube]] at the end of the 14th century, some time before the [[foundation of Wallachia]].
The [[Nogai Horde]] along with the [[Crimean Khanate]] raided settlements in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Poland. The slaves were captured in southern Russia, [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth|Poland-Lithuania]], [[Moldavia]], [[Wallachia]], and [[Circassia]] by [[Tatars|Tatar]] horsemen in a trade known as the "harvesting of the steppe". In [[Podolia]] alone, about one-third of all the villages were destroyed or abandoned between 1578 and 1583. Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate.
The Roma slaves were owned by the [[Boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia|boyars]] (see [[Wallachian Revolution of 1848]]), the Christian Orthodox monasteries, or the state. They were used only as smiths, [[Gold panning|gold panners]] and as agricultural workers.
The Rumâni were only owned by [[Boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia|Boyars]] and [[Romanian Orthodox Church|Monasteries]], until the [[Independence of Romania]] from the [[Ottoman Empire]] on 9th of May 1877. They were considered less valuable because they were taxable, only skilled at agricultural work and couldn't be used at tribute.
It was common for both boyars and monasteries to register their Romanian [[Serfdom|serfs]] as "Gypsies" so that they would not pay the taxes that were imposed on the serfs.<ref>Marushiakova and Vesselin, p. 103</ref> Any Romanian, regardless of gender, marrying a Roma would immediately become a slave that could be used as tribute.
==Slavery in the Medieval Near East==
The ancient and medieval [[Near East]] includes modern day Turkey, the Levant and Egypt, with strong connections to the rest of the north African coastline. All of these areas were ruled by either the Byzantines or the Persians at the end of late antiquity. Pre-existing Byzantine (i.e. Roman) and Persian institutions of slavery may have influenced the development of institutions of slavery in Islamic law and jurisprudence.<ref>Crone, Patricia. Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate. Cambridge University Press, 1987.</ref> Likewise, some scholars have argued for the influence of Rabbinic tradition on the development of Islamic legal thought.<ref>Wegner, J. R. "Islamic and Talmudic Jurisprudence: The Four Roots of Islamic Law and their Talmudic Counterparts," The American Journal of Legal History, 26, 1 (1982): p. 25-71.</ref>
Whatever the relationship between these different legal traditions, many similarities exist between the practice of Islamic slavery in the early Middle Ages and the practices of early medieval Byzantines and western Europeans. The status of freed slaves under Islamic rule, who continued to owe services to their former masters, bears a strong similarity to ancient Roman and Greek institutions. However, the practice of slavery in the early medieval Near East also grew out of slavery practices in currency among pre-Islamic Arabs.<ref>Lewis, Bernard, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 4.</ref>
Like the Old and New Testaments and Greek and Roman law codes, the Quran takes the institution of slavery for granted, though it urges kindness toward slaves and eventual manumission, especially for slaves who convert to Islam.<ref>Lewis, 1990, p. 5.</ref>
In early Middle Ages, many slaves in Islamic society served as such for only a short period of time—perhaps an average of seven years.<ref>Wright, John, ''The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade''. Routledge, 2007, p. 2.</ref> Like their European counterparts, early medieval Islamic slave traders preferred slaves who were not co-religionists and hence focused on "pagans" from inner Asia, Europe, and especially from sub-Saharan Africa.<ref name="Wright, 2007, p. 3">Wright, 2007, p. 3.</ref> The practice of manumission may have contributed to the integration of former slaves into the wider society. However, under [[sharia]] law, conversion to Islam did not necessitate manumission.<ref>Wright, 2007, p. 4.</ref>
Slaves were employed in heavy labor as well as in domestic contexts. Because of Quranic sanction of concubinage,<ref>IV:3, XXIII:6; XXXIII:50–52; LXX:30</ref> early Islamic traders, in contrast to Byzantine and early modern slave traders, imported large numbers of female slaves.<ref>Ali, Kecia. Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Harvard University Press, 2010; Wright, 2007, p. 3.</ref> The very earliest Islamic states did not create corps of slave soldiers (a practice familiar from later contexts) but did integrate freedmen into armies, which may have contributed to the rapid expansion of early Islamic conquest.<ref>Lewis, 1990, p. 62.</ref> By the 9th century, use of slaves in Islamic armies, particularly Turks in cavalry units and Africans in infantry units, was a relatively common practice.<ref>Bacharach, Jere L., "African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East: The Cases of Iraq (869–955) and Egypt (868–1171)." International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Nov., 1981) 471–495.</ref><ref>Savage, E., "Berbers and Blacks: Ibadi Slave Traffic in Eighth-Century North Africa", ''The Journal of African History'', Vol. 33, No. 3 (1992), 351–368.</ref>
In Egypt, [[Ahmad ibn Tulun]] imported thousands of black slaves to wrestle independence from the [[Abbasid Caliphate]] in Iraq in 868.<ref>Yaacov Lev, David Ayalon (1914–1998) and the history of Black Military Slavery in medieval Islam, Der Islam 90.1 (January 2013): Accessed 22 November 2014, doi: [http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE%7CA330005344&v=2.1&u=nysl_sc_cornl&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1]</ref> The [[Ikhshidid dynasty]] used black slave units to liberate itself from Abbasid rule after the Abbasids destroyed ibn Tulun’s autonomous empire in 935.<ref name="Lev, David Ayalon">Lev, David Ayalon</ref> Black professional soldiers were most associated with the [[Fatimid Caliphate|Fatimid dynasty]], which incorporated more professional black soldiers than the previous two dynasties.<ref name="Lev, David Ayalon"/> It was the Fatimids who first incorporated black professional slave soldiers into the cavalry, despite massive opposition from Central Asian Turkish [[Mamluk]]s, who saw the African contingent as a threat to their role as the leading military unit in the Egyptian army.<ref name="Lev, David Ayalon"/>
In the later half of the Middle Ages, the expansion of Islamic rule further into the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and Arabian Peninsula established the Saharan-Indian Ocean slave trade.<ref>Jere L. Bacharach, African Military Slaves in the Muslim Middle East. BlackPast.org. Retrieved 20 November 2014. [http://www.blackpast.org/perspectives/african-military-slaves-muslim-middle-east]</ref>
This network was a large market for African slaves, transporting approximately four million African slaves from its 7th century inception to its 20th century demise.<ref>Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East. (Oxford University Press, 1994). Retrieved 19 November 2014. [http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/med/lewis1.asp]</ref> Ironically, the consolidation of borders in the Islamic Near East changed the face of the slave trade.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery">Lewis, Race and Slavery</ref> A rigid Islamic code, coupled with crystallizing frontiers, favored slave purchase and tribute over capture as lucrative slave avenues.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery"/> Even the sources of slaves shifted from the Fertile Crescent and Central Asia to Indochina and the Byzantine Empire.<ref>Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 11</ref>
Patterns of preference for slaves in the Near East, as well as patterns of use, continued into the later Middle Ages with only slight changes. Slaves were employed in many activities, including agriculture, industry, the military, and domestic labor. Women were prioritized over men, and usually served in the domestic sphere as menials, concubines (''[[cariye]]''), or wives.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 14">Lewis, ''Race and Slavery'', p. 14</ref>
Domestic and commercial slaves were mostly better off than their agricultural counterparts, either becoming family members or business partners rather than condemned to a grueling life in a chain gang. There are references to gangs of slaves, mostly African, put to work in drainage projects in Iraq, salt and gold mines in the Sahara, and sugar and cotton plantations in North Africa and Spain. References to this latter type of slavery are rare, however.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 14"/> Eunuchs were the most prized and sought-after type of slave.
The most fortunate slaves found employment in politics or the military. In the Ottoman Empire, the [[Devshirme|Devşrime system]] groomed young slave boys for civil or military service.<ref>Lewis, Race and Slavery, pp. 11–12</ref> Young Christian boys were uprooted from their conquered villages periodically as a levy, and were employed in government, entertainment, or the army, depending on their talents.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery"/> Slaves attained great success from this program, some winning the post of Grand Vizier to the Sultan and others positions in the [[Janissaries]].<ref>Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 12</ref>
It is a bit of a misnomer to classify these men as "slaves", because in the Ottoman Empire, they were referred to as [[Slavery in the Ottoman Empire|kul]], or, slaves "of the Gate", or Sultanate.<ref>Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 71</ref> 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.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery"/> 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.<ref name="Lev, David Ayalon"/> 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.
== Slavery in the Mediterranean ==
Slavery was a widespread phenomenon across the Mediterranean. The total number of slaves in the Mediterranean has been debated among scholars, but the number of slaves in the Mediterranean was significantly smaller than the 11–12 million people brought to the Americas. One scholar estimated three million slaves were taken between 1500 and 1800. Of those slaves, Christians outnumbered Muslims by two-to-one. These numbers are based on archival sources which outlined how many slaves were freed and captured in battles. One of the challenges of accurately counting the number of slaves in the Mediterranean is the wide variety of regions slaves were taken from and brought to. Additionally, the number of slaves in the Mediterranean was constantly changing, most significantly in periods of warfare.<ref name=":1" /> Slavery in the Mediterranean is often seen as less horrendous and more transitory than Atlantic slave trade to the Americas; however, slavery in the Mediterranean shared many inhumane characteristics with Atlantic slave trade and greatly impacted the Mediterranean region.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=O'Connell, Monique, 1974–|title=The Mediterranean world : from the fall of Rome to the rise of Napoleon|others=Dursteler, Eric|date=23 May 2016|isbn=978-1-4214-1901-5|location=Baltimore|oclc=921240187}}</ref> However, there were some differences. Slaves in America were transported to an entirely new setting without the opportunity to contact their families left behind or the opportunity to gain their freedom.<ref name=":1" />
In the Mediterranean, 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.<ref name=":1" /> The incentive for slavery in the Mediterranean was economic. In fact, the motivation behind many raids was the capturing of people to then enslave and sell or demand ransom for. State and religious institutions frequently participated in the ransoming of individuals, so piracy became a lucrative market. Additionally, this meant some individuals were returned home while others were sold away.<ref name=":1" />
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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Barker|first=Hannah|url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.9783/9780812296488/html|title=That Most Precious Merchandise|date=2019-09-27|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|pages=209–212|language=en|doi=10.9783/9780812296488|isbn=9780812296488|s2cid=219875156}}</ref>
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.<ref name=":1" /> 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.<ref>Barker, p. 211.</ref>
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.<ref name=":1" /> Furthermore, even if freed from their stations, the former masters of these women often maintained power over them by becoming their employers or patrons.<ref>Barker, p. 210.</ref>
===Slavery in the Ottoman Empire===
{{main|Slavery (Ottoman Empire)}}
{{see also|Janissary|Sultanate of Women}}
Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society. The [[Byzantine-Ottoman wars]] and the [[Ottoman wars in Europe]] brought large numbers of Christian slaves into the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Phillips, Jr.|first=William D.|title=Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade|year=1985|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester|isbn=978-0-7190-1825-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0B8NAQAAIAAJ&q=Byzantine-Ottoman%20wars%20slavery&pg=PA37|page=37}}</ref> In the middle of the 14th century, [[Murad I]] built his own personal slave army called the ''[[Kapıkulu]]''. The new force was based on the sultan’s right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. The captive slaves were converted to [[Islam]] and trained in the sultan’s personal service.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=266205|title=Janissary |website=everything2.com|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
In the ''[[devşirme]]'' (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"), young Christian boys from [[Anatolia]] and the [[Balkans]] were taken away from their homes and families, converted to Islam and enlisted into special soldier classes of the [[Military of the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman army]]. These soldier classes were named [[Janissary|Janissaries]], the most famous branch of the ''Kapıkulu''. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the Ottoman military conquests in Europe.<ref name="auto"/>
Most of the military commanders of the Ottoman forces, imperial administrators and ''de facto'' rulers of the Ottoman Empire, such as [[Pargalı İbrahim Pasha]] and [[Sokollu Mehmet Paşa]], were recruited in this way.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/med/lewis1.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks Project|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://schonwalder.com/Such-n-Such/huns.htm|title=The Turks: History and Culture|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> By 1609 the Sultan’s ''Kapıkulu'' forces increased to about 100,000.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst373/readings/inalcik6.html|title=In the Service of the State and Military Class|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
The [[Imperial Harem|concubines of the Ottoman Sultan]] consisted chiefly of purchased slaves. Because Islamic law forbade Muslims to enslave fellow Muslims, the Sultan’s concubines were generally of Christian origin (''[[cariye]]''). The mother of a Sultan, though technically a slave, received the extremely powerful title of ''Valide Sultan'', and at times became effective ruler of the Empire (see [[Sultanate of women]]). One notable example was [[Kösem Sultan]], daughter of a Greek Christian priest, who dominated the Ottoman Empire during the early decades of the 17th century.<ref>See generally Jay Winik (2007), ''The Great Upheaval''.</ref> Another notable example was [[Roxelana]], the favourite wife of [[Suleiman the Magnificent]].
