Empire Monotheism and Slavery in The Greater Mediterranean Region From Antiquity To The Early Modern Era 7

Past and Present Society
EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY IN THE GREATER MEDITERRANEAN REGION FROM

ANTIQUITY TO THE EARLY MODERN ERA
Author(s): Jeffrey Fynn-Paul
Source: Past & Present, No. 205 (NOVEMBER 2009), pp. 3-40
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Past and Present Society
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EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

IN THE GREATER MEDITERRANEAN
REGION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE
EARLY MODERN ERA*
i
INTRODUCTION
Historical
Reviewhelda forum
Nearlya decadeago,theAmerican
entitled'CrossingSlavery'sBoundaries',in whichDavid Brion
Davis calledfora longer-term
andgeographically
broaderviewof
theAtlanticslavesystem,
onethatwentbeyondpayinglipservice
toitsantecedents
intheCanaryIslands,andwhichdelvedintothe
structures
oftheEuropean,Africanand westernAsianslavenetworksfromwhichtheAtlanticslavesystem
was calved.l Whereas
untilquiterecently
itwasbelievedthattheAtlanticslavetradewas
a largelyself-contained
itis nowacknowledged
phenomenon,
by
mostwriters
thatthisslavetradeis partofa muchwiderpicture,
whichincludestraditional
Africanslavesystems
and theadvance
ofIslaminAfrica.2
Recentvolumessuchas Davis's ownInhuman
Ancient
Bondageandtheimportant
essaycollectionSlaveSystems:
and Modernhave invitedus to findnew parallelsin whatwere
* I would liketo thankMelanie Newtonofthe
ofToronto,whosecourse
University
on Caribbeanhistoryinspiredher teachingassistantto thinkmoredeeplyabout the
antecedentsand long-termdynamicsof the Atlanticslave system.I would also like
to thankDerek Mancini-Landerof the Universityof Michigan,whose insightsinto
Islamic historiography
have saved me frommuch error.And additionalthanksto
Ewout FrankemaofUtrechtUniversity,
forhis advice on economictheory.
David BrionDavis, 'Lookingat SlaveryfromBroaderPerspectives',contribution
to theforum'CrossingSlavery'sBoundaries',Amer.Hist.Rev.,cv (2000).
For theolderview,see, forexample,VincentBakpetuThompson, TheMakingof
theAfricanDiasporain theAmericas,1441-1900 (London, 1987); HerbertS. Klein,
and Cuba (Chicago, 1967) . For
SlaveryintheAmericas:A Comparative
StudyofVirginia
an intermediatephase, which acknowledgesthe impactsof Islamic and European
slaveryon Africa,but stillsees themas essentiallyindependent,see Paul E. Lovejoy,
inSlavery:A History
Transformations
ofSlaveryinAfrica(Cambridge,1983), ch. 1. For
a morerecentsynthesis,
see Akosua Adoma Perbi,A HistoryofIndigenous
Slaveryin
GhanafromtheFifteenth
to theNineteenth
Century(Legon, 2004). See also Paul E.
Lovejoy(ed.), SlaveryontheFrontiers
ofIslam(Princeton,2004), whichcomparatively
addressestheimpactsoftheMuslim-pagantradewithinAfricaand thetransatlantic
slavetrade.
PastandPresent,
no. 205 (Nov. 2009)
The Pastand PresentSociety,Oxford,2009
doi:10.1093/pastj/gtp036
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
As
ofslavery.3
seen as discreteproblemsin thehistory
formerly
ofthe
thepresentarticlewillshow,ourincreasing
understanding
and Islamin theMiddleAgescan
relationsbetweenChristianity
viewofthehistoryof
now enableus to takea moresynthesized
to
whatI shallcall'GreaterMediterranean
slavery'fromantiquity
theend oftheearlymodernera.4
To do so, I shalllocateAtlanticand Africanslaverywithina
slavesystem,one whichhas been evolGreaterMediterranean
and Sumerianempires.In order
since
the
rise
of
the
Egyptian
ving
the
tograspbetterhowthissystem
worked,thisarticleintroduces
A
zone
of
zones'
and
zones'.
slaving
concepts 'slaving
'no-slaving
is definedas thegeographical
area impactedbya givensociety's
demandforslaves,anda no-slaving
zoneistheareaconsideredoff
limitsforslaveraidingbythatsociety.In thelightofthesecona
cepts,we shallsee thattheriseofthefirstempiresinaugurated
new era in thehistoryof slavery,sincethenew empiresconstitutedthefirstlarge-scaleno-slavingzones,evenas theycreated
thefirstlarge-scaleslavingzones in thelandsbeyondtheirborders. However,the no-slavingzones of the firstempireswere
at best,sincemanyzone inhabitants
couldbe reduced
imperfect
to slavery
via economicorjudicialmeans.Butthecreationofthe
blocs was a majorturning
Christianand Islamicmonotheistic
slavesystem,
pointin thehistoryoftheGreaterMediterranean
sincetheseempirescameto adopta religio-ethical
taboo against
the enslavementof the majorityof theirinhabitants.In the
3David Brion
Davis, InhumanBondage:TheRiseandFall ofSlaveryintheNew World
(Oxford,2008); Enrico Dal Lago and ConstantinaKatsari (eds.), Slave Systems:
Ancientand Modern(Cambridge,2008). The lattervolume,to mymind,stillshows
a tendencyforwriterson slaveryto move too quicklyfromthe ancientto the early
modernperiod,withoutexploringmanymedievalcontinuities;
thisis inpartdue to the
factthatthebulkofthesecontinuities
lie southand east ofwesternEurope,but such a
situationshould increasinglyprove to be less of a hindranceto explorationand
synthesis.
By 'GreaterMediterranean'is meantall ofAsia westoftheIndus, mostofAfrica,
and all ofEurope. It willbe shownthatthesewereall drawnintothecivilizationnexus
whichevolvedaround the Mediterranean(and the FertileCrescent,whichcan be
viewed as peri-Mediterranean)well before the early modern era. The Atlantic
its slave system,should in thisview be seen as an extension
world,and particularly
ofthisGreaterMediterraneanslavesystem.Michael McCormick's TheOriginsofthe
and Commerce,
ad 300-900 (Cambridge,2001)
EuropeanEconomy:Communications
providesa true 'missinglink' between slaveryin the classical and high medieval
periods,and also opens up a new understandingoftherelationshipbetweenIslamic
and Christianslavingactivityduringthe earlymedievalperiod.
EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM
AND SLAVERY
process,theycreatedwhatmightbe calledtheworld'sfirst'perzones.Perfect
zoneslargely
eliminated
fect'no-slaving
no-slaving
slavingsocietiesmainmanyofthemeansby whichtraditional
theeconomicandjudicialpathsto
tainedslavesupplies,including
ofzone inhabitants
mentionedabove. Both of the
enslavement
had to relymorestrongly
on
blocs therefore
new monotheistic
externalsourcesofslavesupply,and theresultwas an increased
pressureon theslavingzones at theirperipheries.
The benefitsofsuch a vieware many.It revealsthatGreater
Mediterranean
slavingzoneshaveshiftedaccordingto veryspeofpoliticaland religiousorganization
eversincethe
cificpatterns
timeof Egyptand Sumer.Over time,almosteverypartof the
GreaterMediterranean
regionhas been a slavingzone,exploited
orlesserdegreeas theboundariesofcivilization
to a greater
crept
ever outwardfromtheirriver-valley
epicentres.In termsof
Africanslavery,this model suggeststhatprofoundstructural
in Egyptand,later,
changesoccurredaftertheriseofcivilization
afterthe rise of Christianand Islamic monotheism.Also, my
forceservesto highlight
focuson monotheismas a structural
betweenthe Afrithe many,too oftenoverlooked,similarities
can and Russianslavingzones. For overa thousandyearsthese
areaswereimpactedin similarwaysby virtueof theirlocation
of the Christianand Islamicno-slavingzones.
on the frontiers
theriseof Christianand Islamicmonotheism
More concretely,
ofAfricanand Russianpopulations
createda hyper-exploitation
forslavingpurposeswhichhas continueduntilquite recently
in bothregions.The finalvestigesof thissystemstilllingerin
ofa Greater
partsofAfricatoday,and can be seenas thetwilight
Mediterraneanslave systemwhich,takingits pre- and postmonotheistic
evolving
phases together,has been continuously
foroverfivethousandyears.
ofNew Worldslavery,
this
ofhistorians
Fromtheperspective
inso faras itprovidesgreater
modelisbeneficial
agencytoAfrican
elitesthanmanyolder views,whilemakingclear thatAfrican
elitesplayeda rolestructurally
quitesimilarto therolesplayed
slave
in
of
the
elites
the
other
history
by
for
all
its
of
structural
But
this
value,
analysis,
type
system.5
5The classic discussionon the varietiesof
indigenousslaveryin Africaremains
Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff(eds.)9 Slaveryin Africa:Historicaland Anthropo(Madison, 1977), esp. 12-14. See also the newlyre-editedstudy
logicalPerspectives
(com. onp. 6)
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
shouldnot be seen as in anyway downplaying

the enormous
by
damagedone by racistattitudeswhichhavebeen magnified
thetimingand volumeoftheAfricanslavetrade,orbytheassoinfluencemodern
ciationswithslaverywhichstillso strongly
Nor, forthatmatter,should this
perceptionsof Africanness.6
ofguiltanypersonofany
structural
analysisbe seen as relieving
chose
with
the
realities
ofa slavesystem,
confronted
who,
society
thantheycould have
to behaveless humanelyor idealistically
done.Itdoes,however,
explainwhypeopleas disparateas ancient
of Crdoba and earlymodern
Muslims
Egyptians,Vikings,
Africansofmanydisparatetribesand nationsfoundthemselves
role
bornintoa societywhichwasatthattimeplayinga particular
in a long-established
edificeof slaveryand empire.It has long
been recognizedthatEuropean colonialismdid not 'create' a
demandforslavesin Africaex nihilo,but ratheroperatedon a
system.The presentmodelnowenablesus to exampre-existing
in so far
ine theeffects
ofthisimperialdemandmoreprecisely,
as we can see thata similardemandhas playedcorresponding
rolesin everyGreaterMediterranean
societywhichhas found
itselfdrawnintoan imperialslavingzone. It willbe shownthat
whereverthisoutsidepressureoccurred,and in proportionto
the strength
of thispressure,imperialdemandcould gradually
eco-socialrelationships,
overburden
traditional
includingtraditional slaveryrelationships,
untiltheybecame unsustainable.
has been causing'unnatural'slave demand
Thus, imperialism
of
since the dawn the imperialage over fivethousandyears
ago. Monotheisticimperialismmade this demand even more
acute.
(n. 5 cont.)
by HumphreyJ. Fisher, Slaveryin theHistoryofMuslimBlack Africa(New York,

