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Slavery in Medieval Europe Article

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.

Christian law mandated the Christians could not enslave other Christians; however, enslaving non-Christians was acceptable. In fact, military orders frequently enslaved Muslims and utilized slave labor for agricultural estates. 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.

Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean

Slavery was a wide-spread phenomenon across the Mediterranean. 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. However there were some differences. Slave in America were transported to an entirely new setting without the opportunity to contact their families left behind or gain their freedom. The number of 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 off of archival sources outlining how many slaves were reed 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 too. Additionally, the number of slaves in the Mediterranean was constantly changing, most significantly in periods of warfare.

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 poverty. 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. State and religious institutions frequently participated in the ransoming of individuals, so piracy became a lucrative market. Additionally, this meant some individuals where returned home while others were sold away.

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.

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 Cyrpus 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.

Sources:

Allen, S. J. (2017). An introduction to the Crusades. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Fynn-Paul, J., & Pargas, D. A. (Eds.). (2018). Slaving zones : Cultural identities, ideologies, and institutions in the evolution of global slavery. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.beloit.edu

Graham, C. (1995). The Meaning of Slavery and Identity in al-Andalus: The Epistle of Ibn Garcia. The Arab Studies Journal, 3(1), 68-79. Retrieved April 22, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/27933660

LePree, J. F., & Djukic, L. (Eds.). (2019). The byzantine empire : A historical encyclopedia [2 volumes]. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.beloit.edu

Phillips, W. (2014). Slavery in medieval and early modern iberia (The middle ages series). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.