==Slavery in Poland==
{{main|Slavery in Poland}}
[[File:Lithuanian Statute I.jpg|thumb|205px|The first statute of the [[Statutes of Lithuania]] of 1529, officially banning slavery.]]
Slavery in Poland existed on the territory of [[Kingdom of Poland (Piasts)|Kingdom of Poland]] during the times of the [[Piast dynasty]],<ref name="bardach40-41">Juliusz Bardach, Bogusław Lesnodorski, and Michał Pietrzak, ''Historia państwa i prawa polskiego'' (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1987; p. 40–41</ref> however, slavery was restricted to [[Prisoner of war|POWs]]. In some special cases and for limited periods [[serfdom]] was also applied to debtors.
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 [[Lithuanian Council of Lords]]. It has been proposed that the codification was initiated by [[Grand Chancellor of Lithuania]] [[Mikołaj Radziwiłł (1470–1521)|Mikołaj Radziwiłł]] as a reworking and expansion of the 15th century [[Casimir's Code]].<ref>{{in lang|lt}} E. Gudavičius, [http://ausis.gf.vu.lt/mg/nr/2002/09/09stat.html Stages of the Lithuanian Statute] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927164324/http://ausis.gf.vu.lt/mg/nr/2002/09/09stat.html |date=27 September 2006 }}</ref>
==Slavery in Russia==
{{main|Slavery in Russia}}
In [[Kievan Rus]] and [[Russia]], the slaves were usually classified as [[kholop]]s. 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 [[crime]]s, 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.<ref name="Richard Hellie 1984">[[Richard Hellie]], ''Slavery in Russia, 1450–1725'' (1984)</ref> They worked predominantly as household servants, among the richest families, and indeed generally produced less than they consumed.<ref>Carolyn Johnston Pouncey, ''The [[Domostroy|Domostroi]]: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible'', p15 {{ISBN|0-8014-9689-6}}</ref> Laws forbade the freeing of slaves in times of famine, to avoid feeding them, and slaves generally remained with the family a long time; the ''[[Domostroy]]'', an advice book, speaks of the need to choose slaves of good character and to provide for them properly.<ref>Carolyn Johnston Pouncey, ''The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible'', p33 {{ISBN|0-8014-9689-6}}</ref> Slavery remained a major institution in [[Russia]] until 1723, when [[Peter the Great]] converted the household slaves into house [[serfs]]. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into [[Serfdom in Russia|serfs]] earlier in 1679.<ref name="Richard Hellie 1984"/>
In 1382 the Golden Horde under Khan [[Tokhtamysh]] sacked [[Moscow]], burning the city and carrying off thousands of inhabitants as slaves. For years the [[Khanate of Kazan|Khanates of Kazan]] and [[Astrakhan Khanate|Astrakhan]] routinely made raids on Russian principalities for
slaves and to plunder towns. Russian chronicles record about 40 raids of [[List of Kazan khans|Kazan Khans]] on the Russian territories in the first half of the 16th century.<ref>The Full Collection of the Russian Annals, vol.13, SPb, 1904</ref> In 1521, the combined forces of Crimean Khan [[Mehmed I Giray]] and his Kazan allies attacked Moscow and captured thousands of slaves.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=The_Crimean_Khanate|title=The Tatar Khanate of Crimea – All Empires|website=allempires.com}}</ref> About 30 major Tatar raids were recorded into [[Tsardom of Russia|Muscovite]] territories between 1558 and 1596.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst373/readings/inalcik6.html|title=Supply of Slaves|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin and taking thousands of captives as slaves.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.economist.com/cities/printStory.cfm?obj_id=9141603&city_id=MCW|title=Gulliver|newspaper=[[The Economist]]|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> In [[Crimea]], about 75% of the population consisted of slaves.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24157|title=Historical survey > Slave societies (broken link)|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
==Slavery in Scandinavia==
{{main|Thrall}}
[[File:LSR Wikinger - Sklavenfessel.jpg|thumb|Viking-era slave chains
]]
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.<ref name=":6">{{cite book|last=Iversen|first=Frode|title=Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, Volume I|publisher=Routledge|year=2019|isbn=9780429262210|pages=60–79|language=English}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Raffield|first=Ben|date=December 2019|title=The Slave Markets of the Viking World: Comparative Perspectives on an 'Invisible Archaeology |doi=10.1080/0144039X.2019.1592976|journal=Slavery & Abolition 40, No. 4|volume=no. 4|issue=4|pages=682–705|s2cid=151255018}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":3" /> It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. According to the Law of Scania<ref name=":7">{{cite book|last1=Tamm|first1=Ditlev|title=The Danish medieval laws : the laws of Scania, Zealand and Jutland|last2=Vogt|first2=Helle|publisher=Routledge medieval translations|year=2016|isbn=9781315646374|location=London|language=English}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":7" /> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Peel|first=Christine|title=Guta Lag and Guta Saga : the Law and History of the Gotlanders|publisher=Routledge|year=2015|isbn=9781315735863|location=London|language=English}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":7" /> Yet, for all their independence, any children of fostre or fostra were still property of their masters.<ref name=":3" /> A freed slave did not have full legal status; for example, the punishment for killing a former slave was low It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. 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.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Karras|first=Ruth|title=Concubinage and Slavery in the Viking Age|date=1990|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40919117|journal=Scandinavian Studies|volume=62|issue=2|pages=141–162|jstor=40919117|via=JSTOR}}</ref> 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<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":6" /> The Norwegian law code from 1274, ''[[Landslov]]'' (Land’s law), does not mention slaves, but former slaves. Thus it seems like slavery was abolished in Norway by this time. In Sweden, slavery was abolished in 1343.
==Slavery in the British Isles==
{{main|Slavery in Britain|Slavery in Ireland}}
British [[medieval Wales|Wales]] and Gaelic [[medieval Ireland (disambiguation)|Ireland]] and [[medieval Scotland|Scotland]] were among the last areas of Christian Europe to give up their institution of slavery. Under Gaelic custom, prisoners of war were routinely taken as slaves. During the period that slavery was disappearing across most of western Europe, it was reaching its height in the British Isles: the Viking invasions and the subsequent warring between Scandinavians and the natives, the number of captives taken as slaves drastically increased. The Irish church was vehemently opposed to slavery and blamed the 1169 [[Norman invasion of Ireland|Norman invasion]] on divine punishment for the practice, along with local acceptance of [[polygyny]] and [[divorce]].
==Serfdom versus slavery==
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/70 70]–71|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> 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 [[Feudalism|feudal]] serfdom.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/68 68]|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> Jean-Pierre Devroey thinks that the shift from slavery to serfdom was gradual as well in some parts of the continent.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Devroey|first1=Jean-Pierre|title=Men and Women in Early Medieval Serfdom: the Ninth-Century North Frankish Evidence|journal=Past and Present|volume=166|year=2007|page=17|doi=10.1093/past/166.1.3}}</ref> 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]].<ref name="ReferenceC">{{cite journal|last1=Devroey|first1=Jean-Pierre|title=Men and Women in Early Medieval Serfdom: The Ninth-Century North Frankish Evidence|journal=Past and Present|year=2000|volume=166|page=28|doi=10.1093/past/166.1.3}}</ref> 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.<ref name="auto2">{{cite book|last=Clarence-Smith|first=W. G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZW9DjTAox6EC|title=Religions and the abolition of slavery – a comparative approach|date=24 December 2006|publisher=C. Hurst & Company|isbn=9781850657088}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/71 71]|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca, NY|pages=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/68 68]–69|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davies|first1=Wendy|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|date=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|pages=236–238|chapter=On Servile Status in the Early Middle Ages}}</ref>
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 [[Incentives|incentive structure]]; in other words, failure to work resulted in physical punishment.<ref name=":2">{{cite book|last1=Engerman|first1=Stanley|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|year=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|pages=31–32|chapter=Slavery, Serfdom, and Other Forms of Coerced Labour: Similarities and Differences}}</ref> Serfs held plots of land, which was essentially a form of "payment" that the lord offered in exchange for the serf’s service.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bush|first1=Michael|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|year=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|page=3|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> Serfs worked part-time for the masters and part-time for themselves and had opportunities to accumulate personal wealth that often did not exist for the slave.<ref name=":2"/>
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bush|first1=Michael|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|date=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|page=2|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Engerman|first1=Stanley|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|date=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|pages=24–26|chapter=Slavery, serfdom and other forms of coerced labour: similarities and differences}}</ref>
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".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca, NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/79 79]|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca, NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/69 69]|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref>
In addition, [[numismatists]] shed light on the decline of serfdom. There is a widespread theory that the introduction of currency hastened the decline of serfdom because it was preferable to pay for labor rather than depend on feudal obligations. Some historians argue that landlords began selling serfs their land – and hence, their freedom – during periods of [[economic inflation]] across Europe.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bush|first1=Michael|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|page=12|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> Other historians argue that the end of slavery came from the royalty, who gave serfs freedom through edicts and legislation in an attempt to broaden their tax base.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Engerman|first1=Stanley|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|page=38|chapter=Slavery, serfdom and other forms of coerced labour: similarities and differences}}</ref>
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.<ref name="ReferenceC"/> Heinrich Fichtenau points out that in Central Europe, there was not a labor market strong enough for slavery to become a necessity.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fichtenau|first1=Heinrich|title=Living in the 10th century: Mentalities and Social Orders|date=1984|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|page=372}}</ref>
==Justifications for slavery==
In late Rome, the official attitude toward slavery was ambivalent. According to [[Corpus Juris Civilis|Justinian’s legal code]], slavery was defined as "an institution according to the law of nations whereby one person falls under the [[property rights]] of another, contrary to nature".<ref>David Graeber, ''Debt: The First 5000 Years'' (Brooklyn, New York: Melville House, 2011), ch. 7.</ref>
Justifications for slavery throughout the medieval period were dominated by the perception of religious difference. Slaves were often outsiders taken in war. As such, Hebrew and Islamic thinking both conceived of the slave as an "enemy within".<ref>[[Orlando Patterson]], ''Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 40–41.</ref> In the Christian tradition, [[paganism|pagans]] and [[heretics]] were similarly considered enemies of the faith who could be justly enslaved. In theory, slaves who converted could embark on the path to freedom, but practices were inconsistent: masters were not obliged to [[manumission|manumit]] them and the practice of baptising slaves was often discouraged.<ref name="Rayborn, p.93">Timothy Rayborn, ''The Violent Pilgrimage: Christians, Muslims and Holy Conflicts, 850–1150'', Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2013, p. 93.</ref> The enslavement of co-religionists was discouraged, if not forbidden, for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Consequently, northern European pagans and black Africans were a target for all three religious groups. Ethnic and religious difference were conflated in the justification of slavery.<ref name="Rayborn, p.93"/>
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 ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%209:20-27 Gen. 9:20–27]) in which [[Ham (son of Noah)|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.<ref>David M. Goldenberg, ''The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).</ref> 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.<ref>Walter Ullmann, ''Medieval Papalism'' (Routledge, 1949), p. 57.</ref> The state of slavery was thought to be closely tied to [[original sin]].<ref>David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 92–94.</ref> Towards the middle of the 15th century, the [[Catholic Church and slavery|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 [[Afonso V of Portugal|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
<blockquote>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 ...<ref>Pope Nicholas V, "Dum diversas" (1452), in ''Bullarium patronatus Portugalliae regum in ecclesiis Africae, Asiae atque Oceaniae'' (1868) [https://books.google.com/books?id=6NDmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA22&dq=%22in%20perpetuam%20servitutem%22 p. 22.]</ref><ref>Pope Nicholas V (1452), "Dum Diversas (English Translation)", ''Unam Sanctam Catholicam'', 5 February 2011. http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2011/02/dum-diversas-english-translation.html.</ref></blockquote>
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.<ref>Frances Gardiner Davenport, ''European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648'' (Washington, D.C.), pp. 20–26.</ref>
Historians such as Timothy Rayborn have contended that religious justifications served to mask the economic necessities underlying the institution of slavery.<ref name="Rayborn, p.93"/>
==See also==
* [[Christianity and slavery]]
* [[Catholic Church and slavery]]
* [[History of slavery]]
* [[Islamic views on slavery]]
* [[Slavery in ancient Greece]]
* [[Slavery in ancient Rome]]
* [[Slavery in antiquity]]
* [[The Bible and slavery]]
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==Further reading==
* Barker, Hannah "Slavery in Medieval Europe." ''Oxford Bibliographies'' (2019) [https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396584/obo-9780195396584-0276.xml]
* Barker, Hannah ''That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019)
* Campbell, Gwyn ''et al.'' eds. ''Women and Slavery, Vol. 1: Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the Medieval North Atlantic'' (2007)
* Dockès, Pierre. ''Medieval Slavery and Liberation'' (1989)
* Frantzen, Allen J., and Douglas Moffat, eds. ''The Work of Work: Servitude, Slavery and Labor in Medieval England'' (1994)
* Karras, Ruth Mazo. ''Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia'' (Yale University Press, 1988)
* Perry, Craig ''et al.'' eds. ''The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2 AD500-AD1420 (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
* Phillips, William D. ''Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade'' (Manchester University Press, 1985)
* Rio, Alice. ''Slavery After Rome, 500-1100'' (Oxford University Press, 2017) [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=54675 online review]
* Stuard, Susan Mosher. "Ancillary evidence for the decline of medieval slavery." ''Past & Present'' 149 (1995): 3-28 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/651097 online].