2001), foran extensivediscussion,albeitone whichconcentrateson the nineteenth
century.
6An excellent
synthesison the originsof racismagainstblacks can now be found
in Davis, InhumanBondage,ch. 2. See also David M. Goldenberg, The Curseof
and Islam (Princeton,2003);
Ham: Race and Slaveryin EarlyJudaism,Christianity,
Benjamin Braude, 'Cham et No: race, esclavageet exgse entreislam, judasme
et christianisme',Annales: histoire,sciencessociales,lvii (2002). For one of the
firstattemptsto trace the origins of racial prejudice back into Graeco-Roman
society, see Benjamin Isaac, The Inventionof Racism in Classical Antiquity
(Princeton,2004).
EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM
AND SLAVERY
II
SLAVERY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD: 'IMPERFECT'
NO-SLAVING ZONES
featureofalmosteveryancientsocietyof
Slaverywas an integral
Europe,Africaand Asia.7The reasonsforthisubiquityare not
difficult
to deduce:priorto theriseofthefirstempires,no ruler
monopolizedviolencein an areagreaterthana fewsquaremiles,
andso continualwarfare
wasan ineluctablefactoflife.The quescan entailonlyfour
tionofwhattodo withconqueredneighbours
solutions:
one
can
or
the
ignore pardon vanquished,one
possible
orenslavethem.Most of
can slaughter
or
demand
them,
tribute,
oftheseoptionshas beenemployed;
thetime,somecombination
thatvariedfromsituation
allofthemcarrieddangersandbenefits
to situation.Agricultural
peoplesmighthavefoundslaveryto be
thanwouldhunter-gatherers,
sinceagriculturalmorebeneficial
houseandthusrestrain
istscouldeffectively
slaves,andtherewas
alwaysadditionalfarmlabour to be done. It maywell be that
societiespractisedslaveryon a smallerscale
hunter-gatherer
becauseofsmallerand lesscertainfoodsupthanagriculturalists
andtradenetworks
it
yetprimitive,
plies.Withwarso widespread,
and raidingweremajorsourcesofslaves
is likelythatskirmishing
in thisearlyperiod.8
The riseofthefirst
empireswouldhavehad a noveland signifon thistraditional
and slaveicanteffect
patternofslave-taking
an
is
an
area
where
one
ruler's
since
monopolyof
keeping,
empire
and whichincorporates
violenceextendsovera largeterritory,
self-governing
peoples.Whentheunionoftheupper
previously
and lowerNile createdtheEgyptianOld Kingdom,all theinhabitantsoftheNile valleywerenow,forthefirsttimein history,
'offlimits'toeachotheras potentialslavestock,atleast
nominally
intermsofactiveraiding.Thus thecreationofan empireineffect
zone.
createdthefirst
large-scaleno-slaving
7Michael
toM. L. Bush (ed.), Serfdom
andSlavery:Studies
Bush,intheintroduction
in LegalBondage(London, 1996), somewhatmisleadingly
impliesthatslave systems
have onlybeen evolvingover the past 2,500 years.In fact,of course, slave systems
existedfromtheearliesttimesofSumerand Egypt.For an ageingbutstillvaluablelist
ofstudieson ancientslaveryin all theseareas,see BernardLewis, Race and Slaveryin
theMiddleEast: An HistoricalEnquiry(Oxford,1990), 3 n. 2.
Buton themanywaysto acquireslavesintraditional
Africa,see SuzanneMiersand
Igor Kopytoff,'African"Slavery" as an Institutionof Marginality',in Miers and
Kopytoff(eds.), SlaveryinAfrica,12-14.
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
were
Ancientno-slaving
zones,priortotheriseofmonotheism,
in so faras thosebornwithina givenzone
not,however,
perfect,
could stillbecome the slavesof otherswho werenativeto the
zone. There weremanychannelsby whichEgyptians,Greeks,
Romans,Celtsand ancientGermans,forexample,
Babylonians,
The factthat
couldbecometheslavesoftheirowncountryfolk.
theancientworldas just
slavescame to be regardedthroughout
ensuredthatmoneyand property
anothereconomiccommodity
one's odds of
ethical
rather
than
code,determined
concerns,
any
one's
chances
of
a
slave
and
also
escapingfromslavery.
becoming
unfortunate
in
ancient
zone,
Thus, every
peoplehad
no-slaving
foundslavas slaves,governments
tosellchildren
theopportunity
and
form
of
to
be
an
effective
judicialpunishment, debtors
ery
intoslavery,
couldbe compelledto sellthemselves
althoughthe
variedovertimeandplace.9
ofthesemethodsnaturally
prevalence
This suggeststhattherewereseveralwaysinwhichmostsocietimesup to thepresent,have createdand
ties,fromprehistoric
maintainedslavepopulations.The mostobviouswayis through
a
thesecondispurchasethrough
captureinwarorbykidnapping;
more or less organizedmarketsystem;the thirdis by judicial
sale
forcrimesor debts;thefourthis byvoluntary
enslavement
is
intoslavery;and a fifth
ofone'sselforone'sfamily
way through
ofslavewomen.It is imporoftheoffspring
thelegalenslavement
was
tantto noticethatslave populations,once the institution
of
some
combination
were
maintained
established,
by
always
Until quite recentlymost historianswroteas
these factors.10
For thisphenomenoningeneral,see OrlandoPatterson,SlaveryandSocialDeath:
A Comparative
Study(Cambridge,Mass., 1982), esp. pt 2. On the evolutionof debt
slaveryin Babylonia,see Muhammad A. Dandamaev, Slaveryin Babylonia:From
Nabopolassarto AlexandertheGreat (626-331 bc) (DeKalb, 1984), 157-80. For a
briefmentionofdebt slaveryamongstthe ancientCelts, see H. D. Rankin,Celtsand
themselvesto
theClassicalWorld
(Portland,Oreg., 1987), 132. For thepoorsubmitting
Gaul, see R. Samson, 'Slavery,the Roman Legacy', in John
slaveryin fifth-century
Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?
Drinkwaterand Hugh Elton (eds.), Fifth-Century
(Cambridge, 1992), 223. For debt slaveryand voluntarysubmissionto slaveryin
high medieval Dalmatia, see Neven Budak, 'Slavery in Late Medieval Dalmatia/
Croatia^ Labour, Legal Status, Integration',Mlangesde l'colefranaisede Rome:
Moyenge,adi (2000), 748. For economieand judicialslaveryin VikingScandinavia,
see Eljas Orrman,'Rural Conditions',in Knut Helle (ed.), The Cambridge
Historyof
to 1520 (Cambridge,2003), 308. On Tatar parentsselling
Scandinavia,i, Prehistory
theirchildrenin the fourteenth
century,see Peter Spufford,Powerand Profit:The
Merchant
inMedievalEuroe(New York,2002), 340.
10Orlando Pattersondiscourseson these
paths to slaveryin Slaveryand Social
Death, esp. 105; see also ibid., 147. There are of course many other variations.
(cont.onp. 9)
EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM
AND SLAVERY
meansforancientsocietiesto
thoughconquestwas theprimary
and itis generacquireslaves,butthishas nowbeen discredited,
allyacceptedthatall fiveoptionswereemployedby mostslave
societies.Furthermore,
itis nowestablishedthatimperialsocietiescreateda demandforslavesin neighbouring
areas.11These
areaswhichbecamethefocusofimperialslavingefforts
can be
called'slavingzones'.
Because certaineconomiclaws wereat workin all the slave
societiesunderdiscussion,the creationof slavingzones on the
bordersofno-slavingzones occurredaccordingto a discernible
pattern.A societywhichhad begunto relyon largepools ofslave
foundthatit
labour,such as Egypt,Greeceor Rome,naturally
had to replenishitsslavecapital,justas mustbe done withmost
otherformsofcapital.The demandforslaveswascontinuousand
regular,and so slavemarketswerea routinefeatureof ancient
withroutes
societies,onewhosetraderoutesnaturally
overlapped
forothercommodities.12
As withanyothertradegood, supply
linesbeganin regionswheredemandcouldbe metbysupply.
(n. 10 cont.)
In some Africancultures,certainchildrenwereconsideredsupernaturally
dangerous
and wouldbe leftto die bytheirparents;thesechildren,as wellas naturallyorphaned
infants,would occasionallybe broughtup as slavesby thosewho foundthem:Miers
*African
and Kopytoff,
ofMarginality',13. Duby notesthat
"Slavery"as an Institution
Carolingiansocietyutilizeda similarcombinationof means formaintainingslave
and
supplies: Georges Duby, Hie Early Growthof theEuropeanEconomy:Warriors
PeasantsfromtheSeventhtotheTwelfth
Century(Ithaca, 1974), 32.
1*For a decisive
argumentagainstthe assumptionthatRoman societyreliedon
warfareas its primarymeans of replenishingslave supplies, see Keith Bradley,
Slaveryand Societyat Rome(Cambridge, 1994), 31-56. It is now accepted thatthe
Islamic Empirealso used purchaseas a primarymeans of gainingslaves,especially
aftertheinitialconquestwas completed.Slaveswereboughtfromagentswhotravelled
throughoutcentralAsia for the purpose of acquiringthem fromlocal chiefsand
raiders:Daniel Pipes, Slave Soldiersand Islam: TheGenesisofa MilitarySystem(New
Haven, 1981), 146-8. On a slave tradeamongstCeltic tribes(and perhapsbetween
these tribesand Rome) in pre-RomanBritainand Gaul, see Rankin,Celtsand the
Classical Worlds132. On Gaulish slaves being tradedforRoman wine, see Bradley,
Slaveryand Societyat Rome,36.
For slave marketmechanismsin the Roman Empire,see Bradley,Slaveryand
Societyat Rome,41-3; fortheearlyIslamicEmpire,see Pipes, Slave Soldiersand Islam,
142-8. For similarmechanismsin the earlymodernera, see WilliamD. PhillipsJr,
Trade(Minneapolis, 1985), 141.
SlaveryfromRomanTimestotheEarly Transatlantic
For theoverlapofslaveand othertradingnetworksin WestAfrica,see PhilipCurtin,
'AfricaNorth of the Forestin the EarlyIslamic Age', in Philip Curtinet al. (eds.),
(London, 1995), 94. For theoverAfricanHistory:FromEarliestTimestoIndependence
networks
inmedievalRussia,see H. R. EllisDavidson, The
lap offur-and slave-trading
VikingRoad toByzantium(London, 1976), 99.
10
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
Outsidetheboundariesofempire,inareaswhereotherempires
had not yetgrownup, monopoliesof violencewerestillmainwasuniversal,
tainedinsmallspheresbylocalchiefs.Thispattern
whetherone speaksof Palestinein 2000 bc (on the fringesof
ofRome).
Egyptand Sumer),or Gaul in 200 bc (on thefringes
Local rulersin theseborderregionscontinuedto engagein freand thefruits
ofsucquentdisputeswiththeirmanyneighbours,
cessfuldisputeswould includefreshsuppliesof slaves.People
who remainedin smallstatesor tribalareas on the bordersof
empirethus remainedespeciallyvulnerableto enslavement,
whilethosewithinimperialboundswerefarlessso.13
forcewasatworkwiththeriseofempire,
Buta newand sinister
of
sincetheseborderregionswouldnowbeginto feeltheeffects
an increasingeconomicdemandforslaveswithinthe empire.
Mechanicallyspeaking,prices for slaves withinthe empire
would alwaysbe higherthanpricesforslaveswithinthe tribal
economy,and the resultwas a net exportof slaves.14Socially
came lookingto buyslaves,
speaking,thismeantthatmerchants
and local chiefswereencouragedto engagein warsand raidsin
orderto boost theirwealthand prestige.A new class of 'slave
ofempire.These raiderswere
raider'was createdas a side effect
of like-minded
armedbruteswitha following
individuals,who
livedfromthievery
and the proceedsof sellingkidnappedvicortheirsuppliers.Often,suchraiders
timsto imperialmerchants
sold theirown
wouldbe nativesofa slavingzone who routinely
men
are
attested
as
as the
into
Such
recently
countrymen slavery.
in
and
their
can
be
traced
nineteenth
century Africa,
presence
atleastas farbackas medievaltimes.A tenth-century
description
oftheeffects
ofslavedemandon a slavingzoneintheSudan runs
thus:'MerchantsfromEgyptcome to thisregion. . . theysteal
children. . . theycastratethemand importthemto Europe,
wheretheysell them.Amongthe Sudanese thereare people
who stealotherpeople's childrento sell themto themerchants
victims
whentheycome'.15As thisexcerptattests,thepreferred
13This
argumentis made byDmitrijMishinin rTheSaqliba Slavesin theAghlabid
State',AnnualofMedievalStudiesat theCEU, 1996-1997 (1998), 237.
has nowbeen presentedfortheeighthand
Earlyevidenceforthepnce differential
ninthcenturiesin McCormick,OriginsoftheEuropeanEconomy,
esp. 754-9.
Hadud al-Alam,quoted in Claude Meillassoux,1 heAnthropology
oj lavery:1 he
WombofIronand Gold,trans.Alide Dasnois (Chicago, 1991), 44. Wheretheseslaves
question.
mayhave been headed is an interesting
EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM
AND SLAVERY
11
ofslavershavegenerally
been children.16
It seemsclearthatthe
causedbyimperialdemandforslavesin theseslaving
disruption
zones could be veryconsiderable,dependingon the level of
demandand theabilityoflocalchieftains
to monopolizeviolence
withintheirterritories.
Priortotheintrusion
ofimperialdemand,
of
traditional
warfare
and
enslavement
wouldnaturally
patterns
have been maintainedat sustainablelevels.In areas whereimthesetraditional
patterns
perialdemandwasveryhigh,however,
with
became
unsustainable,
frequently
devastatingeffectson
entireregions,whose economic and political development
We can statethisas a formula:
mightbe severelyretarded.17
empireswhichrelyon slave labourhave a tendencyto hinder
oftheirslavingzones,at a rateproportional
to
thedevelopment
theireffective
demand.
To returnto our imperialnarrative,
verygraduallythe techspreadfromEgyptand Mesopotamiato the
niquesofstatecraft
regions.The nextstatesto evolvein the Greater
surrounding
Gulfregionappearedon thebordersof
Mediterranean-Persian
empires:theseincludetheHittitestatein Asia
long-established
the
Minor, Mycenaeanstatesin Greeceand theHebrewstatein
fortheunderstanding
oflaterdevelPalestine.Butitis important
1,500years
more
than
these
states
did
not
arise
until
that
opments
rivervalleyshad evolvedinto empires.
afterthe neighbouring
Amongstotherthings,thatmeans thatthese areas remained
actual or potentialslavingzones forthe neighbouring
empires
16For raiders
Sicily,see McCormick,Originsof
preyingon childreninninth-century
246. Olaudah Equiano was famouslycapturedalong withhis
theEuropeanEconomy,
sisterdespitethe factthattheirparentshad attemptedto barricadethemwithinthe
kidnappers:Olaudah
family'swalled compound as a precautionagainstslave-taking
NarrativeoftheLifeofOlaudah Equiano (1789; New York,
Equiano, The Interesting
2001), 32.
inearly
For an argumentregarding
theimpactofslavingon politicalcentralization
modernAfrica,see PhilipBurnham,'Raiders and Tradersin Adamawa: Slaveryas a
Regional System',in JamesL. Watson (ed.), Asian and AfricanSystemsofSlavery
(Oxford,1980), 59-64. First-handaccounts of the devastationcaused by imperial
demand forslaves on slavingzones are comparativelyrare,owing,amongstother
things,to the fact that slavingzones have usually been pre-literate.Anglo-Saxon
descriptionsof Viking raids mightcount as slaving-zonedestructionnarratives,
since itwould seem as thoughVikingraidswerein partmotivatedby Byzantineand
Islamicdemandforslaves.On devastationcaused in partsofAfricaby slavedemand
see Ronald Segal,Islam'sBlackSlaves:A History
of
century,
duringthelaternineteenth
Africa'sOtherBlack Diaspora (New York,2001), 157. For a sense of the insecurity
Narrative,32-8.
experiencedby all slaving-zonesocieties,see Equiano, Interesting
12
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
forverylongperiodsoftime.As the Phoeniciansand thenthe

