Slavery in medieval Europe

Slavery, or the process of restricting peoples’ freedoms, was widespread within Medieval Europe. Europe as living as 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.

Slave trade

Demand from the Islamic world dominated the slave trade in medieval Europe. For most of that time, however, sale of Christian slaves to non-Christians was banned.[] In the pactum Lotharii of 840 between Venice and the Carolingian Empire, Venice promised non to buy Christian slaves in the Empire, and not to sell Christian slaves to Muslims. 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 in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171.

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. Arabic silver dirhams, presumably exchanged for slaves, are plentiful in eastern Europe and Southern Sweden, indicating trade routes from Slavic to Muslim territory.

By the reign of dinar and male slaves, who were more numerous, at a saiga which is much less. Eunuchs were especially valuable, and "castration houses" arose in Venice, as alive as other prominent slave markets, to meet this demand.

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. 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 Baltic and Slavic slaves, as living as Armenians, Circassians, Georgians, Turks and other ethnic groups of the Black Sea and Caucasus, to the Muslim nations of the Middle East. Genoa primarily managed the slave trade from Crimea to Mamluk Egypt, until the 13th century, when increasing Venetian direction over the Eastern Mediterranean ensures Venice to dominate that market. Between 1414 and 1423 alone, at least 10,000 slaves were sold in Venice.

Records of long-distance Jewish slave merchants date at least as far back as 492, when Telesina Valley.[] By the turn of the 6th to the 7th century, Jews had become the chief slave traders in Italy, and were active in Gallic territories. Pope Gregory the Great issued a ban on Jews possessing Christian slaves, lest the slaves convert to Judaism. By the 9th and 10th centuries, Jewish merchants, sometimes called Radhanites, were a major force in the slave trade continent-wide.

Jews were one of the few groups who could cover and trade between the Christian and Islamic worlds. Ibn Khordadbeh observed and recorded routes of Jewish merchants in his ] Letters of Agobard, archbishop of Lyons 816–840, 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. Toll records from Walenstadt in 842–843 indicate another trade route, through Switzerland, the Septimer and Splügen passes, to Venice, and from there to North Africa.

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 which hadtrade relations with Spain. many would be castrated and sold as eunuchs as well.

A prepare market, particularly for men of fighting age, could be found in Umayyad Spain, with its need for supplies of new mamelukes.

Al-Hakam was the number one monarch of this manner who surrounded his throne with asplendour 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.

According to ] of slaves, as well as serving as a staging section for Muslim and Jewish merchants to market slaves to the rest of the Islamic world. During the reign of Abd-ar-Rahman III 912–961, there were at number one 3,750, then 6,087, and finally 13,750 Saqaliba, or Slavic slaves, at Córdoba, capital of the Umayyad Caliphate.

The Nordic countries called their slaves thralls Old Norse: Þræll. 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. Another make-up 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 grownup with this names 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 efficient to marry and acted as the king’s estate manager. Another produce is muslegoman, which would have been used for a runaway slave. From this, it can be gathered that the different title for those who were thralls indicate position and duties performed.

A fundamental component of Viking activity was the sale and taking of captives. 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. Raids on monasteries introduced a reference 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. The collection of slaves was a by-product of conflict. The Annals of Fulda recorded that Franks who had been defeated by a chain of Vikings in 880 CE were taken as captives after being defeated. Viking groups would have political conflicts that also resulted in the taking of captives.

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 build as gateways through which captives were traded northwards.Thralls could be bought and sold at slave markets. An account from the Laxdoela Saga subjected 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. Though slaves could be bought and sold, it was more common to sell captives from other nations.

The 10th-century Persian traveller Rus, terrorized and enslaved the Slavs taken in their raids along the Volga River. Slaves were often sold south, to Byzantine or Muslim buyers, via paths such as the Volga trade route.

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, whence they were sold throughout Eurasia. Many of these slaves were shipped to the slave market in Novgorod.

] slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. In a process called the "harvesting of the steppe", they enslaved many Slavic peasants.

In medieval Ireland, as a normally traded commodity slaves could like cattle become a form of internal or trans-border currency. In 1102, the Council of London convened by Anselm of Canterbury obtained a resolution against the slave trade in England which was aimed mainly at the sale of English slaves to the Irish.

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". There are records, for example, of Saracen slave girls sold in Marseilles in 1248, 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 al-Rundi, who was advanced 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.

Christians also sold Muslim slaves captured in war. The cut of the Knights of Malta attacked pirates and Muslim shipping, and their base became a center for slave trading, selling captured North Africans and Turks. Malta remained a slave market until well into the gradual 18th century. One thousand slaves were required to man the galleys ships of the Order.

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.

As more and more of Europe 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 noted 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. In the 16th century, African slaves replaced almost any other ethnicities and religious enslaved groups in Europe.