* Verhulst, Adriaan. "The decline of slavery and the economic expansion of the Early Middle Ages." ''Past & Present'' No. 133 (Nov., 1991), pp. 195–203 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/650772 online]
* Wyatt David R. ''Slaves and warriors in medieval Britain and Ireland, 800–1200'' (2009)
{{Middle Ages}}
[[Category:Slavery in Europe]]
[[Category:History of slavery]]
[[Category:Medieval society]]' |
New page wikitext, after the edit (new_wikitext) | '{{short description|Slavery during the medieval period in Europe}}
{{slavery}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}Slavery, or the process of restricting peoples’ freedoms, was widespread within Medieval Europe. Europe and the Mediterranean world were part of a highly interconnected network of slave trading. Throughout Europe, wartime captives were commonly forced into slavery. Likewise, as European kingdoms transitioned to feudal societies, serfdom began to replace slavery as the main economic and agricultujkshdgjlkdshfgljksdhfljkgshflkjghlsjkfhgljsfhglsfdjgral engine. Throughout Medieval Europe, the perspectives and societal roles of enslaved peoples differed greatly, from some being restricted to agricultural labor to others being positioned as trusted political advisors.
==Early Middle Ages==
[[File:Costumes of Slaves or Serfs from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries.png|thumb|Costumes of slaves or serfs, from the sixth to the twelfth centuries, collected by H. de Vielcastel, from original documents in the great libraries of Europe.]]
Slavery in the early Middle Ages was initially a continuation of earlier [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] practices from late Antiquity, and grew more widespread in the wake of the social chaos caused by the [[barbarian invasions]] of the Western [[Roman Empire]]. With the continuation of Roman legal practices of slavery, new laws and practices concerning slavery spread throughout Europe. For example, the [[Welsh laws]] of [[Hywel the Good]] included provisions dealing with slaves. In the Germanic realms laws instituted the enslavement of criminals, such as the [[Visigothic Code]]’s prescribing enslavement for criminals who could not pay financial penalties for their crimes<ref>{{cite web |url=http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg4-4.htm#l1 |title=Book IV, Title IV: The Visigothic Code: (Forum judicum)}}</ref> and as an actual punishment for various other crimes.<ref>[http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-1.htm#l3], [http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-3.htm#l3], & [http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-4.htm#l1].</ref> Such criminals would become slaves to their victims, often with their property.
As these peoples [[christianization of Europe|Christianized]], the church worked more actively to reduce the practice of holding coreligionists in bondage.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} [[St. Patrick]], who himself was captured and enslaved at one time, protested an attack that enslaved newly baptized Christians in his [[:q:Saint Patrick#Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus (c. 450)|letter to the soldiers of Coroticus]]. The restoration of order and the growing power of the church slowly transmuted the late Roman slave system of Diocletian into [[serfdom]].{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}
Another major factor was the rise of [[Balthild of Chelles|Bathilde]], queen of the Franks, who had been enslaved before marrying [[Clovis II]]. When she became regent, her government outlawed slave-trading of Christians throughout the [[Merovingian]] empire.<ref>Paul Fouracre, Richard A. Gerberding (1996), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=uifpAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA111 Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, 640–720]'', Manchester University Press, {{ISBN|0-7190-4791-9}}, p. 97–99 & 111.</ref>
About 10% of [[England]]’s population entered in the [[Domesday Book]] (1086) were slaves,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.domesdaybook.net/helpfiles/hs2970.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227083435/http://www.domesdaybook.net/helpfiles/hs2970.htm|url-status=dead|title=Domesday Book Slave|archive-date=27 February 2009|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> despite [[chattel slavery]] of English Christians being nominally discontinued after the [[Norman conquest of England|1066 conquest]]. It is difficult to be certain about slave numbers, however, since the old Roman word for slave (''servus'') continued to be applied to unfree people whose status later was reflected by the term ''serf''.<ref name="PAF">Perry Anderson, ''Passages from antiquity to feudalism'' (1996) p 141</ref>
==Slave trade==
<!-- Demand !-->
Demand from the Islamic world dominated the slave trade in medieval Europe.<ref name="dictslave">''Slavery, Slave Trade.'' ed. Strayer, Joseph R. Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Volume 11. New York: Scribner, 1982. {{ISBN|978-0684190730}}</ref><ref name="britannicasurvey">{{cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24159|title=Historical survey The international slave trade|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref><ref name="battuta">{{cite web|url=http://ibnbattuta.berkeley.edu/5anatolia.html|title=Battuta's Trip: Anatolia (Turkey) 1330–1331|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> For most of that time, however, sale of Christian slaves to non-Christians was banned.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} In the ''[[pactum Lotharii]]'' of 840 between [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] and the [[Carolingian Empire]], Venice promised not to buy Christian slaves in the Empire, and not to sell Christian slaves to Muslims.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="lotharii">Il ''pactum Lotharii'' del 840 [[Roberto Cessi|Cessi, Roberto]]. (1939–1940) – In: Atti. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Classe di Scienze Morali e Lettere Ser. 2, vol. 99 (1939–40) p. 11–49</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arielcaliban.org/PX_pacta_veneta.pdf|title=Pacta Veneta. A chronology in four steps. PAX TIBI MARCE Venice: government, law, jurisprudence Venezia: istituzioni, diritto, giurisprudenza|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> The Church prohibited the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands, for example in the Council of Koblenz in 922, the [[Council of London (1102)|Council of London]] in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1171latrsale.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks Project|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
As a result, most Christian slave merchants focused on moving them from non-Christian areas to Muslim Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East, and most non-Christian merchants, although not bound by the Church’s rules, focused on Muslim markets as well.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="britannicasurvey"/><ref name="battuta"/> Arabic silver [[dirham]]s, presumably exchanged for slaves, are plentiful in eastern Europe and Southern Sweden, indicating trade routes from Slavic to Muslim territory.<ref name="dirhams">Jankowiak, Marek. Dirhams for slaves. Investigating the Slavic slave trade in the tenth century.[https://www.academia.edu/1764468/Dirhams_for_slaves._Investigating_the_Slavic_slave_trade_in_the_tenth_century]</ref>
=== Italian merchants ===
By the reign of [[Pope Zachary]] (741–752), [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] had established a thriving slave trade, buying in Italy, among other places, and selling to the Moors in Northern Africa (Zacharias himself reportedly forbade such traffic out of Rome).<ref>Duchesne, Louis Marie Olivier. ''XCIII Zacharias (741–752).'' Le Liber pontificalis; texte, introduction et commentaire par L. Duchesne (Volume 1). 1886. p. 426–439. [https://archive.org/details/duchesne01 Available on archive.org]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15743b.htm|title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pope St. Zachary|website=newadvent.org|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref><ref>Reverend Alban Butler. "St. Zachary, Pope and Confessor". ''The Lives of the Saints'', Volume 3. 1866. [http://www.bartleby.com/210/3/152.html]</ref> When the sale of Christians to Muslims was banned (''[[pactum Lotharii]]''<ref name="lotharii"/>), the Venetians began to sell Slavs and other Eastern European non-Christian slaves in greater numbers. Caravans of slaves traveled from Eastern Europe, through Alpine passes in Austria, to reach Venice. [[Raffelstetten customs regulations|A record of tolls paid in Raffelstetten (903–906)]], near St. Florian on the Danube, describes such merchants. Some are Slavic themselves, from Bohemia and the Kievan Rus'. They had come from [[Kiev]] through [[Przemyśl]], [[Kraków]], [[Prague]], and [[Bohemia]]. The same record values [[Ancillae|female slaves]] at a ''[[Tremissis|tremissa]]'' (about 1.5 grams of gold or roughly {{frac|1|3}} of a [[dinar]]) and male slaves, who were more numerous, at a ''saiga'' (which is much less).<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="rafftolls">MGH, Leges, Capitularia regum Francorum, II, ed. by A. Boretius, Hanovre, 1890, p. 250–252 [https://archive.org/details/capitulariaregum01bore (available on-line)].</ref> Eunuchs were especially valuable, and "castration houses" arose in Venice, as well as other prominent slave markets, to meet this demand.<ref name="dirhams"/><ref name="valante">Mary A. Valante, "Castrating Monks: Vikings, the Slave Trade, and the Value of Eunuchs", in ''Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages'', ed. Larissa Tracy [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt2tt1pr]</ref>
Venice was far from the only slave trading hub in Italy. Southern Italy boasted slaves from distant regions, including Greece, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Slavic regions. During the 9th and 10th centuries, [[Amalfi]] was a major exporter of slaves to North Africa.<ref name="dictslave"/> [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]], along with Venice, dominated the trade in the Eastern Mediterranean beginning in the 12th century, and in the Black Sea beginning in the 13th century. They sold both [[Balts|Baltic]] and [[Slavs|Slavic]] slaves, as well as [[Armenians]], [[Circassians]], [[Georgians]], [[Turkish people|Turks]] and other ethnic groups of the Black Sea and [[Caucasus]], to the Muslim nations of the Middle East.<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5q9zcB3JS40C&pg=PA45&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800]''. Robert Davis (2004). p.45. {{ISBN|1-4039-4551-9}}.</ref> Genoa primarily managed the slave trade from Crimea to Mamluk [[Egypt]], until the 13th century, when increasing Venetian control over the Eastern Mediterranean allowed Venice to dominate that market.<ref name="lughod">Janet L. Abu-Lughod, ''Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350'' Oxford University Press {{ISBN|0195067746}}</ref> Between 1414 and 1423 alone, at least 10,000 slaves were sold in Venice.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081223185836/http://www.roxie.org/books/shoulders/ch02-labor.html Rawlins, Gregory J.E. Rebooting Reality — Chapter 2, Labor (archive from December 23, 2008)]</ref>
=== Jewish merchants ===
{{see also|Jewish views on slavery#Post-Talmud to 1800s}}<!--don't remove on title alone, this section discusses relevant content-->
Records of long-distance Jewish slave merchants date at least as far back as 492, when [[Pope Gelasius I|Pope Gelasius]] permitted [[Jew]]s to import non-Christian slaves into Italy, at the request of a Jewish friend from [[Telesina Valley]].<ref>Graetz, H. History of the Jews, volume 3: Chapter 2, Jews in Europe, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1894 [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43337/43337-h/43337-h.htm#CHAPTER_II]</ref><ref>Abrahams, Israel. Jewish Life in the Middle Ages. New York. The Macmillan Company, 1919. pp. 98–100 [https://archive.org/details/jewishlifeinthem008412mbp]</ref><ref name="jewencyclopedia">{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13798-slave-trade|title=SLAVE-TRADE |website=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> {{Obsolete source|reason=This is ultimately a replica of an encyclopedia from 1902.|date=September 2021}}
By the turn of the 6th to the 7th century, Jews had become the chief slave traders in Italy, and were active in [[Frankish Gaul|Gallic]] territories.