Greeksspreadout along the southernand northernMediterraneanin the firstmillenniumbc, theyextendedthe effective
slave demand of the imperialcentresof the easternMediterraneanto thewestand north.Thus theEtruscans,Iberiansand
came
Celts,who alreadypractisedslaveryamongstthemselves,
to feelthe pressureof an increaseddemand forslaves,along
withothercommodities.Spain, Italyand France now became
slavingzones forthemoredevelopedeconomiesofthe eastern
Mediterranean.
By about 500 bc, the techniquesof civilizationhad spread
aroundthe Mediterranean
to an extentthatempiresbegan to
clashwithone anothermorefrequently.
Thus we havean era of
betweenPersiansand Greeks,and Romans and
epic struggles
Carthaginians.The creationof multipleempireswithinthe
regionmeantthat,fromnow on, notall
were automatically
availableas slave zones.
imperialfrontiers
Slave tradersnaturally
continuedto concentrate
theiractivities
in areaswheretribalstatesstillpredominated.
Eventually,
bythe
timeofAugustus,theentireMediterranean
area was incorporatedintoa singleempireunderRome.Demand forslaveswas to
a largeextentmetfromdistantareas at or beyondthefrontiers
oftheempire.18
Ill
THE ADVENT OF MONOTHEISM AND THE 'PERFECT
NO-SLAVINGZONE
The Christianization
oftheRomanEmpireopeneda newepoch
in the historyof slavingand no-slavingzones. Christianand
Islamic monotheismcreated a new type of no-slavingzone
whichdiffered
fromanyclassicalzone in so faras religio-ethical
considerations
now led to the effective
of enslaveprohibition
mentof anymemberof a givenzone by anyothermember.19
18
Bradley,Slaveryand Societyat Rome,42-3.
Note thatthesituationwithintheDar al-Islamwas somewhatcomplicatedin so
faras largenumbersofChristiansand Jews,who wereusuallyprotectedas people of
thebook', werestillliableto judicialslavery.The same wentforMuslimslivingunder
Christianrulein theMiddle Ages. For an analysisofthemanifoldmeaningsand uses
of slaveryin a multi-religious
setting,see Mark Meyerson,'Slaveryand the Social
Order: Mudejars and Christiansin the Kingdom of Valencia',MedievalEncounters,
(corn,onp. 13)
EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY
13
This phenomenoncould be termeda 'perfect'no-slavingzone,

slavfromintra-zone
allmemberswereprotected
since,intheory,
ery,thoughof coursethe realitywas usuallyless thanperfect.
Severalinterrelated
processescontributedto the evolutionof
the Latin Christianno-slavingzone, each of whichshouldbe
oftheintellectual
is thedevelopment
dealtwithinturn.The first
A
ofChristians
ethoswhichforbadeenslavement
by Christians.
second factoris the extentto whichthisethoswas appliedin
whichwillnot be discussedhere
A thirdconsideration,
reality.
in detail,is the growingseparatenessof Westernand Eastern
duringthe earlymedievalcenturies,whichcaused
Christianity
theLatinand Greekspheresto splitintosomewhatdistinctnoslavingzones. The fourthmajor influence,whichaffectedall
fromthetimeofitsgenesisintheseventh
theabovedevelopments
was theriseofIslam.It is arguedherethat
and eighthcenturies,
theideological
theriseofIslamplayeda keyroleinstrengthening
oftheLatin no-slavingzone. Finally,it remainsto
foundations
explainwhyLatinEuropeactuallymovedbeyondcreatinga perfectno-slavingzone withinitsborders,and phased out slavery
in manyregionsby the eleventhcentury.It was one
altogether
ofthedominantreligiousgroup,
theenslavement
forbid
to
thing
theDar
thiswas donethroughout
minorities:
as wellas protected
al-Islamand Latin Christendom.But whydid the Europeans
cease to enslaveevenpagans,whenthispracticehad rarelybeen
forbidden
bytheChurch?The absenceofanylarge-scaleslaveholdingsystemin highmedievalEuropeis almostuniquein the
andourmodelsuggestsa newanswertothe
ofcivilization,
history
problem.It willbe arguedthatthe creationof twoperfectnoslavingzones aroundthe Mediterraneanled to a unique and
and Islam fortheslave
betweenChristianity
fiercecompetition
resourcesoftheremaining
slavingzones.WesternEurope,with
outclassedinthisecowashopelessly
itslessdevelopedeconomy,
nomicwar,and as a resulttheregionbecame starvedofslaves.
This lack of externalsupply,in additionto ongoinginternal
processesdiscussedbelow, renderedthe continuanceof the
Europeanslavesystemuntenable.
(n. 19com.)
i (1995), and its companionpiece, 'Slaveryand Solidarity:Mudejars and Foreign

ii (1996).
Muslim Captivesin theKingdomofValencia',MedievalEncounters,
14
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
Priorto thespreadoftheChristianworldview,ancientsociety
feltno overriding
moralreasonwhyonecitizenmightnotbecome
theslaveor themasterofa fellowcitizen.Aristotle
in hisPolitics
theinstitution
as indispensable
to thepolitical
justified
famously
and economicwell-beingofthepolis.More troublingly,
he also
to justify
on
moral
that
attempted
slavery
grounds,arguing some
to
a
in
the
people,owing deficiency
reasoningpartsoftheirsouls,
could bestfulfil
theirnaturalpotentialby servinga masteras a
slave.20He even wentso faras to suggestthat,whilethe line
betweenman and animalis usuallyfirmly
drawn,thatbetween
animalandslaveisnot.It is generally
believedthatraceornationalitydid notfactorintoAristotle's
analysis:certainGreekswere
justas bestialin Aristotle's
evidently
eyesas certainmembersof
Aristotle's
view,despiteitsobviouscontraanyothersociety.21
dictionofreality(since,forexample,manyofthemostintelligent
ancientteacherswereslaves),was seldomchallengedby other
ancientthinkers,
and ancientelitesshowedlittleinclinationto
objectto histeachings.22
From the very beginningof Christianity,
however,there
a
tension
between
that
idealsand
emerged
religion'segalitarian
the deeplyembeddedmoresof the societyinto whichit was
born.23The extentto whichcertainstrainsofChristianegalitarianismactuallyservedto discourageor undermineancientslavhistoriansof late
eryis debatable,althoughtwentieth-century
and
medieval
have
tended
to
antique
slavery
assignChristian
moralitya minimalrole. An oft-quotedbut clearlyfallacious
20Peter
toAugustine(Cambridge, 1996),
Garnsey,Ideas ofSlaveryfromAristotle
37-8, 108-10.
21
Ibid.,111. But see BenjaminIsaac, 'Proto-Racismin Graeco-RomanAntiquity',
World
xxxviii(2006); BenjaminIsaac, TheInvention
Archaeology,
ofRacismin Classical
(Princeton,2004).
Antiquity
Garnseyarguesthat,contraryto whatis oftenthought,the Stoics did not reject
theidea ofnaturalslavery:Garnsey,IdeasofSlaveryfromAristotle
toAugustine,
138-5 1.
23There is stilldebateon how comfortable
was withtheidea
emergentChristianity
ofslavery.PierreBonnassiehelpedto ignitethedebatein his article'Survieet extinctiondu rgimeesclavagistedans l'Occidentdu hautmoyenge (IVe-XIe s.) ', Cahiersde
civilisation
xxviii(1985). Also crucialis PeterBrown,TheBodyand Society:
mdivale,
and SexualRenunciation
inEarlyChristianity
Men, Women,
(New York,1988), esp. 4457, whosediscussionofideas ofthebodyin theearlyChurchtoucheson manyaspects
ofslavery.Jennifer
was bornintoa worldwhere
Glancyremindsus thatChristianity
slaverywas entirelynormative:JenniferA. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity
(Oxford,2002), esp. 3, 156. Othershave arguedthatthe Christianethosand slavery
weremoreimmediately
at odds. See, forexample,RosemaryMorris,'Emancipation
in Byzantium',in Bush (ed.), Serfdom
and Slavery,130-1.
EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM
AND SLAVERY
15
thatcenturies
ofcollusionbytheChurchas an
argument
suggests
onthematter.
institution
capturean essential'Christian'thinking
itistruethatveryfewChristian
arguments
againstslavCertainly
ery,even the enslavementof Christiansby Christians,can be
oflateantiquity.24
foundin theChristianwriters
Also,it is true
thatslavery
was notphasedoutin manypartsofwesternEurope
untilabouttheyear1000,somesixcenturiesaftertheChristianbeen contended
Butithas morerecently
izationoftheempire.25
has overlookedthe ethical operationsof
that historiography
The primarycause forthis
on the slave system.26
Christianity
24The
principalexceptionseemsto be GregoryofNyssa: Garnsey,Ideas ofSlavery
toAugustine,
80-5.
fromAristotle
Despite theknockingthatmanyofBonnassies pointshave takensince thepubthereis stilllittlereasonto doubthisconclusions
licationofFromSlaverytoFeudalism,
on the broad chronologyof medieval slavery:Pierre Bonnassie, From Slaveryto
Feudalismin South-Western
Europe(Cambridge, 1991), 51-6. Even WilliamChester
Jordan,who is highlycriticalofthebook, does not appear to arguewithBonnassie's
xiii (1992), 97-102.
chronology:see his reviewofBonnassiein SlaveryandAbolition,
For the consensus that the transitionto serfdomin the Frankishheartlandshad
occurredby the ninthcentury,see Alice Rio, 'Freedom and Unfreedomin Early
Medieval Francia: The Evidence of the Legal Formulae', Past and Present,no. 193
(Nov. 2006), 7-11. Much ofthenew consensusrelieson WendyDavies, 'On Servile
andSlavery.CharlesVerlinden
StatusintheEarlyMiddle Ages',inBush (ed.), Serfdom
long ago pointed out thatslaverydid persistduringthe otherwiseslavelessperiod
c.l 000-1 363, in the formof relativelysmall numbersof Muslim captivesheld in
regionsof Italy,southernFrance and easternSpain: Charles Verlinden,UEsclavage
dansVEuropemdivale,
i, PninsuleIbrique,France(Bruges, 1955); ii, Italie,colonies
du Levant,Levantlatin,empirebyzantin(Ghent, 1977). This phenomenon
italiennes
has been examinedforBarcelonainStephenBensch,'FromPrizesofWarto Domestic
Merchandise:The ChangingFace ofSlaveryin Catalonia and Aragon,1000-1300',
Viator,xxv (1994). Susan Mosher Stuard has also found evidence of continuing
domesticslaverythroughoutthisperiod: Susan Mosher Stuard,'AncillaryEvidence
no. 149 (Nov. 1995), 4-5; and
fortheDecline ofMedieval Slavery',Pastand Present,
see a replybyJean-Pierre
Devroey,'Men and WomeninEarlyMedievalSerfdom:The
no. 166 (Feb. 2000) . The
NorthFrankishEvidence',Pastand Present,
Ninth-Century
whereeccleofslaverypersistedin Englandintotheearlytwelfth
institution
century,
weresome ofthelastholdouts:see David A. E. Pelteret,Slaveryin
siasticalinstitutions
Century(Rochester,
EarlyMediaevalEngland:FromtheReignofAlfreduntiltheTwelfth
NY, 1995), 251-6. In Sweden, wherethe process of Christianizationand abolition
happenedlaterand can be tracedmoreeasilyin writtensources,farmslaverydisapbuthouseholdslaverylingereduntilall slaverywas bannedbyroyaldecree
pearedfirst,
in 1335. See JoanLind, 'The Ending of Slaveryin Sweden', ScandinavianStudies,1
(1 978) . AlthoughslaverypersistedinmanypartsofEurope up to abouttheyear1100,
it is thoughtthatthe greatCarolingianestatesunderwenta process of transformaand which
tionfromslaveryto serfdombeginningperhapsas earlyas thethirdcentury,
was certainlycompletebythetenthcentury.See Jean-Pierre
Devroey,conomierurale
etsocitdansl'Europefranque(VF -IXe sicles),2 vols. (Paris,2003); ChrisWickham,
400-800 (Oxford,2005).
FramingtheEarlyMiddleAges:Europeand theMediterranean,
forcein the
as a significant
Bonnassiewas one ofthefirstto see Christianization
decline of slaveryin westernEurope, and his view is stillarguablynot the majority
(com. onp. 16)
16
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
is thatformanydecades the mostinfluential

historoversight
iansofearlymedievalslavery
wereeitherMarxistsorhighly
influenced by Marxistparadigms.27
Consequently,thesehistorians
concentrated
on theend ofslaveryratherthanon itsactualevolution,becausetheywereconcernedtoshowhowMarx'sconcept
of'feudalism'replacedhis conceptof'ancientslavery'.28
These
samehistorians
havewantedtoviewslavery
as an economicissue
firstand foremost,
and thishas made themprejudicedagainst
socialor intellectual
factors.29
Whatis indisputable,
however,is thatbetween500 and 1100,
it became increasingly
forChristiansto enslavefellow
difficult
ChristianswithinLatin Europe. This rulecame to be enforced
ofchurchauthorities
and secularrulersacting
bya combination
withtheapprovalofthe Church,as we shallsee.30Nor does it
mattermuchifitwas theChurchor thesecularrulerswhowere
theprimary
enforcers
on thisorthatoccasion;theessentialfactis
thatenslavement
ofChristians
cametobe
byChristians
gradually
consideredtaboo. Likewise,the factthatmanyprelatesheld
slavesthroughout
theearlymedievalperiodis largelyirrelevant
to mymainpoint,sincemyconcernis to showthat,overa period
ofcenturies,
theLatinChurch'sincreasingly
anti-slavery
ideology
(n. 26 com.)
opinion:Bonnassie,FromSlaverytoFeudalism,37 ff.Devroeyrefinesthe argument

when he writes: 'Without fundamentallychallengingthe institutionof slavery,
made a significant
contribution
to an increasein the subjectiverightsof
Christianity
theunfree,byrestoring
to slavestheirhumancondition,and byrecognizingin canon
law theircapacityto contracta legitimatemarriage':Devroey,'Men and Women in
led to an
EarlyMedieval Serfdom',8. lind arguesthatthe comingof Christianity
almostimmediatecessationofslaveryin Denmarkand Norway,whilebeingdirectly
responsiblefora moregradualerosionin Sweden: 'EndingofSlaveryin Sweden', 60.
AlthoughBonnassie followedMarxist paradigmsin much of his work,it is
in the endingof early
thoughtthathis considerationof the influenceof Christianity
medievalslaverywas distinctly
post-Marxist.See Rio, 'Freedom and Unfreedomin
EarlyMedieval Francia', 9.
McCormick makes thispointin OriginsoftheEuropeanEconomy,734. See also
Ross Samson, 'The End ofEarlyMedieval Slavery',in AllenJ.Frantzenand Douglas
Moffat(eds.), The Workof Work:Servitude,Slavery,and Labor in MedievalEngland
(Glasgow, 1994), 96.
29Even theless Marxist
Duby,forexample,maintainsthattheChurchdealtslavery
32.
'barelya glancingblow': Duby, EarlyGrowth
oftheEuropeanEconomy,
0
748-52. This is especiallytrueof
McCormick,OriginsoftheEuropeanEconomy,
enslavementofLatin Christiansby Latin Christians;the earlymedievalincidenceof
Byzantinestradingin Latins and vice versahas notbeen studiedenoughto allow any
WarrenTreadgoldsuggestsin passingthatby 1200 most
meaningful
generalizations.
Byzantineslaves were pagans fromthe non-Christianizedparts of Russia: Warren
Treadgold,A ConciseHistoryofByzantium(New York,2001), 188.
17
encouragedtheabrogationoftheslavesystem,and discouraged
itfromcontinuing
orreappearing,
eveniftheslavesystemlargely
broke down for the economic or politicalreasons suggested
below.31Owingto thesparsenessoftheevidence,exactlywhen
andhowthisanti-slavery
ethoswas appliedremainscontentious,
butitseemsthatmanypurelyideologicalstrictures
againstslavery
wereobservedfroman earlyperiod.
We knowfromTacitus and othersourcesthatthe ancient
and thereis no
Germanspractisedslaveryamongstthemselves,
reasonto doubtthatsomeofthelateempire'sdemandwas satisfiedby slavesbroughtfromGermania.32We would therefore
expectthat,once theyhad conqueredwesternEurope,German
rulerswouldbringwiththemthe customofreducingcaptured
enemiesto slavery.And in factwe do knowthatpagan leaders
showedno qualmsaboutreducingtheirenemies,whether
pagan
Thus thefamousappearanceofBede's
orChristian,
to slavery.33
Romanslavemarket.It is wellknown
Anglion thesixth-century
thatMerovingianand Carolingianarmiesenslavedconquered
theFrankish
pagansas a matterofcourse.UnderCharlemagne,
into
a
active
zone.
turned
Saxony
very
slaving
kingdom
pagan
the
and
ninth
It is therefore
to
note
that,
by
eighth
interesting
Michael
vast
researches
could
even
McCormick's
centuries,
unearthno evidencethatChristianleadersofthewesternkingdomsreducedotherChristiansto slaveryduringtimeofwar.34
ThoughearlierChristianrulerswereless scrupulousthantheir
wouldbecome,itseemsclearthatitwas Christianity
descendants
31The
argumentthatpointsto slave-holdingchurchmenas proofthat'theChurch'
was eitherpro-slavery
or effectively
silenton the issue of slaveryis, whilestillwidely
For a cautioustreatment
whichallowsfora greatdeal
held,a grossoversimplification.
inthe
ofchurchinfluencein thedeclineofslavery,see Marc Bloch,Slaveryand Serfdom
MiddleAges,trans.WilliamR. Beer (Berkeley,1975), 9-17. For a more recentdismissalofecclesiasticalinfluenceon abolition,see Samson, 'Slavery',223.
BjrnMyhre,'The IronAge', in Helle (ed.), Cambridge
HistoryofScandinavia,i,
73. Ammianusfoundthe Alans remarkableforthe factthattheydid not practise
slavery:Bradley,Slaveryand Societyat Rome, 19-20. Procopius recordsthat the
Slavs, fortheirpart,were occasionallycarryinglarge numbersof Byzantinesinto
slaveryby the sixthcentury:P. M. Barford,The Early Slavs (Ithaca, 2001), 58-9.
The Frankswereraidingand probablytradingforslavesbytheearlyseventhcentury:
739.
Ellis Davidson, VikingRoad toByzantium,99 ff.,providesa good discussionof
Adam ofBremen'sGestaHammaburgensis
pagan Scandinavianslaveraids,referencing
See also the older studyby A. Mez, TheRenaissanceofIslam
and the VitaRimberti.
(London, 1937), 157 ff.
1A6-1.
18
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
itself,ratherthananypoliticalforce,whichbegan to maintain
mostofwesternEurope as a no-slavingzone akinto whathad
existedundertheempire.35
Thus, throughthespreadofChristianity,the majorityof westernEuropeans were spared the
resumptionof pre-Romanslavingnormsdespitethe empire's
timein history
in so faras itwas thefirst
fall.This is remarkable
thata philosophicalsystem,ratherthanpoliticalforce,mainofa large-scaleno-slaving
zone.
tainedtheintegrity
In practicalterms,we can say thatthe developmentof the
ofmost
Christianno-slavingzone led to thegradualextinction
whichcitizenscouldbecomethe
oftheancientchannelsthrough
The significance
ofthisdevelopment
slavesoffellowcitizens.36
forthefutureslavingzones of Russia and Africacan hardlybe
underestimated,
especiallysincea similarprocesswas underway
withinthe Dar al-Islam.Whereasin pagan Rome all thetraditionaloperationsofenslavingdebtors,sellingchildrenintoslavery,and judicial slaverywere commonplace,by the eleventh
centuryall theseavenuesto slaveryhad been shutdownwithin
Notethatthisoccurredmorequicklyinareas
LatinChristendom.
whichdid not borderon slavingzones.37Alreadyby the sixth
centuryin Italy,gradationsof statusbetweenslaves and free
people werebeginningto appear. By the seventhcenturythe
35See
ibid.,747-52. The poweroftheChurch'steachingon marriageand sexuality
as a mechanismforreiningin manyoftheexcessesthat
shouldnotbe underestimated
forexample,thekingof
traditionally
accompanyslaveownership.In thetenthcentury,
theBulgarscould claimone in tenslavesbroughtto his countryas a concubine.The
Christianizationof Bulgaria was accompanied by the demise of this system.Ellis
Davidson, VikingRoad toByzantium,66.
BonnassiearguesthatChristianity
slowlyshutdowntheslavesystem,but,oddly,
he writesabout the various means of enslavementof Christiansby Christiansas
though these processes did not diminish with increasing Christianization:
Bonnassie,FromSlaverytoFeudalism,35-6. Otherevidence,however,suggeststhe
patternwhichprobablyoccurredin mostofEurope, thatis, a gradualeliminationof
theslavesupply.For thisprocessin early
mostofthetraditionalmeansofreplenishing
medievalFrance,see Duby, EarlyGrowth
32-3, and in high
medievalScandinavia,Lind, 'Ending of Slaveryin Sweden', 68. Lewis shows that
a similarprocesshappened underIslam: Lewis, Race and Slaveryin theMiddleEast,
6-11.
37As has been
societiessuchas Spain,however,Jewsand Muslims
stated,infrontier
livingunderChristianrulerscould be reducedto slaverythroughjudicialmeans,even
thoughenslavementof Christiansby Christianswas now prohibited.See Meyerson,
'Slaveryand the Social Order'. In Dalmatia, a perfectno-slavingzone was not constituteduntiltheearlyfourteenth
century;thiswas thenunderminedbythepost-Black
Death resumptionofa European slave-owningculture,whenDalmatia was partially
incorporatedinto the Italians' slaving zone: Budak, 'Slavery in Late Medieval
Dalmatia/Croatia',752-7.
EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM
AND SLAVERY
19
FrankishChurchhad won acceptanceof the slave's rightto

marry.This was a considerablesteptowardsthehumanization
of slaves. Later on, slaves won the abilityto marryfreeborn
slaveand freecategories
women,and theprocessofobliterating
churchleaders became
was well under way.38Furthermore,
vocal
about
the
virtues
of
slaves.It
manumitting
increasingly
became generallyacceptedthatmanumissionwas a pious act
thathastenedone's soul along the path to salvation,and the
ofthisfactto earlymedievalrulers,thegreatpatrons
importance
It
of Westernmonasticism,should not be underestimated.39
should also be rememberedthatby the eleventhcentury,the
ofthereform
papacywouldhavegivenepiscogrowing
strength
Latinsociety
pal andpapal sanctionsa coerciveforcethroughout
been felt.The effects
ofthe
to a degreethathad notpreviously
reform
papacyon slavingissueshas not to myknowledgebeen
in detail.CertainlyGregoryVII conducteda streninvestigated
which
uous anti-slavery
campaignas partof his own reforms,
wouldsetthestageforUrbanII's Crusade.40It has been argued
that the Church's anti-slavery
campaign,which McCormick
increasedduringtheninthand
detectsfromtheeighthcentury,
tenthcenturiesuntilit became commonto speak forthe total
abolitionof any distinctionbetweenslaves and freemen.41
38
32-3. See also Devroey,'Men and
Duby, EarlyGrowth
Womenin EarlyMedieval Serfdom',8.
For the conflictbetween protectingchurch propertyand the pious ideal of
manumissionin the Iberian VisigothicChurch, see Carles Buenacasa Prez, 'Un
exemple de la caritatcristianaa l'esglsia primitiva:la manumisidels esclaus a
d'EstudisGironins,
Hispnia segons les fontsdels segles IV-VIF, Annalsde Vlnstitut
xxxviii(1996-7). For a recentdiscussionofmanumissionin earlymedievalEurope,
see Wickham,FramingtheEarlyMiddleAges,564-5.
40Mohamed Talbi
suggeststhatthedecreesofGregoryVII, and hispressureon the
rolein thecessationoftheLatin slavetradewith
Venetiandoges,playeda significant
the Islamic Mediterranean.See Mohamed Talbi, 'Law and Economy in Ifnqiya
(Tunisia) in theThird Islamic Century',in A. L. Udovitch(ed.), TheIslamicMiddle
East, 700-1900: StudiesinEconomicandSocialHistory(Princeton,198 1), 2 14. Stephen
Bensch describestwo instancesof high and late medievalpopes rebukingCatalan
kingsand clergyover issues of slavery.In 1206, InnocentIII rebukedthe clergyof
Barcelona forturninga blind eye whilethe city'sburghersrefusedbaptismto their
Saracenslaves.BythistimetheChurchtaughtthatsincereconversionplaced a strong
moralobligationon ownersto manumittheirslaves,at leastat thetimeofan owner's
decease: Bensch, 'From Prizes of War to Domestic Merchandise', 83. In another
of
instance,in 1337 Pope BenedictXII rebukedKing Pere III forthe impropriety
havingSaracen slavesserveat table: ibid..67.
41
Bonnassie,FromSlaverytoFeudalism,54.
20
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
That the ByzantineChurchalso consideredslaveryto be immoral,and manumissionto be a step towardspersonalsalvation,can be seen fromemancipationdocumentsdatingback to
the mid ninthcentury.42
Justinianhimselfhad decreed that
Christianmarriagewas tantamountto manumission,a ruling
conflict
betweenthe
whichset up an intractable
centuries-long
Church'steachingon marriageand the economicinterestsof
slave-owners.43
While the influenceof churchteachingnow
in helpingto discourage
thanformerly
appearsmoreimportant
thecontinuanceofEuropeanslavery,
itis important
to notethat
thisteachingdidnotdevelopina culturalvacuum.Nor is itlikely
sentiments
would have producedmany
thattheseanti-slavery
if
economic
and
results,
practical
politicalfactorshad not constrains
in Christianthoughtto
to
these
anti-slavery
spired bring
fruition.
The evolutionanddemiseofslavery
withinwestern
Europehas
been
treated
as
an
traditionally
endogenousproblem,but the
model
slaving-zone
proposed here, combined with Michael
McCormick'snew researcheson Mediterraneantravelin the
Dark Ages,enablesus to suggestthatexogenousfactorswereof
paramountimportance.Most importantof all was the rise of
Islam, which occurredin the seventhand eighthcenturies.
Duringthistime,theentiresouthernhalfoftheformerRoman
forsomethreecenturies,
Empire,whichhad been Christianized
was co-optedinto a new monotheistic
empirewhose borders
stretched
fromSpaintotheIndusvalley.The Muslims,modelling
themselves
on the exclusionist
monotheistic
beliefsof theJews
and Christians,soon activelydiscouragedthe reductionof coas well as those 'people of the book' who lived
religionists,
intoslavery.44
At the same time,for
withinMuslimterritories,
42
Morris,'Emancipationin Byzantium',133-4.
As Charles Brand has pointed out, Justinianupheld the classical notion that
slaves, as things,were not permittedto marry.But he also turnedthis law on its
head, decreeingthatanyonewho had receivedthe Christiansacramentof marriage
was nowlegallyfree.This law was uphelduntilthetimeofAlexiusI, who decreedthat
slavescould marrywithoutalteringtheirstatus.It seemsas thoughJustinian's
lawhad
generallyhad the effectof denyingmarriageto slaves, while Alexius feltthat all
Christians,of whateverstatus,should be eligibleforthe matrimonialstate.Charles
interBrand,'Slave Womenin theLegislationofAlexiusI', Byzantinische
Forschungen:
xxiii(1 996), 2 1.
nationaleZeitschrift
frByzantinistik,
The argumentpresentedheresuggeststhatIslamicsocietiesmighthaveenforced
thetaboo againstenslavingco-religionists
beforethisbecame a commonideal within
Christianlands.
21
reasonsthathavenotbeensatisfactorily
explained,Islamicrulers
beganto relyveryheavilyon theuse of slavesforthemaintenance of theirstates,especiallyfromthebeginningof the ninth
These were used in greatnumbersto staffIslamic
century.45
to fillmilitary
leviesand to staffthelargehousebureaucracies,
holdsofthewealthy.46
For severalcenturies,
thelandsoftheIslamicEmpirewerefar
more economicallydevelopedthan the territories
of western
and
so
the
same
forces
which
had
on
Europe,
operated all perizones
since
the
of
and
Sumer
nowcreateda
imperial
days Egypt
demandforslaveswithinEuropethatwas resistedonlywithdifthen,we can say
ficulty.
Duringtheeighthto thetenthcenturies,
thatEuropeitselfbecamea slavingzone ofthenewand powerful
IslamicEmpire,together
withAfricaand Russia.As is usual in
slavingsystems,thoseareas of Europe wherestateswereleast
developednowprovedthemostsusceptibleto thenewimperial
demands.Beginningin the eighthcentury,slavesfrompagan
foundtheir
Britain,Scandinaviaand Germanymostfrequently
45PatriciaCrone has made the most influentialcase forthe adventof the slave
armiesin particular,arguingthatthe systemwas implementedby al-Ma'mun (81333) and greatlyexpandedbyhis successoral-Mu'tasim(833-42). It was soon widely
imitated.See Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolutionof theIslamicPolity
(Cambridge, 1980), 74-81. Matthew S. Gordon, in The Breakingof a Thousand
mostofwhatis knownabout theimportationof
Swords(Albany,2001), narrativizes
thefirstTurkishsoldiersto Samarraand Baghdad underthecaliphsal-Ma'mun and
al-Mu'tasim.Daniel Pipes suggestedthatMuslim citizensbegan to turnawayfrom
forreligiousreasons,necessitatingthe recruitment
of slaves: Pipes,
civilinstitutions
Slave Soldiersand Islam,70-5. Domestic slavery,and the concomitantrestriction
of
women's freedoms,seems to have become fashionablefromthe time of al-Rashid
(786-809): Albert Hourani, A Historyof the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.,
1991), 32-7.
46As is well
known,thenotionof'slavery'in Islamicsocietiesencompassedpeople
be slavesorfreedmen,
while
ofall socialclasses;provincialgovernorsmighttechnically
manyslaves were agriculturaldrudges.Women slaves could range frompolitically
powerfulcourtiersto the poorestmaids or prostitutes.For an overviewof the types
and conditionsofslaveryin Islamiccountries,see MurrayGordon,SlaveryintheArab
World
(New York,1989), 48-78. For theunusualcase oftheZanj, blackland-clearing
slaveswho revoltedand successfully
waged a guerrillawar in ninth-century
Iraq, see
trans.
AlexandrePopovic, TheRevoltofAfricanSlaves in Iraq in the3rdl9thCentury,
Leon King (Princeton,1999). For the large-scalepresenceof agriculturalslaves in
concentratesperhaps
Iraq and NorthAfrica,and an indicationthatthehistoriography
too much on the exclusivelydomestic nature of Islamic slavery,see Michael G.
Morony,'Landholdingin Seventh-Century
Iraq: Late Sasanian and Early Islamic
Patterns',in Udovitch(ed.), IslamicMiddleEast, 165; Talbi, 'Law and Economy in
Ifrqiya(Tunisia)', 221.
22
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
wayintothemarketsofthecaliph.47It has nowbeen shownthat