Pope Gregory the Great issued a ban on Jews possessing Christian slaves, lest the slaves convert to Judaism.<ref name="jewencyclopedia"/><ref>''Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great'', Book IX 109–110, Book IV 21, Book IX 36 [http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3602.htm]</ref> By the 9th and 10th centuries, Jewish merchants, sometimes called [[Radhanites]], were a major force in the slave trade continent-wide.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref>[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=849&letter=S "Slave Trade"]{{Obsolete source|reason=This is ultimately a replica of an encyclopedia from 1902.|date=September 2021}}. ''[[Jewish Encyclopedia]]''</ref><ref name="radhanites">Olivia Remie Constable (1996). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=M-CVlhPb21MC&pg=PA203&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f= Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500]''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 203–204. {{ISBN|0521565030}}</ref>
Jews were one of the few groups who could move and trade between the Christian and Islamic worlds.<ref name="radhanites"/>
Ibn Khordadbeh observed and recorded routes of Jewish merchants in his [[Book of Roads and Kingdoms (ibn Khordadbeh)|Book of Roads and Kingdoms]] from the South of France to Spain, carrying (amongst other things) female slaves, eunuchs, and young slave boys. He also notes Jews purchasing Slavic slaves in Prague.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="jewencyclopedia"/>{{Obsolete source|reason=This is ultimately a replica of an encyclopedia from 1902.|date=September 2021}} Letters of [[Agobard]], archbishop of Lyons (816–840),<ref>Anna Beth Langenwalter, AGOBARD OF LYON: AN EXPLORATION OF CAROLINGIAN JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS. PhD Thesis, Page 28 [https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/19051/1/Langenwalter_Anna_B_200911_PhD_thesis.pdf]</ref> acts of the emperor [[Louis the Pious]], and the seventy-fifth canon of the [[Council of Meaux–Paris]] of 845 confirms the existence of a route used by Jewish traders with Slavic slaves through the Alps to Lyon, to Southern France, to Spain.<ref name="dictslave"/>
Toll records from [[Walenstadt]] in 842–843 indicate another trade route, through Switzerland, the [[Septimer Pass|Septimer]] and [[Splügen Pass|Splügen]] passes, to Venice, and from there to North Africa.<ref name="dictslave"/>
As German rulers of Saxon dynasties took over the enslavement (and slave trade) of Slavs in the 10th century, Jewish merchants bought slaves at the Elbe, sending caravans into the valley of the Rhine. Many of these slaves were taken to Verdun (whose location is disputed, though most read it as [[Verdun]] on the Meuse, with some scholars seeing [[Verdun-sur-le-Doubs]] as a better candidate)<ref name="OPENEDITION">{{cite journal|url= https://journals.openedition.org/mefrm/2408#ftn23|last= Grabowski|first= Antoni|title= Eunuch between economy and philology. The case of carzimasium|journal= Mélanges de l'École française de Rome|date= March 13, 2019|issue= 127–1|doi= 10.4000/mefrm.2408|access-date= October 12, 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20211012151458/https://journals.openedition.org/mefrm/2408|archive-date= October 12, 2021}}</ref> which had close trade relations with Spain. Many would be castrated and sold as eunuchs as well.<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="valante"/>
=== Iberia ===
A ready market, especially for men of fighting age, could be found in [[Umayyad Spain]], with its need for supplies of new [[mamelukes]].
<blockquote>[[Al-Hakam I|Al-Hakam]] was the first monarch of this family who surrounded his throne with a certain splendour and magnificence. He increased the number of mamelukes (slave soldiers) until they amounted to 5,000 horse and 1,000 foot. ... he increased the number of his slaves, eunuchs and servants; had a bodyguard of cavalry always stationed at the gate of his palace and surrounded his person with a guard of mamelukes .... these mamelukes were called Al-l;Iaras (the Guard) owing to their all being Christians or foreigners. They occupied two large barracks, with stables for their horses.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite book|title=Early Medieval Spain – Springer|last=Collins|first=Roger|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-24135-4|year = 1995|isbn = 978-0-333-64171-2}}</ref></blockquote>
According to [[Roger Collins]] although the role of the Vikings in the slave trade in Iberia remains largely hypothetical, their depredations are clearly recorded. Raids on [[Al-Andalus|AlAndalus]] by Vikings are reported in the years 844, 859, 966 and 971, conforming to the general pattern of such activity concentrating in the mid ninth and late tenth centuries.<ref name="auto1"/> [[Al-Andalus|Muslim Spain]] imported an enormous number{{Clarify|reason=vague|date=May 2016}} of slaves, as well as serving as a staging point for Muslim and Jewish merchants to market slaves to the rest of the Islamic world.<ref name="radhanites" />
During the reign of [[Abd-ar-Rahman III]] (912–961), there were at first 3,750, then 6,087, and finally 13,750 [[Saqaliba]], or Slavic slaves, at [[Córdoba, Andalusia|Córdoba]], capital of the [[Umayyad Caliphate]].
[[Ibn Hawqal]], Ibrahim al-Qarawi, and Bishop [[Liutprand of Cremona]] note that the Jewish merchants of Verdun specialized in castrating slaves, to be sold as eunuch saqaliba, which were enormously popular in Muslim Spain.<ref name="dictslave" /><ref name="valante" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://apps.brepolis.net/LTool/Entrance.aspx?w=12&a=%2fllta%2fpages%2fToc.aspx|title=BREPOLiS – Login|website=apps.brepolis.net|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
=== Vikings ===
[[File:LSR Wikinger - Sklavenfesselschloss.jpg|thumb|Lock and key of a slave chain (Viking age) from Sweden]]
The [[Nordic countries]] called their slaves ''[[thrall]]s'' ([[Old Norse]]: ''Þræll'').<ref name="vikings">{{cite book|author=Junius P Rodriguez, PhD|title=The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery. vol 1. A – K|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATq5_6h2AT0C&pg=PA674|year=1997|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=674|isbn=9780874368857}}</ref> There were also other terms used to describe thralls based on gender, such as ambatt/ambott and deja. Ambott is used in reference to female slaves, as is deja.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kuhn|first=Hans|title=Amt. 1. Sprachlichee|publisher=RGA 1:258|year=1973|pages=258}}</ref> Another name that is indicative of thrall status is bryti, which has associations with food. The word can be understood to mean, cook, and to break bread, which would place a person with this label as the person in charge of food in some manner. There is a runic inscription that describes a man of bryti status named Tolir who was able to marry and acted as the king’s estate manager.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{cite book|last=Sawyer|first=Birgit|title=The Viking-Age Rune-Stones: custom and commemoration in early medieval Scandinavia|publisher=OUP Oxford|year=2000}}</ref> Another name is muslegoman, which would have been used for a runaway slave.<ref name=":3" /> From this, it can be gathered that the different names for those who were thralls indicate position and duties performed.<ref>{{cite web|last=Brink|first=Stefan|title=Scandinavian Slavery|date=2021-09-23|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197532355.003.0004|work=Thraldom|pages=70–76|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/oso/9780197532355.003.0004|isbn=978-0-19-753235-5|access-date=2021-11-22}}</ref>
A fundamental part of Viking activity was the sale and taking of captives.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Heebøll-Holm|first=Thomas K.|date=2020-06-04|title=Piratical slave-raiding – the demise of a Viking practice in high medieval Denmark|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2020.1748106|journal=Scandinavian Journal of History|volume=46|issue=4|pages=431–454|doi=10.1080/03468755.2020.1748106|s2cid=219919380|issn=0346-8755}}</ref> The thralls were mostly from Western Europe, among them many [[Franks]], [[Anglo-Saxons]], and [[Celts]].
Many Irish slaves were brought on expeditions for the colonization of [[Iceland]].<ref>See [http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/iceland/history.html Iceland History]</ref>
Raids on monasteries provided a source of young, educated slaves who could be sold in Venice or Byzantium for high prices.
Scandinavian trade centers stretched eastwards from [[Hedeby]] in Denmark and [[Birka]] in Sweden to [[Staraya Ladoga]] in northern Russia before the end of the 8th century.<ref name="valante" /> The collection of slaves was a by-product of conflict. The [[Annales Fuldenses|Annals of Fulda]] recorded that Franks who had been defeated by a group of Vikings in 880 CE were taken as captives after being defeated.<ref>{{Citation|last=Reuter|first=Timothy|title=The text – The Annals of Fulda|date=2013-01-01|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7765/9781526112736.00009|work=The Annals of Fulda|pages=88|publisher=Manchester University Press|doi=10.7765/9781526112736.00009|isbn=9781526112736|access-date=2021-11-22}}</ref> Viking groups would have political conflicts that also resulted in the taking of captives.<ref>{{cite book|last=E.g. Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill|title=The Annals of Ulster, to AD 1131|publisher=Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies|year=1983|location=Dublin|pages=311}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Tschan|editor-first=Francis J.|title=Adam of Bremen. History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=1959|location=New York|pages=190, bk. 4, ch.6}}</ref>
This traffic continued into the 9th century as Scandinavians founded more trade centers at Kaupang in southwestern Norway and Novgorod, farther south than Staraya Ladoga, and Kiev, farther south still and closer to Byzantium. Dublin and other northwestern European Viking settlements were established as gateways through which captives were traded northwards.Thralls could be bought and sold at slave markets. An account from the [[Laxdæla saga|Laxdoela Saga]] spoke of how during the 10th century there would be a meeting of kings every third year on The Branno Islands where negotiations and trades for slaves would take place.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hermann.|first=Magnusson, Magnus. Palsson|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/223343478|title=Laxdaela saga ; Translated with an introduction by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson.|date=1969|publisher=Penguin|pages=64|oclc=223343478}}</ref> Though slaves could be bought and sold, it was more common to sell captives from other nations.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Krag|first=Claus|date=1982|title=Treller og Trellehold|journal=Historisk Tidsskrift 61|volume=no. 3|pages=209–227}}</ref>
The 10th-century Persian traveller [[Ibn Rustah]] described how Swedish Vikings, the [[Varangians]] or [[Rus' Khaganate|Rus]], terrorized and enslaved the [[East Slavs|Slavs]] taken in their raids along the Volga River.<ref>Niels Skyum-Nielsen, "Nordic Slavery in an International Context," ''Medieval Scandinavia'' 11 (1978–79) 126–48</ref>
Slaves were often sold south, to Byzantine or Muslim buyers, via paths such as the [[Volga trade route]].
[[Ahmad ibn Fadlan]] of Baghdad provides an account of the other end of this trade route, namely of [[Volga Vikings]] selling Slavic slaves to middle-eastern merchants.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uib.no/jais/v003ht/03-001-025Montgom1.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001082748/http://www.uib.no/jais/v003ht/03-001-025Montgom1.htm|url-status=dead|title=James E. Montgomery, IBN FAḌLĀN AND THE RŪSIYYAH|archive-date=1 October 2013|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
Finland proved another source for Viking slave raids.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.medievalists.net/2014/04/medieval-slave-traders-go-finland/|title=Why did Medieval Slave Traders go to Finland?|date=17 April 2014}}</ref>
Slaves from Finland or Baltic states were traded as far as central Asia.<ref>Medieval slave trade routes in Eastern Europe extended from Finland and the Baltic Countries to Central Asia [http://www.uef.fi/en/-/ita-euroopan-orjakaupan-reitit-ulottuivat-keskiajalla-suomesta-ja-baltiasta-keski-aasiaan]</ref><ref>Korpela, Jukka. The Baltic Finnic People in the Medieval and Pre-Modern Eastern European Slave Trade, in 'Russian History, Volume 41, Issue 1' p. 85-117 [http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18763316-04101006]</ref> Captives may have been traded far within the Viking trade network, and within that network, it was possible to be sold again. In the Life of St. Findan, the Irishman was bought and sold three times after being taken captive by a Viking group.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Somerville|first=Angus A., trans.|title=The Viking Age: A Reader|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=2014|location=Toronto|pages=195–198}}</ref>
[[File:Mongol Empire map 2.gif|thumb|Expansion of the Mongol Empire]]
=== Mongols ===
The [[Mongol invasions]] and conquests in the 13th century added a new force in the slave trade. The Mongols enslaved skilled individuals, [[women]] and children and marched them to [[Karakorum]] or [[Sarai (city)|Sarai]], whence they were sold throughout [[Eurasia]]. Many of these slaves were shipped to the slave market in [[Novgorod Republic|Novgorod]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/rubruck.html|title=William of Rubruck's Account of the Mongols|website=depts.washington.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://geocities.com/medievalnovgorod/nov10.html|title=Life in 13th Century Novgorod – Women and Class Structure|date=26 October 2009|access-date=24 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091026193520/http://geocities.com/medievalnovgorod/nov10.html|archive-date=26 October 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=477|title=The Effects of the Mongol Empire on Russia|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
[[Republic of Genoa|Genoese]] and [[Republic of Venice|Venetians]] merchants in Crimea were involved in the slave trade with the [[Golden Horde]].<ref name="dictslave"/><ref name="lughod"/> In 1441, [[Haci I Giray]] declared independence from the Golden Horde and established the [[Crimean Khanate]]. For a long time, until the early 18th century, the khanate maintained a massive{{Clarify|reason=vague|date=May 2016}} slave trade with the [[Ottoman Empire]] and the Middle East. In a process called the "harvesting of the [[steppe]]", they enslaved many Slavic peasants.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.avalanchepress.com/Soldier_Khan.php|title=Avalanche Press|website=avalanchepress.com|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
=== Great Britain and Ireland ===
In medieval [[Ireland]], as a commonly traded commodity slaves could like cattle become a form of internal or trans-border currency.<ref>
{{cite book |last1 = Campbelly
|first1 = Jamesetta
|chapter = Part I: The Romans to the Norman Conquest, 500 BC – AD 1066
|editor1-last = Clark
|editor1-first = Jonathan
|editor1-link = J. C. D. Clark
|title = A World by Itself: A History of the British Isles
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UN8CAR5EEmgC
|publisher = Random House
|date = 2011
|page = [https://archive.org/details/worldbyitselfhis0000clar/page/23 23]
|isbn = 9780712664967
|quote = Whatever currency was in use [in Ireland in antiquity], it was not coin – as in other pre-coin economies, there was a system of conventional valuations in which female slaves, for example, were important units.
|url-access = registration
|url = https://archive.org/details/worldbyitselfhis0000clar/page/23
}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite book
| last1 = Keenan
| first1 = Desmond
| title = The True Origins of Irish Society
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=k2Ol_XFFH_oC
| publisher = Xlibris Corporation
| date = 2004
| page = 152
| isbn = 9781465318695
| quote = For the slave raiders, slaves were a valuable currency. You could sell them to buy wine and other luxury goods. There was always a market for them. There was always an unending supply of them, if only you were stronger than your neighbour. [...] For the Irish, slave-raiding was a lucrative extension to the cattle-raiding.