theVenetians
tookadvantageoftheirpositionas LatinChristians
withByzantinepoliticalties to sell Latins into slavery.48
This
tradewas resistedonlywithextraordinary
effort
on thepartof
Latinrulers.Thus,fromtheeighthcentury,
theprohibition
ofthe
sale ofChristians
to pagansbecameone ofthemainpreoccupationsofecclesiastical
legislators.49
It is probablethattheriseofIslamicdemandfornon-Islamic
slaveseffected
a counter-reaction
whichspurredChristianleadersto enforcegreaterstrictures
againstthesale ofChristiansby
Christians.
In thelightofthestrengthening
Christian
resolve,the
Venetiansopposedmovesto Christianize
thepaganSlavsduring
theninthcentury,
sincetheyknewthiswouldeffectively
remove
theirmostlucrativesourceof slaves.50Lopez notesthatmany
Italiancontractscontainslavetransactions
up to theend ofthe
tenthcentury,
but thenumberdecreasessignificantly
afterthat
time.So theearlyVenetianslavers'fearswereindeedrealized,and
theVenetianeconomywas forcedto findnew,sociallyhealthier
avenuesto explore.51In France,Bonnassiesees an increasing
tendencyforFrankishslaves to escape theirbonds fromthe
a trendwhichby the tenth
earlyeighthcentury,inaugurating
had
into
what
he
calls 'a generalattackon
century
developed
the veryconceptof servitudeby the slavesthemselves'.52
The
slaves' new boldness may well be a secondaryeffectof the
Church's own anti-slavery
campaign,which it now can be
as a reactionto increasedIslamic
arguedwas greatlyintensified
demand.
The eighthandninthcenturies
werethusevenmoredifficult
for
western
Europeansthanhasbeenrealized,sincethenewdemand
fornon-Islamicslavesencouragednon-Christians
on all sidesof
47See
map in McCormick,OriginsoftheEuropeanEconomy,
762; Mishin,'Saqliba
Slaves', 237-8. Note thatMcCormickfindsa patternofslaveimportsto theCaliphate
arisingpriorto thereignof al-Ma'mun (813-33).
The Venetianslavetradeis summarizedin Michael McCormick,'New Lighton
the "Dark Ages": How the Slave Trade Fuelled the CarolingianEconomy',Past and
no. 177 (Nov. 2002), 46-51. See also McCormick, OriginsoftheEuropean
Present,
159-11.
Economy,
748-52.
DU
Ibid., 754.
Medieval Tradein theMediterranean

World:Illustrative
ed. RobertS.
Documents,
Lopez and IrvingW. Raymond(New York,2001), 115.
Bonnassie,FromSlaverytoFeudalism,48-5 1.
23
LatinChristendom,
to
includingSlavs,ArabsandScandinavians,
in searchofvaluable
raidthelandsoftheirChristianneighbours
merchants
seemlikehumanplunder.Italianand otherChristian
westernEurope
wisetohaveplayeda majorroleinincorporating
inallslaving
intotheIslamicslavingzone,justas nativemerchants
zoneshad beendoingformillenniaand wouldcontinueto do for
centuriesto come.Iftheinfluence
ofChristianity
had notmainzonethroughout
theFrankishkingdom,
taineda largeno-slaving
the Frankishnobles themselveswould have become slaving
agentsof theirown people on a much largerscale than they
were,withpredictableresults.As it was, our model suggests
demandforslaveswas one of the
thatthe Caliphate'seffective
of
and
other
causes
major
Viking
paganraidson Europeduring
the Dark Ages.53The processis similarto whatthe Germans
would have experiencedat the hands of the Roman Empire's
slavingagents,onlythe 'perfect'qualityoftheIslamicno-slave
zone meantthatdemandon theirslavingzones was increased
During these centuries,Europeans in many
proportionally.
livedin continualfearoftheslaveraider;
partsofthecontinent
thosewhowerecaptured,evenin thefarnorthofthecontinent,
wouldend up in thesouthernlandsofthecaliph.The lifeofthe
53McCormickwas one ofthefirstto assertthecentral
importanceoftheslavetrade
in eighth-and ninth-century
Europe,and to showitsmaindirections.The suggestion
thattheVikingraidswerespurredbyslavedemandfromtheCaliphatehas not,to my
knowledge,been made openly,althoughmanyauthorshintat thisconclusion.That
theVikingswereactiveslavetakersand slavetradersiswhollyestablished:see Orrman,
'RuralConditions',308. H. R. EllisDavidson longago acknowledgedthatslaveswere
a centralpartofVikingtradingwithConstantinople:Ellis Davidson, VikingRoad to
Byzantium,99-100. PeterSawyernotesthatBalticslaveswerebeingexportedto the
Caliphatefromabout 790. He also suggeststhatthe increasingsophisticationofthe
fromtheeleventh
Russianstateprobablyled to thedecreasein Vikingslavingactivity
Historyof
century:PeterSawyer,'The VikingExpansion', in Helle (ed.), Cambridge
Scandinavia,i, 115-17. Thomas Noonan writes:'Betweenca. 800 and 1020, millions
of Islamic silvercoins . . . were importedinto European Russia fromthe Islamic
world.A significant
partof thesedirhamswerethenre-exportedfromRussia to the
lands around the Baltic Sea and especiallySweden . . . the overwhelming
majority
weretheresultofan activetradeinvolvingtheVikingsand Russia': Thomas Noonan,
'The Vikingsand Russia', in Ross Samson (ed.), Social Approachesto VikingStudies
(Glasgow, 1991), 202. For Noonan's explanationof whythe Viking-Islamictrade
Russia and
began in the eighthcentury,see Thomas S. Noonan, TheIslamicWorld,
Evidence(Aldershot,1998), esp. ch. 2. Note that
theVikings,
750-900: TheNumismatic
theperiodofpeak trade,whichaccordingto Noonan began about 840, corresponds
withal-Mu'tasim'sexpansionofal-Ma'mun's mamlk(slavesoldier)programme,and
itssubsequentadoptionby mostIslamic rulers.See Crone, Slaves on Horses,76-85.
See also Michael Cooperson,Al Ma 'mun(Oxford,2005), 107-9.
24
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
GreeksaintElias ofSicily,quotedbyMcCormick,
ninth-century
paintsa storyofchildrenwhocouldneverstraybeyondthewalls
of theircityforfearof slaveraiders.Afterexperiencing
several
whosethemewas capturebyslavers,thefuturesaint
nightmares
was indeedtakenin a raid and carriedoffto slaveryin North
Africa.54
By the tenthand eleventhcenturies,however,both Latin
into
Europe and Byzantiumhad managedto resistassimilation
theIslamicslavingzone,andbothChristian
in
succeeded
regions
and
zones
of
their
own.
A
crucial
creating
maintaining
slaving
eventwas theseizureofCretein 965 bytheByzantineemperor
NicephorusPhocas,whichproveda turning
pointin Arabnaval
dominationof the Mediterranean.By the eleventhcentury,
decreesbytheVenetiandogesand GregoryVII markedtheend
ofunfettered
slavetrading
betweenLatinEuropeand theIslamic
55
Mediterranean.
In sum,we can saythatthreedistinctprocessescementedthe
formation
of a perfectno-slavingzone throughmost of Latin
Christendom
by 1100. First,the Latin Churchin conjunction
withsecularrulersdevelopedand graduallyenforceda prohibitionagainstreducingfellowChristiansto slavery,especiallyby
had a definiteand
capture.It seemsas thoughthisprohibition
barbariansfromthe earliest
increasingeffecton Christianized
to thesecurity
ofChristians
migration
period,and added greatly
withintheirownno-slaving
zone,whileitincreasedslavedemand
on pagans who livedoutsidethe zone. Secondly,the statesof
westernEuropeeventually
becamepowerful
enoughto maintain
boundaries
all
their
integral
against
neighbours,including
Muslims,Slavsand Scandinavians.Islamicraidersnowfoundit
to raidforChristianslaves.As Christianand
largelyunprofitable
Islamic statesbegan to enterinto relatively
stable,long-term
politicaland economicrelationships,
ransomingbecame much
easierto arrange,and so slave raidingbetweenChristianand
Muslim lands became less a means of procuringslaves,and
morea meansofproducingshort-term
war captives.Even this
typeof raidinggraduallybecame more dangerousbecause of
increasednaval activity
and a growinglikelihoodof diplomatic
54
245-8.
Talbi, 'Law and Economyin Ifnqiya(Tunisia)', 224.
25
At thesametime,Latinrulersgainedcontrolover
retaliation.56
to theextentthattheycouldenforceprohitheirownmerchants,
fromwithintheirownborders.As a result
bitionson slavetrading
of thesefactors,the Islamicdemandforslavesremainedmost
in thenon-Christianized
landseastoftheChristiantereffective
thosewhoselessorganizedstatesand lackofmonotheisritories,
ticethosstillencouragedlocal elitesto lead slave-raiding
parties
and wheremerchantscould sell
into neighbouring
territories,
Islamicsocislavesofalmostanyoriginwithoutfearofrebuke.57
on
sub-Saharan
where
also
bordered
Africa,
EthiopianChrisety
tiansandvariousgroupsofanimistsfurther
augmentedavailable
A
which
contributed
to theemergence
final
factor
slavesupplies.
of a perfectno-slavingzone by the highMiddle Ages was the
pagan peoples.Britain,Scandiongoingconversionofformerly
centralEurope,theBalkansand mostofRussia
navia,Germany,
zonebetweenthesixth
wereall addedto theChristian
no-slaving
and eleventhcenturies,greatlyenhancingthe securityof those
withinthecoreareasofthezone.58This meantthatLatinChristians,whohad no accessto sub-SaharanAfricaduringthesecendistantpagans of the Russian
turies,had onlythe increasingly
draw
their
slavesupply.59
from
whom
to
steppes
56This
tendency is already noted by McCormick for the ninth century:
McCormick, Originsof the European Economy,769. See also Mishin, 'Saqaliba
Slaves', 237. For a studyon the redemptionof Spanish Christiancaptivestakenby
la
Muslimsin thelaterMiddle Ages,see AndrsDaz Borras,El miedoal Mediterrneo:
de cautivosbajopodermusulman,1323-1539
caridadpopularvalencianay la redencin
(Barcelona,2001).
Talbi notesa paucityofslavesenteringTunisiafromthetenthcenturyonward,in
contrastwitha superabundanceofslaveimportsduringtheninthcentury:Talbi,'Law
and Economyin Ifrqiya(Tunisia)', 214-27.
The splitbetweenLatinand OrthodoxChristendomled to an increaseddangerof
enslavementof one typeof Christianby another,but the dangerto a Christianof
enslavementby a Christianof the opposed Church was generallyless than the
dangerofenslavementby Muslims or pagans,since diplomaticrecoursecould often
be had, at leastforwealthyorinfluential
pope protesting
captives.For a ninth-century
againstthesale byByzantinesofLatin Christianstheyhad supposedly'liberated',see
745. On 'Greek' slavesin fourteenthMcCormick,OriginsoftheEuropeanEconomy,
and fifteenth-century
Spain, see Verlinden,LEsclavage dans l'Europe mdivale,
i, 321-30.
59Marc Bloch
withpaganism as a possible
long ago noted the recedingfrontier
source forthe decline of westernEuropean slavery:Bloch, Slaveryand Serfdomin
theMiddleAges,28. However,he and those followinghim have greatlypreferred
economicexplanations:Bonnassie,FromSlaverytoFeudalism,37-8.
26
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
IV
THE END OF SLAVERY IN LATIN EUROPE
So muchfortheevolutionofa perfect
zone,
Europeanno-slaving
whichwasinforceby 1100 or 1200 atthelatest.LatinChristians
werenow preventedby a combinationof taboo and legislation
In thistheywere,belatedly
fromenslaving
otherLatinChristians.
of
itseems,following
theMuslimstates,whichhadputthetheory
zone
into
earlier
than
the
Christians.
a perfect
no-slaving
practice
It remainsto answertheratherdistinctquestionofwhyslavery
in theEuropeanheartlandbythetenth
had died out altogether
and eleventhcenturies.In otherwords,I haveshownhowLatin
Christians
ceasedto enslavefellowLatinChristians
generally
by
thistime,thuscreating
a perfect
zone.Butwhydidthe
no-slaving
LatinChristians
andmoreorlessceasetoenslave
goa stepfurther
non-Christians
soon thereafter?
This is especiallyinteresting
whenwe remember
thatenslavement
ofnon-Muslimscontinued
to thrivein the perfectno-slavingzone createdby the Islamic
world.
If the new monotheistic
worldviewsdid not by theirnature
cause a phasingout of slavery,whattheydid ensure,on both
sides of the Mediterranean,
was thatslave suppliescould not
nowbe maintained
of
bymany themeanswhichhad traditionally
been employedby pagan slavesocieties.Both Christianity
and
Islamheldthatmanumission
was a pious act,and althoughthe
is hesitantto compareratesof manumissionin
historiography
and
prepost-Christianized
Europe,itseemslogicalto conclude
thattheywerehigherin thesixthand seventhcenturiesthanin
pagantimes.60In bothChristianand Islamicsocieties,different
degreesof unfreedomwere introduced,and these tended to
hinderthe intergenerational
of slave populations.61
continuity
in
both
debtslaveryand the
Likewise,
cultures,judicialslavery,
60
Bradleyarguesthatmanumissionswerenotexcessiveundertheempire,and that
thepracticeofmanumissionwas employedprimarily
as a means of control.He also
notes the continuingcollectionof the manumissiontax in the fourthcenturyas an
indicationthattherewerestillsubstantialnumbersofslavesat thistime:K. R. Bradley,
SlavesandMastersintheRomanEmpire:A StudyinSocialControl(Brussels,1984), 81112. For Jewishslave-owningand manumissionunder the Romans, see E. Leigh
Gibson, The JewishManumissionInscriptions
of theBosporusKingdom(Tbingen,
1999), esp. 56-94. Again,fora recentdiscussionof manumissionin earlymedieval
Europe, see Wickham,FramingtheEarlyMiddleAges,564-5.
For gradationsofunfreedomin theMalikischool ofIslamicthought(whichwas
prevalentin North-WestAfricaand Spain), see Cristinade la Puente, 'Entre la
(com.onp. 27)
27
wereseverely
curtailedbyreligiously
saleofchildren
inspiredlaw
and custom.As a result,boththe Christianand Islamicmonotheisticblocs (understandingChristendomto be somewhat
on only
dividedbetweenEast and West)had to relyincreasingly
two of the mechanismsby whichslave populationshad been
maintainedthroughclassicaltimes,namelyauto-reproduction,
and thepurchaseorcaptureofslavesfromoutsidetheno-slaving
on theextenttowhichvarious
zone.Thereis muchdisagreement
evenforslavesocietiesas
slavepopulationscan auto-reproduce,
In genmodernandwellstudiedas Americanantebellum
slavery.
in
which
it
seems
as
eral,
thoughpopulations
newlycaptured
slaves predominatewill tend towardsa lower level of autoand older,moreestablishedpopulationswilltend
reproduction,
but regionaland
towardsa higherlevel of auto-reproduction,
Leaving
temporalvarianceswillchangethisequationgreatly.62
aside forthe momentthe debate on whetheror not various
Europeanslavepopulationscould sustaintheirnumbersat various placesand times,we can statethat,otherthingsbeingequal,
whichis usuallyveryimportant
theexternalsupplymechanism,
unslaveeconomies,was becomingincreasingly
to maintaining
as theearlyMiddleAgesprogressed,
availabletoLatinChristians
foundexternalsuppliesto be
whiletheIslamicEmpiregenerally
undertheseciror
even
abundant.
And,interestingly
adequate
Latin
Christendom
cumstances,
effectively
phased out slavery
whileIslam wentthe opposite
in favourof serfdom,
altogether
route,and expandedtheroleofslaveryall themore.
demandon itssurrounding
Islambeganto exerta tremendous
aftertheyear800.63This occurred
slavezones,beginning
shortly
(n. 61 com.)
esclavitudy la libertad:consecuenciaslegales de la manumisinsegn el derecho