}}
</ref> In 1102, the [[Council of London in 1102|Council of London]] convened by [[Anselm of Canterbury]] obtained a resolution against the [[Slavery in Britain|slave trade in England]] which was aimed mainly at the sale of English slaves [[Slavery in Ireland|to the Irish]].<ref>{{citation |last=Crawley |first=John J. |year=1910 |url=http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/ANSELM.HTM |title=Lives of the Saints |publisher=John J. Crawley & Co.}}</ref>
=== Christians holding Muslim slaves ===
Although the primary flow of slaves was toward Muslim countries, as evident in the [[history of slavery in the Muslim world]], Christians did acquire Muslim slaves; in Southern France, in the 13th century, "the enslavement of Muslim captives was still fairly common".<ref>{{cite book|title=Aucassin and Nicolette|first=Robert S. |last=Sturges|publisher=Michigan State UP|isbn=9781611861570|year=2015|location=East Lansing|page=xv}}</ref>
There are records, for example, of Saracen slave girls sold in [[Marseilles]] in 1248,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1248serfs5.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks Project|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> a date which coincided with the fall of [[Seville]] and its surrounding area, to raiding Christian crusaders, an event during which a large number of Muslim women from this area were enslaved as war booty, as it has been recorded in some Arabic poetry, notably by the poet [[Salih ben Sharif al-Rundi|al-Rundi]], who was contemporary to the events.
Additionally, the possession of slaves was legal in 13th century Italy; many Christians held Muslim slaves throughout the country. These Saracen slaves were often captured by pirates and brought to Italy from North Africa or Spain. During the 13th century, most of the slaves in the Italian trade city of [[Genoa]] were of Muslim origin. These Muslim slaves were owned by royalty, military orders or groups, independent entities, and the church itself.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Anne Taylor|first=Julie|date=2007-04-01|title=Freedom and Bondage among Muslims in Southern Italy during the Thirteenth Century|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/13602000701308889|journal=Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs|volume=27|issue=1|pages=72–73|doi=10.1080/13602000701308889|s2cid=216117913|issn=1360-2004}}</ref>
Christians also sold [[Islam by country|Muslim]] slaves captured in war. The Order of the [[Knights Hospitaller|Knights of Malta]] attacked pirates and Muslim shipping, and their base became a center for slave trading, selling captured [[North Africans]] and [[Turkish people|Turks]]. [[Malta]] remained a slave market until well into the late 18th century. One thousand slaves were required to man the galleys (ships) of the Order.<ref>{{cite journal|title=A medical service for slaves in Malta during the rule of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.|first=P|last=Cassar|date=24 July 1968|journal=Medical History|volume=12|issue=3|pages=270–277|pmid=4875614 |pmc=1033829 |doi=10.1017/s0025727300013314}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hmml.org/centers/malta/hospitallers/hospitallers.html |title=Brief History of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem |publisher=Hmml.org |date=23 September 2010 |access-date=4 December 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090112130548/http://www.hmml.org/centers/malta/hospitallers/hospitallers.html |archive-date=12 January 2009}}</ref>
While they would at times seize Muslims as slaves, it was more likely that Christian armies would kill their enemies, rather than take them into servitude.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Zilfi|first=Madeline C.|date=2016-11-25|title=Mediterranean Slavery Revisited (500-1800): Neue Perspektiven auf Mediterrane Sklaverei (500-1800), written by Stefan Hanss and Juliane Schiel|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jemh/20/6/article-p592_6.xml|journal=Journal of Early Modern History|language=en|volume=20|issue=6|pages=594–595|doi=10.1163/15700658-00200006-05|issn=1385-3783}}</ref>
=== Slave trade at the close of the Middle Ages ===
As more and more of Europe [[Christianization|Christianized]], and open hostilities between Christian and Muslim nations intensified, large-scale slave trade moved to more distant sources.
Sending slaves to Egypt, for example, was forbidden by the papacy in 1317, 1323, 1329,
1338, and, finally, 1425, as slaves sent to Egypt would often become soldiers, and end up fighting their former Christian owners.
Although the repeated bans indicate that such trade still occurred, they also indicate that it became less desirable.<ref name="dictslave"/>
In the 16th century, African slaves replaced almost all other ethnicities and religious enslaved groups in Europe.<ref>Klein, Herbert. ''The Atlantic Slave Trade''.</ref>
==Slavery in law==
{{more citations needed section|date=April 2013}}
===Secular law===
Slavery was heavily regulated in [[Roman law]], which was reorganized in the [[Byzantine Empire]] by [[Justinian I]] as the [[Corpus Iuris Civilis]]. Although the Corpus was lost to the West for centuries, it was rediscovered in the 11th and 12th centuries, and led to the foundation of law schools in Italy and France. According to the Corpus, the natural state of humanity is freedom, but the "law of nations" may supersede natural law and reduce certain people to slavery. The basic definition of slave in Romano-Byzantine law was:<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/535institutes.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
*anyone whose mother was a slave
*anyone who has been captured in battle
*anyone who has sold himself to pay a debt
It was, however, possible to become a freedman or a full citizen; the Corpus, like Roman law, had extensive and complicated rules for [[manumission]] of slaves.
The slave trade in England was officially abolished in 1102.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britsattheirbest.com/freedom/f_time_12th_century.htm|title=BRITISH HISTORY THE STORY of FREEDOM LIBERTY! THE TIMELINE Freedom & justice go hand in hand|website=britsattheirbest.com|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
In [[Poland]] slavery was forbidden in the 15th century; it was replaced by the second enserfment. In [[Lithuania]], slavery was formally abolished in 1588.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24160|title=Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to History|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
===Canon law===
In fact, there was an explicit legal justification given for the enslavement of Muslims, found in the [[Decretum Gratiani]] and later expanded upon by the 14th century jurist [[Oldradus de Ponte]]: the Bible states that [[Hagar (Bible)|Hagar]], the slave girl of [[Abraham]], was beaten and cast out by Abraham’s wife [[Sarah]].
The Decretum, like the Corpus, defined a slave as anyone whose mother was a slave. Otherwise, the canons were concerned with slavery only in ecclesiastical contexts: slaves were not permitted to marry or to be ordained as clergy.
==Slavery in the Byzantine Empire==
{{main|Slavery in the Byzantine Empire}}
==Slavery in the Crusader states==
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.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Allen, S. J. (Susan Jane), 1959–|title=An introduction to the crusades|date=4 May 2017|isbn=978-1-4426-0023-2|location=North York, Ontario, Canada|oclc=983482121}}</ref>
In the [[crusade]]r [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]], founded in 1099, at most 120,000 Franks ruled over 350,000 Muslims, Jews, and native Eastern Christians.<ref>Benjamin Z. Kedar, "The Subjected Muslims of the Frankish Levant", in ''The Crusades: The Essential Readings'', ed. [[Thomas F. Madden]], Blackwell, 2002, p. 244. Originally published in ''Muslims Under Latin Rule, 1100–1300'', ed. James M. Powell, Princeton University Press, 1990. Kedar quotes his numbers from [[Joshua Prawer]], ''Histoire du royaume latin de Jérusalem'', tr. G. Nahon, Paris, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 498, 568–72.</ref> Following the initial invasion and conquest, sometimes accompanied by massacres or expulsions of Jews and Muslims, a peaceable co-existence between followers of the three religions prevailed.<ref>[[Christopher Tyerman]], ''God’s War, A new History of the Crusades'' pp. 226–228. quote = "Just as non-muslim communities survived under Islam, so non-Christians lived unfree but largely unmolested in Frankish outremer. After the early massacres, displacements and expulsions of Muslims and Jews from conquered cities, coexistence, rather than integration or persecution prevailed ... At Acre, where the two faiths shared a converted mosque as well as a suburban shrine, Muslim visitors were treated fairly and efficiently. Mosques still operated openly in Tyre and elsewhere."</ref> The Crusader states inherited many slaves. To this may have been added some Muslims taken as captives of war. The Kingdom’s largest city, [[Akko|Acre]], had a large slave market; however, the vast majority of Muslims and Jews remained free. The laws of Jerusalem declared that former Muslim slaves, if genuine converts to Christianity, must be freed.<ref>Christopher Tyerman, ''God’s War, A new History of the Crusades,'' p. 230.</ref>
In 1120, the [[Council of Nablus]] forbade sexual relations between crusaders and their female Muslim slaves:<ref name="Hans E. Mayer 1982 pp. 531-533">Hans E. Mayer, "The Concordat of Nablus" ([[Journal of Ecclesiastical History]] 33 (October 1982)), pp. 531–533.</ref> 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.<ref name="Hans E. Mayer 1982 pp. 531-533"/> 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.<ref>Benjamin Z. Kedar, ''On the origins of the earliest laws of Frankish Jerusalem: The canons of the Council of Nablus, 1120'' (''[[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]]'' 74, 1999), pp. 330–331; Marwan Nader, ''Burgesses and Burgess Law in the Latin Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1099–1325) (Ashgate: 2006), pg. 45.</ref>
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.<ref name=":0"/> 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.<ref name=":0" />
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==
[[File:Iberia1300.png|thumb|Iberia in AD 1300. (Partially based on Euratlas map of Europe, 1300.)]]
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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=D.|first=Phillips, William|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/913510589|title=Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia|date=2014|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4491-5|pages=20|oclc=913510589}}</ref> Christianity had introduced the ethos that banned the enslavement of fellow Christians, an ethos that was reinforced by the banning of the enslavement of co-religionists during the rise of Islam.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fynn-Paul|first=Jeffrey|title=Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era|date=2009|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40586930|journal=Past & Present|issue=205|pages=13|jstor=40586930|issn=0031-2746}}</ref> Additionally, the [[Dar al-islam|Dar al-Islam]] protected ‘people of the book’ (Christians and Jews living in Islamic lands) from enslavement, an immunity which also applied to Muslims living in Christian Iberia. Despite these restrictions, criminal or indebted Muslims and Christians in both regions were still subject to judicially-sanctioned slavery.<ref>{{Citation|last=Fynn-Paul|first=Jeffrey|title=Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004346611_021|work=Critical Readings on Global Slavery (4 vols.)|year=2017|pages=553–587|publisher=Brill|doi=10.1163/9789004346611_021|isbn=9789004346611|access-date=2021-12-06}}</ref>
[[File:Al-Andalus732.svg|thumb|Al-Andalus in 732.]]