mlik',Al-Qantarasxxi (2000).
intheNew worldslaveregions,see HerbertS.
For thisviewofauto-reproduction
Klein, TheAtlanticSlave Trade(Cambridge, 1999), 166-8. For pagan Rome, see
Bradley,Slaveryand Societyat Rome,31-56. Bradleymaintainsthat,generallyspeakmaining,ancientslave systemsreliedon externalsourcesof supplyas a significant
tenancemechanism.
For thepurposesofthepresentargumentitdoes notmuchmatterwhetherearly
different
from
Islamicslave-holdingpatternswerecontinuouswithor fundamentally
concernedwiththe natureof
Sassanid or Byzantinepatterns,since we are primarily
slave supplyand demand itself,and secondarilyconcernedto show thatdemand for
slavesfromnon-Islamicareasprobablyincreasedfromthelate eighthand earlyninth
in agriculcenturies.As noted above, scholarsknowthattherewas some continuity
turalslave-holdingbetweenpre-Islamicand Islamic periods,probablymore man is
(com. onp. 28)
28
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
because internalmechanismsfor maintainingslave supply

becameideologically
unacceptable,at thesametimethatIslamic
rulersadoptedthecustomsofkeepingslavearmies,slavebureaucraciesand largeslave households.In fact,partof the reason
whythecaliphsadoptedslavearmiesand bureaucracieswas to
circumvent
the entrenchedpower of some greatArab noble
families.This was an effective
solutionto the problemthat
would dog European monarchsformore than a millennium:
how to maintainan effective
bureaucracywithoutcontinually
to
a
But it is interlosingroyalprerogatives hereditary
nobility.
to
note
had
Islam
not
the
of
forbidden
enslavement
that,
esting
it
is
that
the
Islamic
institution
of
co-religionists, unlikely
unique
theslavearmywouldhavecomeintobeing.
BythetimethatthisexternalIslamicdemandwas developing,
froma
manyCarolingianestateshad completeda transformation
slave-basedmodeofproductionto a serf-based
modeofproduction,thoughslaverydid continueto existin manypartsof the
continent.64
By the ninthcentury,and perhapsmuch earlier,
(n. 63cont.)
usuallyacknowledged.See Morony,'Landholding in Seventh-Century

Iraq', 165.
Mohamed Talbi quite unequivocally states that slaves played a major role in
Tunisian agriculturein the ninthcentury:Talbi, 'Law and Economy in Ifnqiya
(Tunisia)', 215. Certainlythereis precedentforthe institutionof haremslaveryin
Sassanidsources,eventhoughitdid notbecome a dominantsocialinstitution
untilthe
timeofal-Rashid;and, anyway,theinstitution
ofthe mamlkfromtheninthcentury
an entirely
constitutes
novelsystemwhichcan onlyhaveincreasedtheslavedemandof
Islamicsocieties.The highpricescommandedforslavesfromtheearlyninthcentury,
as recordedby McCormick,are in anyeventevidenceof a highdemand withinthe
Caliphate.On theincreasingimportanceoftheharemand householdslavesfromearly
Abbasid times, see Hugh Kennedy, The Prophetand the Age of the Caliphates:
TheIslamicNear EastfromtheSixthto theEleventhCentury(London, 1986), 138-9.
On increased numbers of slaves, see Claude Cahen, 'Tribes, Cities and Social
Organization',in R. N. Frye (ed.), TheCambridge
HistoryofIran,iv, ThePeriodfrom
theArabInvasiontotheSaliuqs (Cambridge,1975), 328.
64See
Wickham,FramingtheEarlyMiddleAges,562-3. In ChrisWickham,'The
OtherTransition:From the AncientWorldto Feudalism', Past and Present,
no. 103
occurredinthethird
(May 1984), he in factarguesthatthebulkofthistransformation
century,
priorto Christianization.
Justhow manyslavesremainedin variouspartsof
Europe in each centuryunder scrutinyis stilla thornyissue, in part because the
vocabularyemployedin the documents is oftenloosely applied. For the debate
betweenA. H. M. Jonesand otherson the numberof slaves in the late empire,see
Wally Seccombe, A Millenniumof Family Change: Feudalism to Capitalismin
Northwestern
Europe(London, 1992), 45-6. For a good synopsisof the stateof the
earlymedievalslaverydebate,see Rio, 'Freedom and Unfreedomin EarlyMedieval
Francia', 8-12. See also the conclusionsof Devroey in 'Men and Women in Early
Medieval Serfdom'.
29
itdoes seemas thoughthebulkofEuropeanservilepopulations