===Slavery in Al-Andalus===
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.<ref>Fynn-Paul, p. 26.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jankowiak|first=Marek|date=2017-01-20|title=What Does the Slave Trade in the Saqaliba Tell Us about Early Islamic Slavery?|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743816001240|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=49|issue=1|pages=171|doi=10.1017/s0020743816001240|s2cid=165127852|issn=0020-7438}}</ref> Forming relations between the Umayyads, Khārijites and 'Abbāsids, the flow of trafficked people from the main routes of the Sahara towards [[Al-Andalus]]<ref>Gaiser, A. (2014) "Slaves and Silver across the Strait of Gibraltar: Politics and Trade between Umayyad Iberia and Khārijite North Africa" in Liang, Y.G. et al. (eds.) Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean, Leiden: Brill, pp. 42.</ref> 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.<ref>Gaiser, A. (2014) "Slaves and Silver across the Strait of Gibraltar: Politics and Trade between Umayyad Iberia and Khārijite North Africa" in Liang, Y.G. et al. (eds.) Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean, Leiden: Brill, pp. 44.</ref> This monetary structure of consistent gold influx proved to be a tenet in the development of Islamic commerce.<ref>Gutierrez, J. and Valor, M. (2014) "Trade, Transport and Travel" in Valor, M. and Gutierrez, A. (eds.) The Archaeology of Medieval Spain 1100–1500, Sheffield: Equinox, pp. 124.</ref> In this regard, the slave trade outperformed and was the most commercially successful venture for maximizing capital.<ref>Gaiser, A. (2014) "Slaves and Silver across the Strait of Gibraltar: Politics and Trade between Umayyad Iberia and Khārijite North Africa" in Liang, Y.G. et al. (eds.) Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean, Leiden: Brill, pp. 45.</ref> 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 [[Iberian Peninsula]] was the scene of episodic [[warfare]] among Muslims and Christians (although sometimes Muslims and Christians were allies). Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from [[Al-Andalus]] to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back booty and people. For example, in a raid on [[Lisbon]] in 1189 the [[Almohad]] caliph [[Yaqub al-Mansur]] took 3,000 female and child captives, and his governor of [[Córdoba, Spain|Córdoba]] took 3,000 Christian slaves in a subsequent attack upon [[Silves Municipality, Portugal|Silves]] in 1191; an offensive by [[Alfonso VIII of Castile]] in 1182 brought him over two-thousand Muslim slaves.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://libro.uca.edu/rc/rc1.htm|title=Ransoming Captives, Chapter One|website=libro.uca.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> These raiding expeditions also included the Sa’ifa (summer) incursions, a tradition produced during the Amir reign of Cordoba. In addition to acquiring wealth, some of these Sa’ifa raids sought to bring mostly male captives, often eunuchs, back to Al-Andalus. They were generically referred to as [[Saqaliba]], the Arab word for Slavs.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wenner|first=Manfred W.|date=1980|title=The Arab/Muslim Presence in Medieval Central Europe|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743800027136|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=12|issue=1|pages=62, 63|doi=10.1017/s0020743800027136|issn=0020-7438}}</ref> Slavs’ status as the most common group in the slave trade by the tenth century led to the development of the word “slave.”<ref>Phillips, p. 17.</ref> The Saqaliba were mostly assigned to palaces as guards, concubines, and eunuchs, although they were sometimes privately owned.<ref>Jankowiak, p. 169.</ref> Along with Christians and Slavs, Sub-Saharan Africans were also held as slaves, brought back from the caravan trade in the Sahara. Slaves in Islamic lands were generally used for domestic, military, and administrative purposes, rarely used for agriculture or large-scale manufacturing. Christians living in Al-Andalus were not allowed to hold authority over Muslims, but they were permitted to hold non-Muslim slaves.<ref>Phillips, p. 18.</ref>
===Slavery in Christian Iberia===
Contrary to suppositions of historians such as [[Marc Bloch]], slavery thrived as an institution in medieval Christian Iberia.{{Citation needed|date=January 2016}} 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 [[Visigothic Kingdom|Christian Visigothic Kingdoms]], whose rulers worked to codify human bondage. In the 7th century, [[Chindasuinth|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.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scott|first1=S.P.|title=The Visigothic Code|url=http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-2.pdf|website=The Library of Iberian Resources Online|location=Book III, Title II, Section III}}</ref>
Unlike [[Roman law]], in which only slaves were liable to corporal punishment,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kamen|first=Deborah|year=2010|title=A Corpus of Inscriptions: representing slave marks in Antiquity.|journal=Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome|publisher=University of Michigan Press|volume=55|pages=95–110|jstor=41419689}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Scott|first1=S.P.|title=The Visigothic Code|url=http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-4.pdf|website=The Library of Iberian References Online|location=Book III, Title IV, Section VI}}</ref> 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 [[Umayyad conquest of Hispania|Umayyad invasions]] in the 8th century, and the Visigothic law codes continued to control slave ownership. However, as William Phillips notes, medieval Iberia should not be thought of as a slave society, but rather as a society that owned slaves.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Phillips|first1=William|title=Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia|date=2014|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|page=10}}</ref> Slaves accounted for a relatively small percentage of the population, and did not make up a significant portion of the labor pool. Furthermore, while the existence of slavery continued from the earlier period, the use of slaves in post-Visigothic Christian Iberia differed from early periods. Ian Wood has suggests that, under the Visigoths, the majority of the slave population lived and worked on rural estates.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wood|first1=Ian|chapter=Social Relations in the Visigothic Kingdom from the Fifth to the Seventh Century|title=The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective|date=1999|publisher=Boydell Press|location=Woodbridge|page=195}}</ref>
After the Muslim invasions, slave owners (especially in the kingdoms of [[Kingdom of Aragon|Aragon]] and [[Kingdom of Valencia|Valencia]]) moved away from using slaves as field laborers or in work gangs, and did not press slaves into military service.<ref name="Phillips 19">Phillips p.19</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Saunders|first1=A.C. de C.M.|title=A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal: 1441–1555|date=1982|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|pages=84–85}}</ref><ref name="Phillips 19" /> In this respect, slave institutions in Aragon, especially, closely resembled those of other Mediterranean Christian kingdoms in France and Italy.<ref>Phiilps pages 14–15, 19</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Blumenthal|first1=Debra|title=Enemies and Familiars: Slavery and Mastery in Fifteenth-Century Valencia|url=https://archive.org/details/enemiesfamiliars00blum|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=2009|pages=[https://archive.org/details/enemiesfamiliars00blum/page/2 2]–3|isbn=9780801445026}}</ref>
In the kingdoms of [[Kingdom of Leon|León]] and [[Kingdom of Castile|Castile]], slavery followed the Visigothic model more closely than in the littoral kingdoms. Slaves in León and Castile were more likely to be employed as field laborers, supplanting free labor to support an aristocratic estate society.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barton|first1=Simon|title=The Aristocracy of Twelfth-Century Leon and Castile|date=1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=83}}</ref> These trends in slave populations and use changed in the wake of the Black Death in 1348, which significantly increased the demand for slaves across the whole of the peninsula.<ref>Phillips p.21</ref>
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Roth|first1=Norman|title=Jews, Visigoths & Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict|date=1994|publisher=Brill|location=Leiden|pages=160–161}}</ref><ref>Phillips pp.20–21</ref> 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.<ref>Roth pp.156, 160</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
This role caused some degree of fear among Christian populations. A letter from [[Pope Gregory XI]] to the Bishop of [[Cordoba, Andalusia|Cordoba]] in 1239 addressed rumors that the Jews were involved in kidnapping and selling Christian women and children into slavery while their husbands were away fighting the Muslims.<ref name="ReferenceA">Roth p.160</ref> Despite these worries, the primary role of Jewish slave traders lay in facilitating the exchange of captives between Muslim and Christian rulers, one of the primary threads of economic and political connectivity between Christian and Muslim Iberia.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Broadman|first1=James William|title=Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier|date=1986|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|page=passim}}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref>{{cite book|last1=Miller|first1=Kathryn|editor1-last=Trivellato|editor1-first=Francesca|editor2-last=Halevi|editor2-first=Leor|editor3-last=Antunes|editor3-first=Catia|title=Religion and Trade: Cross Cultural Exchanges in World History, 1000–1900|date=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|pages=131–159|chapter="Reflections on Reciprocity: A Late Medieval Islamic Perspective on Christian-Muslim Commitment to Captive Exchange."}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Constable|first1=Olivia|title=Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500|date=1994|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=47}}</ref> Most were Eastern European, captured in battles and raids, with the heavy majority being [[Slavs]].<ref>Phillips p.17</ref> 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]].<ref>Phillips p.61</ref>
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.<ref>Broadman p.6</ref> The sale of Muslim captives, either back to the Islamic southern states or to third-party slave brokers, supplied one of the means by which Aragon and Castile financed the [[Reconquista]]. Battles and sieges provided large numbers of captives; after the siege of [[Almeria]] in 1147, sources report that [[Alfonso VII of León]] sent almost 10,000 of the city’s Muslim women and children to Genoa to be sold into slavery as partial repayment of Genoese assistance in the campaign.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Phillips|first1=Jonathan|title=The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom|date=2007|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=260}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=O'Callaghan|first1=Joseph F.|title=Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain|date=2003|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|page=140}}</ref>
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.<ref>Phillips pp.60–61</ref> 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 black Africans.<ref>Blumenthal p.20</ref><ref>Saunders pp.5–7</ref>
Between 1489 and 1497 almost 2,100 black slaves were shipped from Portugal to Valencia.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite book|last1=Lawrance|first1=Jeremey|author-link1=Jeremy Lawrance|editor1-last=Earle|editor1-first=T.F.|editor2-last=Lowe|editor2-first=K.J.P.|title=Black Africans in Renaissance Europe|date=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=70|chapter=Black Africans in Renaissance Spanish Literature}}</ref><ref name="auto3">Saunders p.29</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> In the mid 16th century Spain imported up to 2,000 black African slaves annually through Portugal, and by 1565 most of [[Seville|Seville’s]] 6,327 slaves (out of a total population of 85,538) were black Africans.<ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref name="auto3"/>
==Slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia==
{{main|Slavery in Romania}}
'''Slavery''' existed on the territory of present-day [[Romania]] while under [[Ottoman Empire|The Ottoman Empire]] and [[Russian Empire]] rulership, from before the founding of the principalities of [[Wallachia]] and [[Moldavia]] in 13th–14th century, until it was [[Abolitionism|abolished]] in stages during the 1840s and 1850s before the independence of the [[United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia]] was allowed, and also until 1783, in [[Transylvania]] and [[Bukovina]] (parts of the [[Habsburg monarchy]] and later [[Austria-Hungary|The Austria-Hungarian Empire]]). Most slaves were of [[Roma minority in Romania|Roma]] (Gypsy) ethnicity and a significant number of ''Rumâni''[https://ro.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumâni_(categorie_socială)] in [[Serfdom]] slavery.
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.<ref>Viorel Achim, The Roma in Romanian History, [[Central European University Press]], Budapest, 2004, {{ISBN|963-9241-84-9}}</ref>
While it is possible that some Romani people were slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars and [[Nogai Horde]], the bulk of them came from south of the [[Danube]] at the end of the 14th century, some time before the [[foundation of Wallachia]].
The [[Nogai Horde]] along with the [[Crimean Khanate]] raided settlements in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Poland. The slaves were captured in southern Russia, [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth|Poland-Lithuania]], [[Moldavia]], [[Wallachia]], and [[Circassia]] by [[Tatars|Tatar]] horsemen in a trade known as the "harvesting of the steppe". In [[Podolia]] alone, about one-third of all the villages were destroyed or abandoned between 1578 and 1583. Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate.
The Roma slaves were owned by the [[Boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia|boyars]] (see [[Wallachian Revolution of 1848]]), the Christian Orthodox monasteries, or the state. They were used only as smiths, [[Gold panning|gold panners]] and as agricultural workers.
The Rumâni were only owned by [[Boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia|Boyars]] and [[Romanian Orthodox Church|Monasteries]], until the [[Independence of Romania]] from the [[Ottoman Empire]] on 9th of May 1877. They were considered less valuable because they were taxable, only skilled at agricultural work and couldn't be used at tribute.
It was common for both boyars and monasteries to register their Romanian [[Serfdom|serfs]] as "Gypsies" so that they would not pay the taxes that were imposed on the serfs.<ref>Marushiakova and Vesselin, p. 103</ref> Any Romanian, regardless of gender, marrying a Roma would immediately become a slave that could be used as tribute.