ratherthan replenishweremaintainedby auto-reproduction,
Butinthepreviouscenturies,
mentthrough
marketmechanisms.
therehad been manyslavemarketsthroughout
Europe,and itis
itselfhad playeda rolein shutting
these
likelythatChristianity
down.65Andwe can statethatbytheeighthand ninthcenturies,
to whateverextentEuropeanlandlordswishedto continuepurchasingslaves,theywere discouragedfromdoing so by the
forexternalslaveresourcesfromtheIslamic
extreme
competition
the
new
Thus
Christian
attitudes,
coupledwithIslamic
economy.
for
external
slave
worked
supplies,
againstanyreturn
competition
to a slave-basedeconomyin Europe,and hastenedthedemiseof
thosesectorsoftheeconomywhichstillreliedon replenishment
oftheslavesupply.
MichaelMcCormickis
In his Origins
withdiscussing
thenatureoftheslavetraderouteswhich
concerned
butitis beyondthe
ranthrough
Europeand theMediterranean,
purviewofhis alreadymassivestudyto dwellon thereasonsfor
thatMcCormick'sdata
theirriseanddecline.Ourmodelsuggests
betweenEuropeanand NorthAfrican
showingthe differential
slavepricesrevealsa strongeconomiccauseforthedisappearance
ofslavemarketsin earlymedievalEurope.66Betweentheeighth
thepriceofslavesinNorthAfricawas three
and tenthcenturies,
to fivetimeshigherthanthe price of slavesin Europe. While
on thegrounds
economists
mightbaulkatMcCormick'sfindings
differentials
of
thismagnitude
in
an
market,
that,
price
integrated
shouldnotexistforverylong,we need onlyto lookat slavemarAfricaand the Caribbeanto findan
ketsin eighteenth-century
in theproductivity
At
that
situation.
time,differences
analogous
wereso greatthat
Africa
and
the
Caribbean
labour
between
of
ina
slavepriceswerehighly
disparateinthetworegions,resulting
on
these
netexportofslavestotheCaribbean.It seemsplausible,
65For theabundance of slave marketsin
earlymedievalEurope, see McCormick,
748. For therolethatChristianity
mighthaveplayed
OriginsoftheEuropeanEconomy,
in suppressingthese markets,see Devroey, 'Men and Women in Early Medieval
Serfdom',7-8, 15-19.
66See table 25.1 and its
explanation in McCormick, Originsof the European
Economy)756 (reprintedand describedin his 'New Lighton the "Dark Ages"', 44).
Note also thatthepresumedimpactofIslamicdemandon Byzantiumsuggestsa whole
otheravenue of research,even thoughMcCormick's data suggeststhat the price
betweenByzantiumand the Caliphate was virtuallynon-existent
differential
by the
tenthcenturyat thelatest.
30
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
ofslavelabourinEurope
grounds,tosuggestthattheproductivity
was substantially
lowerthan thatof NorthAfricaduringthe
eighthto the tenthcenturies,thus resultingin the observed
and a netexportofslaves.
pricedisparity,
When we look more closely,McCormick'sseriesshow that
pricesin the Caliphatespikedduringthe late eighthand early
ninthcenturies,just as Islamic societybegan to adopt large
slavehouseholdsand large-scaleslavearmies.If,as someauthors
haveargued,theninthcenturywitnessedthebulkofthetransitionfromslaveryto serfdomin westernEurope,the timingof
thesetwo developmentsmightnot be coincidental.67
Leaving
differential
of
aside questionsofexacttiming,a long-term
price
thismagnitudemeansthattherewouldhavebeen preciouslittle
foranyslavemerchants
toselltheirwareswithinEurope
incentive
Merchantswhohad
betweenthelateseventhandtenthcenturies.
slaves
from
war leadersin
to
the
trouble
of
gone
purchasing
or
Britain
would
have
founditwell
central
Scandinavia,
Europe
worththeirwhileto disposeoftheircargoesin Veniceor other
portswithshipsbound forNorthAfrica,whereAfricanswould
paya farhandsomerpricethananyEuropeanalongtheway.68By
thetimetheEuropeaneconomyhad developedto theextentthat
itcouldcompetewithNorthAfrican
demand,theEuropeanshad
withoutslaves.69It has already
learnedhowto do almostentirely
been suggestedthatchurchproclamations
againstthe enslavementof Christiansby Christianswerea responseto increased
Islamicdemand.It is nowpossibleto suggestthattheChurch's
vocalcampaignagainstslavery
wasmadepracticable
increasingly
the
that
the
fact
was
on
its
out
by
system
way
anyway,owingin
measure
to
the
economic
difficulties
of
slave
maintaining
large
supplies.
67
Rio, 'Freedom and Unfreedomin EarlyMedieval Francia', 8. (But note,again,
in thevariousregionsofEurope. Bonnassie,for
thatthechronologyofslaverydiffered
example,foundslaveryin Catalonia up to the end of the tenthcentury:Bonnassie,
FromSlaverytoFeudalism,51-6.)
From theearlymodernperiodup to thenineteenthcentury,
Africanslaveswere
sometimesmarchedovera thousandmilesto reachcoastal slaveports.Some slavers
seem to have cared littleifas manyas four-fifths
oftheircaptivesdied on theway;the
profitsobtainedat portmade evenlossesofthismagnitudeeconomicallysustainable.
See below at n. 98.
Bensch notes thatby 1300, Mediterraneanmarketshad become farmoreintegrated, and slave prices were comparable and relativelystable throughoutthe
Mediterranean:Bensch,'From PrizesofWar to Domestic Merchandise',78.
EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM
AND SLAVERY
31
V
THE LATIN CHRISTIAN NO-SLAVINGZONE c.1000-1500
For approximately
threeand a halfcenturies,thatis, between
roughly1000 and 1363,Europebecametheworld'slargestsocietywhichdid not,forall practicalpurposes,practiseslavery.70
The researchesof CharlesVerlindenshowthatthenumbersof
slaves in thirteenth-century
westernEurope were verysmall
indeed.71Slaves were foundonlyin a fewborderareas, and
almostall of themwere Muslimswho had been capturedin
war.Many ofthesewerelaterredeemedby relativesor institutions set up forthispurpose.72Anotherpatterncan also be
pointedout: generallyspeaking,slaverytended to disappear
more quicklyfromChristianlands whichdid not borderan
activeslavingzone,and lessquicklyfromregionswhichbordered
slavingzones. This explainsthelongerpersistenceofslaveryin
Spain, Dalmatia, Britain,Scandinaviaand Russia, forexample.73But the extentto whichslaverystayedmoribundduring
theperiodfromabout 1000 to 1363 stillrequiresmoreexplanaoffersat present.Throughoutthe
tionthanthehistoriography
and Mediterranean
ChristiansconhighMiddleAges,northern
tinuallypurchasedcargoesin portswherepagan and Christian
70Peter
Spuffordwritessimilarly:Spufford,Powerand Profit,338. Some slaves
were, however,stillkept in various parts of Europe throughoutthe high Middle
Ages. See thesourcescitedin n. 25 above.
71
i. Neven Budak providesa good
Verlinden,L'Esclavagedans l'Europemdivale,
chronologyof the disappearanceof earlymedievalslaveryin his studyof Dalmatia.
Slave sales became quite rare in Dalmatia by the twelfthcentury,and slaverywas
almostentirely
replacedbyindenturedservitudeduringtheperiodofsuperabundant
labourat thebeginningofthefourteenth
century.A latemedievalrevivalofslavery,in
bothDalmatia and Italy,began onlyin 1363, as a directresultofthe second wave of
theexportofslavesin 1375,
plague. Splitmade itsfirstlate medievallaws restricting
afterthe thirdwave of plague. See Budak, 'Slavery in Late Medieval Dalmatia/
Croatia', 750-7. For Italy,see Iris Origo, 'The Domestic Enemy', Speculum,xxx
(1955), 324-5.
72On thecontinual
thatSaracen slaveswould be ransomed,see Bensch,
possibility
'From Prizes of War to Domestic Merchandise', 72-4. Bensch notes that on the
Catalan-Islamicfrontier,
ransomprocedureshad been regularizedbythemidtwelfth
theransomofChristiancaptives,often
century,
centuryat thelatest.Bythethirteenth
usingcapturedSaracensas a mediumofexchange,was thelegallysanctionedbusiness
oftheMercedarianOrder:ibid.,82.
73See RichardC.
Hoffman,'Outsidersby Birthand Blood: RacistIdeologies and
Realitiesaroundthe PeripheryofMedieval Culture',Studiesin Medievaland RenaissanceHist.,vi (1983), 14-20. This is also citedby Stuardin 'AncillaryEvidence for
the Decline in Medieval Slavery',15 n. 44, who observesthe co-ordinationbetween
and lingeringslavery.
European frontiers
32
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
slaveswereavailableforpurchase.Whythendid no Tatarslaves,
forexample,appearon Verlinden's
radarduringthesecenturies,
as theywouldappearso prominently
after1363?Why,in other
words,did Latin Christiantradersnot bringcargoesof these
slavesback to theirhomeports?It is especiallynoteworthy
that
theGenoese,whobecamethemiddlemenin theBlackSea slave
tradebetweenpagan Russia,Byzantiumand the Islamicstates
fromtheearlythirteenth
did notbringbacklargenumcentury,
bersofslavestotheirownhomes.A fewnon-Muslimslaveswere,
in fact,imported:a Russian slave is mentionedin Genoa in
1275.74But forthe mostpart the keepingof domesticslaves
remainedthe affectation
of a few,and manycities,including
Florenceand Venice,actuallyput tightlegalrestrictions
on the
ofslaves.75Did theEuropeans,undertheinfluence
importation
oftheirascendantChurch,trulydevelopan aversionto slaveryas
an immoralinstitution,
and did European fashiontherefore
frown
offoreign
slavesofwhatever
upontheimportation
religion?
Theremightbe sometruthto this.Whatevertheeconomicsituationmayhavebeen,ifithad been at all sociallyacceptablefor
Europeanstoimportslavesduringthisperiod,upper-class
people
wouldhave seen to it thattheyhad slaves.If we thusviewthe
absenceofslavery
frommuchofEuropebetweenabout1000 and
1363 as due to somethingof a moralaversionbolsteredby the
the 'churchmorality'case made
Church,thismuststrengthen
aboveforthepreviouscenturies.But justas I have arguedthat
fashionand morality
had strongeconomicforceson theirside
duringthe earlymedievalcenturies,it is also the case thatany
Europeanaversionto slaveryduringthehighMiddle Ages was
aided by the economicrealityof dirt-cheaplabour.It
strongly
shouldbe remembered
thattheperiodfrom1000 to 1300 correspondswitha steepand continualincreasein Europeanpopulation.Between1066 and 1300, forexample,the populationof
Englandhad mushroomedfromjust overone millionto more
thanfourmillionpeople.76
74
Trade,104. Bensch
Phillips,SlaveryfromRoman TimestotheEarly Transatlantic
notesthat,priorto the mid fourteenth
century,Russian and Tatar slaves cannotbe
located in Catalonia with certainty:Bensch, 'From Prizes of War to Domestic
Merchandise',8 1.
Trade,104-6.
Phillips,SlaveryfromRomanTimestotheEarlyTransatlantic
On the fourteenth-century
figures,see Barbara F. Harvey,introduction:The
"Crisis" oftheEarlyFourteenthCentury',in Bruce M. S. Campbell (ed.), Beforethe
BlackDeath: Studiesin the'Crisis'oftheEarlyFourteenth
Century(Manchester,1991).
33
offperhapsa
Then,in 1348,theBlackDeath struck,carrying
thirdof the populationof Europe. Indeed, the severelabour
Europefromthemidfourteenth
century,
shortagethatafflicted
especiallyafterthesecondmajorwaveofplaguestruckin 1362,
caused some southernEuropeansto employdomesticslavesin
theirhouseholdsonceagain.77Whateverscruplesthesesouthern
oncefeltaboutimporting
slavesnowcrumbledinthe
merchants
face of economichardship.That Florencefelta keen labour
withthesecondwaveofplague,
shortage,specifically
beginning
isindicatedbythefactthatthecommuneallowedtheunrestricted
ofslavesfrom1363.78A fewnumberswillhelpus to
importation
realizetheextentofthelabourcrisis.In thecitiesofCatalonia,it
can be calculatedthatforeveryfivedomesticsthata wealthy
householdcould keep priorto the plague, that same household could affordto employonlya singledomesticby 1380.79
If thesefiguresare indicative,we should not be surprisedat
Boccaccio'sfamouscomplaintaboutthecheekofthelabouring
classesduringthesedecades.80
It mustbe said, however,thatonlyin southernEurope did
merdomesticslaverytakeofffromthe 1360s.81That northern
chantsand theircustomersdid notbeginto importslavesat this
to theeffectiveness
oftheChristianno-slaving
timeis testament
the influenceof slavingcultureand slaving
zone in restricting
77For theidea thata truelabour
shortagedid not startuntiltheplague of 1362-3,
see A. R. Bridbury,'The Black Death', Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser.,xxvi (1973). For
evidenceof the same trendin Catalonia, see Jeffrey
Fynn-Paul,'Tartarsin Spain:
Renaissance Slaveryin the Catalan City of Manresa, c.1408', Jl Medieval Hist.,
xxxiv (2008). See also J. Fynn-Paul, 'The Catalan City of Manresa in the
Fourteenthand FifteenthCenturies:A Political, Social, and Economic History'
(Univ. ofTorontoPh.D. thesis,2005), 72-3.
78
Trade,105; Origo,
Phillips,SlaveryfromRoman Timesto theEarly Transatlantic
'Domestic Enemy',324-5.
For interestrateson interpersonalloans in Catalonia, see Fynn-Paul,'Catalan
CityofManresa', 138-9. For a threefolddecrease on stateinterestratesin Florence
and Catalonia, see ibid.,149-50.
For servants'demands forhigh wages, in returnforlittleservice,duringthe
course of the Black Death, see Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron,trans. G. H.
Me William (Harmondsworth,1972), 54. For a discussion of the 1351 English
Statute of Labourers, which suggeststhat the lower classes had stepped beyond
theirformersocial and economicbounds, see JosephP. Byrne,Daily Lifeduringthe
Black Death (Westport,2006), 251.
Powerand Profit,
338. Phillips,in SlaveryfromRomanTimestotheEarly
Spufford,
Transatlantic
Trade,ch. 5, does notaddressanynorthernEuropean slaveryin thelater
Middle Ages.
34
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
economies.And in the south,althoughthe increasein slavery

was dramatic,it representsa dramaticincreaseover virtually
nothing.During this phase of 'Renaissance slavery',which
lasted into the eighteenthcentury,southernEuropean slaveowningdid not move too farbeyondthe circlesof wealthier
householdsin international
tradingcentres.And the number
of slaves in any givencitywas neververyhigh.In Venice,a
censusof 1563 listed7 to 8 per centof the populationas serIn thetown
vants,and slaveswereonlya portionofthisfigure.82
of Manresa in Catalonia, outsideBarcelona,slaves made up
about 1 per cent of the populationin 1408, and only about
2.5 per cent of Manresan householdsowned slaves. Despite
sensibleinvestthefactthatslaveshad becomean economically
whosehighcapitaloutlaybarred
ment,theywerean investment
all but the wealthiesthouseholders.The averageManresan
householdwas worthabout 1,350 in themoney
slave-owning
of Barcelona,whichwas over thirteentimesthe worthof an
averagehousehold.83In the north,thereis some indication
that slave-owningremainedso foreignthat it was actively
frownedupon. This was helpedverymuchby the factthatby
thelaterMiddle Ages theactiveRussianslavingzone was relaAn Englishcase from
merchants.
tivelyinaccessibleto northern
who had boughta slave froma
1559 witnessesa cartwright
Russianmarket.Afterneighbourscomplainedabout the cartwright's
tendencyto scourgehis slave,thecourtrecordgoes on
to state:'it was resolvedthatEnglandwas too pure an air for
slavesto breathein'.84
82For the
English diaristJohnEvelyn's too-briefdescriptionof a seventeenthcenturyslave marketin Livorno,completewith'Turks,Mores, and otherNations'
(albeitwe areleftguessingas towho is sellingwhom),see TheDiaryofJohnEvelyn,ed.
E. S. de Beer (London, 2006), 99. The end of 'Renaissance slavery'in southern
Europe is a topic that stands very much in need of furtherresearch. For the
Venetianfigures,see Phillips,SlaveryfromRoman Timesto theEarly Transatlantic
Trade,106.
83
Fynn-Paul,'Tartarsin Spain', 354.
04This
is quoted in RichardHellie, SlaveryinRussia,1450-1725 (Chicago, 1982),
22 n. 32. There is a continuingdebate on why and how earlymodern northern
Europeans seemed to eschewslaveryon theirown soil,whilebecomingsome of the
greatestarchitectsof the Atlanticslave system.See Davis, 'Looking at Slaveryfrom
BroaderPerspectives',458.
35
VI
THE SLAVINGZONES OF THE MONOTHEISTIC BLOC:
RUSSIA AND AFRICA
Russia
Considerationsof space allow us to say onlya littleabout the
impactof the monotheistic
empireson theirslavingzones in
Russia and Africa,but somethingshouldbe said hereso as to
tosaythata comparative
providea testcaseforourmodel.Suffice
historyof slaveryin thesetwo regionsverymuch needs to be
written.
WebeginwithRussia,wheretheslavetradepeakedsomecenturiesearlierthanit did in Africa.The conversionof mostof
and easternEurope in theninthto eleventhcenturies
northern
led to a greatlychangedgeographyof slavery.Whereasat the
betweenChristian
beginningof the tenthcenturythe frontier
and pagan lands extendedin a line fromjust east of Venice
through
PraguetothemouthoftheElbe,bytheeleventh
century,
missionaries
fromboththeRomanand Orthodoxchurcheshad
extendedthefrontier
east. The
nearlya thousandmilesfurther
Balkanshad beenalmostentirely
in
the
mid
ninth
pagan
century,
butthesewereconverted
to Orthodoxy
therebeginningshortly
after.The greatestgainsforChristianity
in termsofsheerterritorialexpansecamewiththeconversion
ofVladimirtheGreatof
Russiashortly
before1000.85A glanceat themapwillshowwhy
no moreis heardoftrans-European
slavingroutesafter1000: the
frontier
was
now
on
a lineextending
northfrom
Christian-pagan
theCrimea.Accordingly,
themostactiveslavingzone in Europe
now shiftedfarto theeast,and theBlack Sea becamethemost
convenient
fortheentireMediterranean
slavingterminus
region.
Thus itremainedthroughout
thelatermedievalperiod.The invasionsoftheMongols,whichbeganwiththeGoldenHorde in
themid thirteenth
centuryand continuedthroughthereignof
Timurinthelatefourteenth,
ensuredthattheregionnorthofthe
Black Sea remainedturbulent
thesecenturies.The
throughout
Mongolsbegan to adopt Islam fromabout the mid thirteenth
but the conversionof the variousMongol and Tatar
century,
andtheprespeopleswasnotcompletedforsometimethereafter,
ence ofpagan,Muslimand Christianpeoplesin closeproximity
85
JanetMartin,MedievalRussia,980-1584 (Cambridge,1995), 5-12.
36
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
made fora fecundslavingmarket.All thesame,thecontinuing