==Slavery in the Medieval Near East==
The ancient and medieval [[Near East]] includes modern day Turkey, the Levant and Egypt, with strong connections to the rest of the north African coastline. All of these areas were ruled by either the Byzantines or the Persians at the end of late antiquity. Pre-existing Byzantine (i.e. Roman) and Persian institutions of slavery may have influenced the development of institutions of slavery in Islamic law and jurisprudence.<ref>Crone, Patricia. Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate. Cambridge University Press, 1987.</ref> Likewise, some scholars have argued for the influence of Rabbinic tradition on the development of Islamic legal thought.<ref>Wegner, J. R. "Islamic and Talmudic Jurisprudence: The Four Roots of Islamic Law and their Talmudic Counterparts," The American Journal of Legal History, 26, 1 (1982): p. 25-71.</ref>
Whatever the relationship between these different legal traditions, many similarities exist between the practice of Islamic slavery in the early Middle Ages and the practices of early medieval Byzantines and western Europeans. The status of freed slaves under Islamic rule, who continued to owe services to their former masters, bears a strong similarity to ancient Roman and Greek institutions. However, the practice of slavery in the early medieval Near East also grew out of slavery practices in currency among pre-Islamic Arabs.<ref>Lewis, Bernard, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 4.</ref>
Like the Old and New Testaments and Greek and Roman law codes, the Quran takes the institution of slavery for granted, though it urges kindness toward slaves and eventual manumission, especially for slaves who convert to Islam.<ref>Lewis, 1990, p. 5.</ref>
In early Middle Ages, many slaves in Islamic society served as such for only a short period of time—perhaps an average of seven years.<ref>Wright, John, ''The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade''. Routledge, 2007, p. 2.</ref> Like their European counterparts, early medieval Islamic slave traders preferred slaves who were not co-religionists and hence focused on "pagans" from inner Asia, Europe, and especially from sub-Saharan Africa.<ref name="Wright, 2007, p. 3">Wright, 2007, p. 3.</ref> The practice of manumission may have contributed to the integration of former slaves into the wider society. However, under [[sharia]] law, conversion to Islam did not necessitate manumission.<ref>Wright, 2007, p. 4.</ref>
Slaves were employed in heavy labor as well as in domestic contexts. Because of Quranic sanction of concubinage,<ref>IV:3, XXIII:6; XXXIII:50–52; LXX:30</ref> early Islamic traders, in contrast to Byzantine and early modern slave traders, imported large numbers of female slaves.<ref>Ali, Kecia. Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Harvard University Press, 2010; Wright, 2007, p. 3.</ref> The very earliest Islamic states did not create corps of slave soldiers (a practice familiar from later contexts) but did integrate freedmen into armies, which may have contributed to the rapid expansion of early Islamic conquest.<ref>Lewis, 1990, p. 62.</ref> By the 9th century, use of slaves in Islamic armies, particularly Turks in cavalry units and Africans in infantry units, was a relatively common practice.<ref>Bacharach, Jere L., "African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East: The Cases of Iraq (869–955) and Egypt (868–1171)." International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Nov., 1981) 471–495.</ref><ref>Savage, E., "Berbers and Blacks: Ibadi Slave Traffic in Eighth-Century North Africa", ''The Journal of African History'', Vol. 33, No. 3 (1992), 351–368.</ref>
In Egypt, [[Ahmad ibn Tulun]] imported thousands of black slaves to wrestle independence from the [[Abbasid Caliphate]] in Iraq in 868.<ref>Yaacov Lev, David Ayalon (1914–1998) and the history of Black Military Slavery in medieval Islam, Der Islam 90.1 (January 2013): Accessed 22 November 2014, doi: [http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE%7CA330005344&v=2.1&u=nysl_sc_cornl&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1]</ref> The [[Ikhshidid dynasty]] used black slave units to liberate itself from Abbasid rule after the Abbasids destroyed ibn Tulun’s autonomous empire in 935.<ref name="Lev, David Ayalon">Lev, David Ayalon</ref> Black professional soldiers were most associated with the [[Fatimid Caliphate|Fatimid dynasty]], which incorporated more professional black soldiers than the previous two dynasties.<ref name="Lev, David Ayalon"/> It was the Fatimids who first incorporated black professional slave soldiers into the cavalry, despite massive opposition from Central Asian Turkish [[Mamluk]]s, who saw the African contingent as a threat to their role as the leading military unit in the Egyptian army.<ref name="Lev, David Ayalon"/>
In the later half of the Middle Ages, the expansion of Islamic rule further into the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and Arabian Peninsula established the Saharan-Indian Ocean slave trade.<ref>Jere L. Bacharach, African Military Slaves in the Muslim Middle East. BlackPast.org. Retrieved 20 November 2014. [http://www.blackpast.org/perspectives/african-military-slaves-muslim-middle-east]</ref>
This network was a large market for African slaves, transporting approximately four million African slaves from its 7th century inception to its 20th century demise.<ref>Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East. (Oxford University Press, 1994). Retrieved 19 November 2014. [http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/med/lewis1.asp]</ref> Ironically, the consolidation of borders in the Islamic Near East changed the face of the slave trade.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery">Lewis, Race and Slavery</ref> A rigid Islamic code, coupled with crystallizing frontiers, favored slave purchase and tribute over capture as lucrative slave avenues.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery"/> Even the sources of slaves shifted from the Fertile Crescent and Central Asia to Indochina and the Byzantine Empire.<ref>Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 11</ref>
Patterns of preference for slaves in the Near East, as well as patterns of use, continued into the later Middle Ages with only slight changes. Slaves were employed in many activities, including agriculture, industry, the military, and domestic labor. Women were prioritized over men, and usually served in the domestic sphere as menials, concubines (''[[cariye]]''), or wives.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 14">Lewis, ''Race and Slavery'', p. 14</ref>
Domestic and commercial slaves were mostly better off than their agricultural counterparts, either becoming family members or business partners rather than condemned to a grueling life in a chain gang. There are references to gangs of slaves, mostly African, put to work in drainage projects in Iraq, salt and gold mines in the Sahara, and sugar and cotton plantations in North Africa and Spain. References to this latter type of slavery are rare, however.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 14"/> Eunuchs were the most prized and sought-after type of slave.
The most fortunate slaves found employment in politics or the military. In the Ottoman Empire, the [[Devshirme|Devşrime system]] groomed young slave boys for civil or military service.<ref>Lewis, Race and Slavery, pp. 11–12</ref> Young Christian boys were uprooted from their conquered villages periodically as a levy, and were employed in government, entertainment, or the army, depending on their talents.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery"/> Slaves attained great success from this program, some winning the post of Grand Vizier to the Sultan and others positions in the [[Janissaries]].<ref>Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 12</ref>
It is a bit of a misnomer to classify these men as "slaves", because in the Ottoman Empire, they were referred to as [[Slavery in the Ottoman Empire|kul]], or, slaves "of the Gate", or Sultanate.<ref>Lewis, Race and Slavery, p. 71</ref> 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.<ref name="Lewis, Race and Slavery"/> 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.<ref name="Lev, David Ayalon"/> 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.
== Slavery in the Mediterranean ==
Slavery was a widespread phenomenon across the Mediterranean. The total number of slaves in the Mediterranean has been debated among scholars, but the number of slaves in the Mediterranean was significantly smaller than the 11–12 million people brought to the Americas. One scholar estimated three million slaves were taken between 1500 and 1800. Of those slaves, Christians outnumbered Muslims by two-to-one. These numbers are based on archival sources which outlined how many slaves were freed and captured in battles. One of the challenges of accurately counting the number of slaves in the Mediterranean is the wide variety of regions slaves were taken from and brought to. Additionally, the number of slaves in the Mediterranean was constantly changing, most significantly in periods of warfare.<ref name=":1" /> Slavery in the Mediterranean is often seen as less horrendous and more transitory than Atlantic slave trade to the Americas; however, slavery in the Mediterranean shared many inhumane characteristics with Atlantic slave trade and greatly impacted the Mediterranean region.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=O'Connell, Monique, 1974–|title=The Mediterranean world : from the fall of Rome to the rise of Napoleon|others=Dursteler, Eric|date=23 May 2016|isbn=978-1-4214-1901-5|location=Baltimore|oclc=921240187}}</ref> However, there were some differences. Slaves in America were transported to an entirely new setting without the opportunity to contact their families left behind or the opportunity to gain their freedom.<ref name=":1" />
In the Mediterranean, 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.<ref name=":1" /> The incentive for slavery in the Mediterranean was economic. In fact, the motivation behind many raids was the capturing of people to then enslave and sell or demand ransom for. State and religious institutions frequently participated in the ransoming of individuals, so piracy became a lucrative market. Additionally, this meant some individuals were returned home while others were sold away.<ref name=":1" />
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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Barker|first=Hannah|url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.9783/9780812296488/html|title=That Most Precious Merchandise|date=2019-09-27|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|pages=209–212|language=en|doi=10.9783/9780812296488|isbn=9780812296488|s2cid=219875156}}</ref>
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.<ref name=":1" /> 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.<ref>Barker, p. 211.</ref>
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.<ref name=":1" /> Furthermore, even if freed from their stations, the former masters of these women often maintained power over them by becoming their employers or patrons.<ref>Barker, p. 210.</ref>
===Slavery in the Ottoman Empire===
{{main|Slavery (Ottoman Empire)}}
{{see also|Janissary|Sultanate of Women}}
Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society. The [[Byzantine-Ottoman wars]] and the [[Ottoman wars in Europe]] brought large numbers of Christian slaves into the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Phillips, Jr.|first=William D.|title=Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade|year=1985|publisher=Manchester University Press|location=Manchester|isbn=978-0-7190-1825-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0B8NAQAAIAAJ&q=Byzantine-Ottoman%20wars%20slavery&pg=PA37|page=37}}</ref> In the middle of the 14th century, [[Murad I]] built his own personal slave army called the ''[[Kapıkulu]]''. The new force was based on the sultan’s right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. The captive slaves were converted to [[Islam]] and trained in the sultan’s personal service.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=266205|title=Janissary |website=everything2.com|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
In the ''[[devşirme]]'' (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"), young Christian boys from [[Anatolia]] and the [[Balkans]] were taken away from their homes and families, converted to Islam and enlisted into special soldier classes of the [[Military of the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman army]]. These soldier classes were named [[Janissary|Janissaries]], the most famous branch of the ''Kapıkulu''. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the Ottoman military conquests in Europe.<ref name="auto"/>
Most of the military commanders of the Ottoman forces, imperial administrators and ''de facto'' rulers of the Ottoman Empire, such as [[Pargalı İbrahim Pasha]] and [[Sokollu Mehmet Paşa]], were recruited in this way.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/med/lewis1.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks Project|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://schonwalder.com/Such-n-Such/huns.htm|title=The Turks: History and Culture|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> By 1609 the Sultan’s ''Kapıkulu'' forces increased to about 100,000.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst373/readings/inalcik6.html|title=In the Service of the State and Military Class|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
The [[Imperial Harem|concubines of the Ottoman Sultan]] consisted chiefly of purchased slaves. Because Islamic law forbade Muslims to enslave fellow Muslims, the Sultan’s concubines were generally of Christian origin (''[[cariye]]''). The mother of a Sultan, though technically a slave, received the extremely powerful title of ''Valide Sultan'', and at times became effective ruler of the Empire (see [[Sultanate of women]]). One notable example was [[Kösem Sultan]], daughter of a Greek Christian priest, who dominated the Ottoman Empire during the early decades of the 17th century.<ref>See generally Jay Winik (2007), ''The Great Upheaval''.</ref> Another notable example was [[Roxelana]], the favourite wife of [[Suleiman the Magnificent]].
==Slavery in Poland==
{{main|Slavery in Poland}}
[[File:Lithuanian Statute I.jpg|thumb|205px|The first statute of the [[Statutes of Lithuania]] of 1529, officially banning slavery.]]
Slavery in Poland existed on the territory of [[Kingdom of Poland (Piasts)|Kingdom of Poland]] during the times of the [[Piast dynasty]],<ref name="bardach40-41">Juliusz Bardach, Bogusław Lesnodorski, and Michał Pietrzak, ''Historia państwa i prawa polskiego'' (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1987; p. 40–41</ref> however, slavery was restricted to [[Prisoner of war|POWs]]. In some special cases and for limited periods [[serfdom]] was also applied to debtors.
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 [[Lithuanian Council of Lords]]. It has been proposed that the codification was initiated by [[Grand Chancellor of Lithuania]] [[Mikołaj Radziwiłł (1470–1521)|Mikołaj Radziwiłł]] as a reworking and expansion of the 15th century [[Casimir's Code]].<ref>{{in lang|lt}} E. Gudavičius, [http://ausis.gf.vu.lt/mg/nr/2002/09/09stat.html Stages of the Lithuanian Statute] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927164324/http://ausis.gf.vu.lt/mg/nr/2002/09/09stat.html |date=27 September 2006 }}</ref>
==Slavery in Russia==
{{main|Slavery in Russia}}
In [[Kievan Rus]] and [[Russia]], the slaves were usually classified as [[kholop]]s. 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 [[crime]]s, 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.<ref name="Richard Hellie 1984">[[Richard Hellie]], ''Slavery in Russia, 1450–1725'' (1984)</ref> They worked predominantly as household servants, among the richest families, and indeed generally produced less than they consumed.<ref>Carolyn Johnston Pouncey, ''The [[Domostroy|Domostroi]]: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible'', p15 {{ISBN|0-8014-9689-6}}</ref> Laws forbade the freeing of slaves in times of famine, to avoid feeding them, and slaves generally remained with the family a long time; the ''[[Domostroy]]'', an advice book, speaks of the need to choose slaves of good character and to provide for them properly.<ref>Carolyn Johnston Pouncey, ''The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible'', p33 {{ISBN|0-8014-9689-6}}</ref> Slavery remained a major institution in [[Russia]] until 1723, when [[Peter the Great]] converted the household slaves into house [[serfs]]. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into [[Serfdom in Russia|serfs]] earlier in 1679.<ref name="Richard Hellie 1984"/>
In 1382 the Golden Horde under Khan [[Tokhtamysh]] sacked [[Moscow]], burning the city and carrying off thousands of inhabitants as slaves. For years the [[Khanate of Kazan|Khanates of Kazan]] and [[Astrakhan Khanate|Astrakhan]] routinely made raids on Russian principalities for
slaves and to plunder towns. Russian chronicles record about 40 raids of [[List of Kazan khans|Kazan Khans]] on the Russian territories in the first half of the 16th century.<ref>The Full Collection of the Russian Annals, vol.13, SPb, 1904</ref> In 1521, the combined forces of Crimean Khan [[Mehmed I Giray]] and his Kazan allies attacked Moscow and captured thousands of slaves.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=The_Crimean_Khanate|title=The Tatar Khanate of Crimea – All Empires|website=allempires.com}}</ref> About 30 major Tatar raids were recorded into [[Tsardom of Russia|Muscovite]] territories between 1558 and 1596.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst373/readings/inalcik6.html|title=Supply of Slaves|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin and taking thousands of captives as slaves.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.economist.com/cities/printStory.cfm?obj_id=9141603&city_id=MCW|title=Gulliver|newspaper=[[The Economist]]|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref> In [[Crimea]], about 75% of the population consisted of slaves.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24157|title=Historical survey > Slave societies (broken link)|access-date=24 December 2019}}</ref>
==Slavery in Scandinavia==
{{main|Thrall}}
[[File:LSR Wikinger - Sklavenfessel.jpg|thumb|Viking-era slave chains
]]
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.<ref name=":6">{{cite book|last=Iversen|first=Frode|title=Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, Volume I|publisher=Routledge|year=2019|isbn=9780429262210|pages=60–79|language=English}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Raffield|first=Ben|date=December 2019|title=The Slave Markets of the Viking World: Comparative Perspectives on an 'Invisible Archaeology |doi=10.1080/0144039X.2019.1592976|journal=Slavery & Abolition 40, No. 4|volume=no. 4|issue=4|pages=682–705|s2cid=151255018}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":3" /> It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. According to the Law of Scania<ref name=":7">{{cite book|last1=Tamm|first1=Ditlev|title=The Danish medieval laws : the laws of Scania, Zealand and Jutland|last2=Vogt|first2=Helle|publisher=Routledge medieval translations|year=2016|isbn=9781315646374|location=London|language=English}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":7" /> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Peel|first=Christine|title=Guta Lag and Guta Saga : the Law and History of the Gotlanders|publisher=Routledge|year=2015|isbn=9781315735863|location=London|language=English}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":7" /> Yet, for all their independence, any children of fostre or fostra were still property of their masters.<ref name=":3" /> A freed slave did not have full legal status; for example, the punishment for killing a former slave was low It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. 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.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Karras|first=Ruth|title=Concubinage and Slavery in the Viking Age|date=1990|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40919117|journal=Scandinavian Studies|volume=62|issue=2|pages=141–162|jstor=40919117|via=JSTOR}}</ref> 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<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":6" /> The Norwegian law code from 1274, ''[[Landslov]]'' (Land’s law), does not mention slaves, but former slaves. Thus it seems like slavery was abolished in Norway by this time. In Sweden, slavery was abolished in 1343.
==Slavery in the British Isles==
{{main|Slavery in Britain|Slavery in Ireland}}
British [[medieval Wales|Wales]] and Gaelic [[medieval Ireland (disambiguation)|Ireland]] and [[medieval Scotland|Scotland]] were among the last areas of Christian Europe to give up their institution of slavery. Under Gaelic custom, prisoners of war were routinely taken as slaves. During the period that slavery was disappearing across most of western Europe, it was reaching its height in the British Isles: the Viking invasions and the subsequent warring between Scandinavians and the natives, the number of captives taken as slaves drastically increased. The Irish church was vehemently opposed to slavery and blamed the 1169 [[Norman invasion of Ireland|Norman invasion]] on divine punishment for the practice, along with local acceptance of [[polygyny]] and [[divorce]].
==Serfdom versus slavery==
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/70 70]–71|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> 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 [[Feudalism|feudal]] serfdom.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/68 68]|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> Jean-Pierre Devroey thinks that the shift from slavery to serfdom was gradual as well in some parts of the continent.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Devroey|first1=Jean-Pierre|title=Men and Women in Early Medieval Serfdom: the Ninth-Century North Frankish Evidence|journal=Past and Present|volume=166|year=2007|page=17|doi=10.1093/past/166.1.3}}</ref> 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]].<ref name="ReferenceC">{{cite journal|last1=Devroey|first1=Jean-Pierre|title=Men and Women in Early Medieval Serfdom: The Ninth-Century North Frankish Evidence|journal=Past and Present|year=2000|volume=166|page=28|doi=10.1093/past/166.1.3}}</ref> 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.<ref name="auto2">{{cite book|last=Clarence-Smith|first=W. G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZW9DjTAox6EC|title=Religions and the abolition of slavery – a comparative approach|date=24 December 2006|publisher=C. Hurst & Company|isbn=9781850657088}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/71 71]|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca, NY|pages=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/68 68]–69|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davies|first1=Wendy|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|date=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|pages=236–238|chapter=On Servile Status in the Early Middle Ages}}</ref>
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 [[Incentives|incentive structure]]; in other words, failure to work resulted in physical punishment.<ref name=":2">{{cite book|last1=Engerman|first1=Stanley|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|year=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|pages=31–32|chapter=Slavery, Serfdom, and Other Forms of Coerced Labour: Similarities and Differences}}</ref> Serfs held plots of land, which was essentially a form of "payment" that the lord offered in exchange for the serf’s service.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bush|first1=Michael|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|year=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|page=3|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> Serfs worked part-time for the masters and part-time for themselves and had opportunities to accumulate personal wealth that often did not exist for the slave.<ref name=":2"/>
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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bush|first1=Michael|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|date=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|page=2|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Engerman|first1=Stanley|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|date=1996|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|pages=24–26|chapter=Slavery, serfdom and other forms of coerced labour: similarities and differences}}</ref>
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".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca, NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/79 79]|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Barthélemy|first1=Dominique|title=The Serf the Knight and the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart|url-access=limited|date=2009|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca, NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/serfknighthistor00bart/page/69 69]|isbn=9780801436802}}</ref>
In addition, [[numismatists]] shed light on the decline of serfdom. There is a widespread theory that the introduction of currency hastened the decline of serfdom because it was preferable to pay for labor rather than depend on feudal obligations. Some historians argue that landlords began selling serfs their land – and hence, their freedom – during periods of [[economic inflation]] across Europe.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bush|first1=Michael|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|page=12|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> Other historians argue that the end of slavery came from the royalty, who gave serfs freedom through edicts and legislation in an attempt to broaden their tax base.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Engerman|first1=Stanley|title=Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage|publisher=Addison Wesley Longman Limited|location=London|page=38|chapter=Slavery, serfdom and other forms of coerced labour: similarities and differences}}</ref>
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.<ref name="ReferenceC"/> Heinrich Fichtenau points out that in Central Europe, there was not a labor market strong enough for slavery to become a necessity.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fichtenau|first1=Heinrich|title=Living in the 10th century: Mentalities and Social Orders|date=1984|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|page=372}}</ref>
==Justifications for slavery==
In late Rome, the official attitude toward slavery was ambivalent. According to [[Corpus Juris Civilis|Justinian’s legal code]], slavery was defined as "an institution according to the law of nations whereby one person falls under the [[property rights]] of another, contrary to nature".<ref>David Graeber, ''Debt: The First 5000 Years'' (Brooklyn, New York: Melville House, 2011), ch. 7.</ref>
Justifications for slavery throughout the medieval period were dominated by the perception of religious difference. Slaves were often outsiders taken in war. As such, Hebrew and Islamic thinking both conceived of the slave as an "enemy within".<ref>[[Orlando Patterson]], ''Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 40–41.</ref> In the Christian tradition, [[paganism|pagans]] and [[heretics]] were similarly considered enemies of the faith who could be justly enslaved. In theory, slaves who converted could embark on the path to freedom, but practices were inconsistent: masters were not obliged to [[manumission|manumit]] them and the practice of baptising slaves was often discouraged.<ref name="Rayborn, p.93">Timothy Rayborn, ''The Violent Pilgrimage: Christians, Muslims and Holy Conflicts, 850–1150'', Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2013, p. 93.</ref> The enslavement of co-religionists was discouraged, if not forbidden, for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Consequently, northern European pagans and black Africans were a target for all three religious groups. Ethnic and religious difference were conflated in the justification of slavery.<ref name="Rayborn, p.93"/>
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 ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%209:20-27 Gen. 9:20–27]) in which [[Ham (son of Noah)|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.<ref>David M. Goldenberg, ''The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).</ref> 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.<ref>Walter Ullmann, ''Medieval Papalism'' (Routledge, 1949), p. 57.</ref> The state of slavery was thought to be closely tied to [[original sin]].<ref>David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 92–94.</ref> Towards the middle of the 15th century, the [[Catholic Church and slavery|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 [[Afonso V of Portugal|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
<blockquote>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 ...<ref>Pope Nicholas V, "Dum diversas" (1452), in ''Bullarium patronatus Portugalliae regum in ecclesiis Africae, Asiae atque Oceaniae'' (1868) [https://books.google.com/books?id=6NDmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA22&dq=%22in%20perpetuam%20servitutem%22 p. 22.]</ref><ref>Pope Nicholas V (1452), "Dum Diversas (English Translation)", ''Unam Sanctam Catholicam'', 5 February 2011. http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2011/02/dum-diversas-english-translation.html.</ref></blockquote>
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.<ref>Frances Gardiner Davenport, ''European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648'' (Washington, D.C.), pp. 20–26.</ref>
Historians such as Timothy Rayborn have contended that religious justifications served to mask the economic necessities underlying the institution of slavery.<ref name="Rayborn, p.93"/>
==See also==
* [[Christianity and slavery]]
* [[Catholic Church and slavery]]
* [[History of slavery]]
* [[Islamic views on slavery]]
* [[Slavery in ancient Greece]]
* [[Slavery in ancient Rome]]
* [[Slavery in antiquity]]
* [[The Bible and slavery]]
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==Further reading==
* Barker, Hannah "Slavery in Medieval Europe." ''Oxford Bibliographies'' (2019) [https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396584/obo-9780195396584-0276.xml]
* Barker, Hannah ''That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019)
* Campbell, Gwyn ''et al.'' eds. ''Women and Slavery, Vol. 1: Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the Medieval North Atlantic'' (2007)
* Dockès, Pierre. ''Medieval Slavery and Liberation'' (1989)
* Frantzen, Allen J., and Douglas Moffat, eds. ''The Work of Work: Servitude, Slavery and Labor in Medieval England'' (1994)
* Karras, Ruth Mazo. ''Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia'' (Yale University Press, 1988)
* Perry, Craig ''et al.'' eds. ''The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2 AD500-AD1420 (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
* Phillips, William D. ''Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade'' (Manchester University Press, 1985)
* Rio, Alice. ''Slavery After Rome, 500-1100'' (Oxford University Press, 2017) [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=54675 online review]
* Stuard, Susan Mosher. "Ancillary evidence for the decline of medieval slavery." ''Past & Present'' 149 (1995): 3-28 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/651097 online].
* Verhulst, Adriaan. "The decline of slavery and the economic expansion of the Early Middle Ages." ''Past & Present'' No. 133 (Nov., 1991), pp. 195–203 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/650772 online]
* Wyatt David R. ''Slaves and warriors in medieval Britain and Ireland, 800–1200'' (2009)
{{Middle Ages}}
[[Category:Slavery in Europe]]
[[Category:History of slavery]]
[[Category:Medieval society]]' |