assimilation
offormerly
andIslamic
paganpeoplesintoChristian
statesmeantthat,bythelatersixteenth
therewerevery
century,
few'pagans'leftto enslavein theRussiansteppe.Furthermore,
thecaptureofConstantinople
bytheTurksin 1453, andthefallof
thelastGenoeseoutpostatKaffaon theBlackSea in 1474,effectivelyblockedEuropeanaccess to theremainderoftheRussian
slavemarket.86
Afterthistime,theTurkishsultansencouraged
to man
theirownmerchants,
includingGreeksand Armenians,
the Black Sea routes.Anyslavesthatcould be capturedfrom
remainingpagan areas or Christianlands of easternEurope
afterthe 1450s weregenerally
handledby Ottomanmerchants,
and almostall ofthemendedup inIslamiccountries.The severingofEurope'sdirectaccesstotheBlackSea, alongwithcontinuto Christianity
and Islam,meantthatTatarslaves
ingconversion
wereno longercost-effective
afterthemidfifteenth
It is
century.
well knownthatthe Europeansbegan to explorethe coast of
Africajust as theirdirectaccess to easternmarketswas being
diminished
byTurkishconquests.One ofthemanycommodities
whichEuropeansfoundwhentheyreachedtheNigerriverwas a
freshsupplyof 'pagan' slaveswho had been capturedin warby
rivalchieftains;
thenativeslaveeconomyin manypartsof subAfrica
ofIslamic
Saharan
had alreadybeenimpactedbycenturies
slavedemand.87
Theseslavechannelscouldnowbe usedtofillthe
demandfordomesticslaveswhichEuropeanshad developedin
thepost-BlackDeath era.The textbookdateforthearrivalofthe
firstshipmentofAfricansin Europe is 1441; however,mostof
theslavesup to thelate 1440s seemto havebeen Berbers,since
the ethnically
black regionsof Africawerenot reachedby the
mostEuropeandomestic
Portugueseuntil1448.88Henceforth,
slaveswereblack.Meanwhile,Islamicmerchants
andraidersnow
monopolizedaccessto Russianslavemarkets,
althoughwe must
imagine that the Russian slave exportsdwindledfromthe
86
Spuffordnotes Pedro Tafur'sstatementthat'in thiscity[Kaffa]theysell more
slaves,both male and female,thananywhereelse in theworld': Spufford,Powerand
340. For theclosingofEuropean access to theBlack Sea markets,see Phillips,
Profit,
RomanTimestotheEarlyTransatlantic
Trade*106.
Slaveryfrom
87One of the firstcollectionsof
essayswhichintegratesthe combined impactof
Christianand IslamicslaveryinWestAfricafromabout 1450 rightup to thetwentieth
centuryis Lovejoy(ed.), SlaveryontheFrontiers
ofIslam.See theintroductory
essayby
Lovejoy,'Slavery,theBild al-Sdn and theFrontiersoftheAfricanDiaspora'.
Trade,138-9.
Phillips,SlaveryfromRomanTimestotheEarlyTransatlantic
37
withthe rise of the Muscovitestateand the

fifteenth
century,
morethoroughIslamizationof the formerly
pagan peoples on
its borders.Still,it was onlywiththe Russian captureof the
KhanateoftheCrimeain 1783 thatthelastmajorsourceofslavwas halted.89
intoRussianterritory
ingincursions
As one furtherreflectionon the evolutionof the eastern
to notethatthepractice
Europeanslavingzone,it is interesting
continuedin
that
of
Christians
ofslavery,
Christians,
by
including
It could be
Russia rightup to the earlyeighteenth
century.90
in
to
the
Russians'
was
due
that
this
Orthodoxy,
part
argued
than Latin Christendom
whichwas generallyless anti-slavery
mostofitshistory.
CertainlytheOrthodoxChurch
throughout
thantheCatholichieraron
its
monarchs
fewer
restraints
placed
countries'
on
theirs.91
The
to
tended
'neighbouring
place
chy
factorshouldalso be takenintoaccount:we have seen thatin
toa slavingzoneusuallyencourLatinEurope,atleast,proximity
of
the
persistence slavery.Russia itselfwas borderedby
aged
century;
slavingsocietiesuntilthelatenineteenth
manydifferent
in fact,St Petersburgdid not manageto suppressthe central
Asian slave systemswhich had been incorporatedinto the
RussianEmpireuntila fewdecadesbeforethe1917 revolution.92
PerhapsthefamousBrennerdebateon thelongcontinuanceof
revisitedby
serfdomin easternEurope could be productively
who took the historyof slaveryin Russia more
investigators
fullyintoaccount.93
Africa
Had Europeanslavedemandnotexpandedbeyondthedomestic
slaveryof the Renaissance,the numberof slaves exportedby
EuropeansfromAfricawouldprobablyhaveremainedrelatively
offactorsledtothere-employment
low.However,a combination
ofchattelslaverybyEuropeans,aftera lapse ofnearlyfivecenitwas discoveredthatsugar
turies.In themidfifteenth
century,
run on the Cape VerdeIslands
plantationscould be profitably
usingslaveswhichhad been importedfromthenearbyAfrican
89
Lewis, Race and Slaveryin theMiddleEast, 12.
90
Hellie, Slaveryin Russia,695-708.
91A
ofByzantineCaesaropapism:see ibid.,3.
92 legacy
/>,708-10.
93T. H. Aston and C. H. E.
Philpin (eds.), The BrennerDebate: AgrarianClass
in Pre-Industrial
and EconomicDevelopment
Structure
Europe(Cambridge,1985).
38
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
coast. These plantationswere neververylarge,and did not

employmorethana fewthousandslavesintotal.94It was theexoftheNew World,and theconogenousfactorofthediscovery
tinuingdevelopmentof its economy,whichwas to cause such
a dramaticincreasein Christian-African
slavetrading.But for
thisdiscovery,
and theimplementation
oftheCape Verdesugar
intheNewWorldon an entirely
plantation
system
unprecedented
ofearlymodern
scale,thestoryofAfricanslaveryin thehistory
Europemighthaveremaineda marginalfootnote.
Meanwhile,as slavesourcesinRussiaand theCaucasus slowly
driedup, theonlyslavingzone whichremainedto theOttomans
and otherMuslimstateswas the pagan areas of Africa.95
The
nineteenth
was
to
become
the
era
of
African
century
greatest
slaveexportsto Muslimpolities,as theeighteenth
centuryhad
been the era of greatestslave exportsto European-controlled
territories.96
Butmushrooming
ensuredthattheprotechnology
cessofcivilization
speededup dramatically
duringthenineteenth
in
and itis likelythat one wayor anothermostAfrican
century,
peoples would soon have become able to resistincorporation
intoanyslavingzones,since,as thisarticlehas shown,political
has alwaysbeenonekeyforanysocietytoescapethe
organization
snaresofimperialslavedemand,whiletheadoptionofChristian
withtheirslaveethicshas been another.
or Islamicmonotheism
As itturnedout,Europeancolonialists,
theBritish,
particularly
wereto have a largehand in thefinalextinction
of theAfrican
slavingzone, because of theircontinuingcompetitionwith
Islamic statesforAfricanlabour resources.97
Aftertheirown
in
halted
slave
the
Britishbegan
1808,
government
exportations
to put diplomaticpressureon variousMuslim statesto cease
slave imports.This workedin the Britishbest interest,since
networkswere severelydisruptingthe economy
slave-trading
and public order of the emergentBritishAfricanempire.
94
Phillipsnotes thatmostof the roughly1,000 slavesbroughtto the Cape Verde
IslandsfromAfricain theearly1500s wereen routeto othermarkets:Phillips,Slavery
Trade,141. PhilipCurtinestimatesthata
fromRomanTimestotheEarlyTransatlantic
totalof25,000 Africanslaveswereimportedto theAtlanticislandsbetween1450 and
1600: PhilipD. Curtin,TheAtlanticSlave Trade:A Census(Madison, 1969), 268.
95See
Fisher,Slaveryin theHistoryofMuslimBlackAfrica,18-32, 40-5.
96
Segal, Islam'sBlack Slaves, 147-76.
For an economichistorian'stakeon theconnectionbetweenBritishabolitionism
and Britishexpansionism,see David Eltis, EconomicGrowthand theEndingof the
Transatlantic
Slave Trade(Oxford,1987).
39
The accountsof nineteenth-century

observers,whichdescribe
the effectsof slavingraidshundredsof milesinlandfromthe
nearestslavingports,provideus withperhapstheonlysustained
portraitof the devastationwhich imperialcentreshad been
ontheirslavingzonessincethebeginning
oftheimperial
inflicting
cycleabout3000 bc. One ofthemostnotoriousslaveraidersof
thenineteenth
wasTippu Tip. RonaldSegalquotesfrom
century
thememoirsofH. M. Stanley,whodescribestheeffects
ofone of
raids
the
of
the
concerned
colonialist:
Tip's
using language
'Every
threeor fourmileswe came in viewof the black tracesof the
The scarredstakes,poles of once populous settledestroyers.
scorched
banana groves,and prostratepalms, all bements,
tokenedruthless
ruin'.Anotherobserver,
a missionary,
described
his encounterwithTippu Tip's slavecaravan.He observedthat
slaveswere chainedby the neck in long files,women carried
babies, and manyslaveswerecut by whiplashes.Some slaves,
he said, wereforcedto journeyin thisfashionforover 1,200
miles.Those whocouldnotkeepup wereleftto die ofstarvation
orwereshot.He estimatedthatperhapsfourinfivecaptivesperishedon thesejourneys.98
Whentheyfinally
arrivedat a trading
slaves
were
on
the
brink
of
death
fromstarvation,
centre,many
other
slavers
saw
fit
to
their
commodities
although
protect
by
providingthem with adequate nutrition.All was leftto the
whimoftheindividualdealer.Had anti-slavery
observersbeen
WestAfrica,we
presentin the interiorof eighteenth-century
wouldpossessmanysimilaraccountsofthedevastation
wrought
byslaverswhosehub was theChristian-run
portsofGhana. We
shouldimaginethatsimilarscenesoccurredin Spainand Gaul at
thetimeofthePunicand Gallicwars,as whenSuetoniuscasually
thefavourofsome Gallicchiefsby
describesCaesar as currying
sendingthemnewlycapturedslaves'bythethousands'."Butitis
tonotethatthedevastation
causedbyraiderswas only
important
one extremeoftheslave-supply
spectrum.Muslimslaveimports
wereoftenconductedunderfarlessharshconditions.Ottoman
slavesfromtheCaucasus weresometimesprocuredbyan agreementwithlocal villagefamilies,
who consentedto selltheirchildrenintoslaveryon theunderstanding
thattheirmaleoffspring,
98
Segal, IslamysBlack Slaves, 157-9.
"Suetonius, The TwelveCaesars, trans. Robert Graves, revisedMichael Grant
(New York,2003), 13.
40
PASTAND PRESENT
NUMBER 205
at least,mightachievehighadministrative
postswithintheOttomanEmpire.The casesofTippu Tip and theCaucasus peasants
ofimpactwhichslaving
thusrepresent
endpointsonthespectrum
empireshave had on theirrespectiveslavingzones since the
genesisoftheimperialsystem.
UtrechtUniversity
Fynn-Paul
Jeffrey

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EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY IN THE GREATER MEDITERRANEAN REGION FROM

EMPIRE, MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

The Pastand PresentSociety,Oxford,2009

shouldnot be seen as in anyway downplaying

by HumphreyJ. Fisher, Slaveryin theHistoryofMuslimBlack Africa(New York,

forverylongperiodsoftime.As the Phoeniciansand thenthe

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

This phenomenoncould be termeda 'perfect'no-slavingzone,

i (1995), and its companionpiece, 'Slaveryand Solidarity:Mudejars and Foreign

is thatformanydecades the mostinfluential

opinion:Bonnassie,FromSlaverytoFeudalism,37 ff.Devroeyrefinesthe argument

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

FrankishChurchhad won acceptanceof the slave's rightto

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

wayintothemarketsofthecaliph.47It has nowbeen shownthat

Medieval Tradein theMediterranean

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

esclavitudy la libertad:consecuenciaslegales de la manumisinsegn el derecho

because internalmechanismsfor maintainingslave supply

usuallyacknowledged.See Morony,'Landholding in Seventh-Century

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

itdoes seemas thoughthebulkofEuropeanservilepopulations

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

economies.And in the south,althoughthe increasein slavery

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

made fora fecundslavingmarket.All thesame,thecontinuing

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

withthe rise of the Muscovitestateand the

coast. These plantationswere neververylarge,and did not

EMPIRE,MONOTHEISM AND SLAVERY

The accountsof nineteenth-century

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