Slavery in medieval Europe
Encyclopedia
Slavery
in early medieval Europe
was relatively common. It was widespread at the end of antiquity
. The etymology of the word slave comes from this period, the word sklabos meaning Slav. Slavery declined in the Middle Ages in most parts of Europe as serfdom
slowly rose, but it never completely disappeared. It persisted longer in Southern
and Eastern Europe
. In Poland
slavery was forbidden in the 15th century; it was replaced by the second enserfment. In Lithuania
, slavery was formally abolished in 1588.
Throughout this period slaves were traded openly in most cities, including cities as diverse as Marseilles, Dublin, Verdun
and Prague
, and many were sold to buyers in the Middle East
. The town of Caffa in the Crimea
was called the capital of the medieval slave trade, but an overland route to Caliphate of Córdoba
took pagan and dualist Slavs from Kiev through Lviv and Prague, at that time the borderlands of Christianity, this arduous land route competing with the North-South route by river which led to the Black Sea.
Chaos and invasion
made the taking of slaves habitual throughout Europe in the early Middle Ages. St. Patrick, himself captured and sold as a slave, protested an attack that enslaved newly baptized Christians in his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. In the Viking
era starting c. 793, the Norse
raiders often captured and enslaved peoples they encountered. In the Nordic countries
the slaves were called Thrall
s (Old Norse
: Þræll).
Germanic laws provided for the enslavement of criminals, as when the Visigothic Code
prescribed enslavement for those who could not pay the financial penalty for their crime http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg4-4.htm#l1, and specifically for those who committed certain crimeshttp://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-1.htm#l3, http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-3.htm#l3, http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-4.htm#l1. They would become slaves to their victims, often with their property.
In Carolingian Europe 10-20% of the entire population consisted of slaves. Some people sold themselves to powerful landowners in order to receive protection, work and food; one Anglo-Saxon will has a land-owner freeing those slaves who had "given her their heads for food." Anglo-Saxons
continued and expanded their slave system, sometimes in league with Norse
traders. About 10% of England
’s population entered in the Domesday Book
in 1086 were slaves. Chattel slavery of English Christians was discontinued after 1066, when William of Normandy
conquered England. The slave trade in England was abolished in 1102.
The restoration of order as the early Middle Ages passed was accompanied by the transmutation of this state into serfdom
, and after the earlier portions, slaves were seldom of the same country as their owner in Western Europe.
Slavonic peoples
were taken prisoner by the Khazars
, Kypchaks and other steppe peoples and taken to the slave markets in Crimea
. In addition, during the wars between the pagan Slavonic states and Christian states of Europe, many prisoners of war from both sides were sold as slaves. After the Muslim conquests
of North Africa
and most of the Iberian peninsula
, the Islamic world became a huge importer of slaves
from Eastern Europe. The trade routes were established between slave trade centres in the pagan Slavonic countries (for example Prague
and Wolin
) and Arab
metropoles in the Muslim
-controlled regions of the Iberian peninsula
(Al-Andalus
). Because of religious constraints, the slave trade was monopolised by Iberian Jews (known as Radhanites) who were able to transfer the slaves from pagan Central Europe
through Christian Western Europe
to Muslim countries in Al-Andalus
and North Africa
. However, the converted Christian ruler Mojmír I
of the Great Moravian Empire
taxed the slave caravans that passed through his lands, providing an important source of revenue, if indirectly. This trade came to an end in the 10th century after the Christianisation of Slavic countries.
Slavery in medieval Europe was so common that the Church repeatedly prohibited it—or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands was prohibited at, for example, the Council of Koblenz in 922, the Council of London
in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171. William the Conqueror, too, banned export of English
slaves. The medieval
slave trade was mainly to the East: Byzantine Empire
and the Muslim World
were the destinations, pagan Central
and Eastern Europe
an important source. The Persian traveller Ibn Rustah described how Swedish Vikings, the Varangians
or Rus
, terrorized and enslaved the Slavs
. So many Slavs were enslaved for so many centuries that the very name 'slave' derived from their name, not only in English and other European languages.
The Mongol invasions
and conquests in the 13th century made the situation worse. The Mongols enslaved skilled individuals, women and children and marched them to Karakorum
or Sarai
, whence they were sold throughout Eurasia
. Many of these slaves were shipped to the slave market in Novgorod
.
Genoese
and Venetians
merchants in Crimea were involved in the slave trade with the Golden Horde
. Between 1414 and 1423, at least 10,000 eastern European slaves were sold in Venice. Genoese organized the slave trade from the Crimea to Mamluk Egypt
. In 1441, Haci I Giray
declared independence from the Golden Horde and established the Crimean Khanate
. For a long time, until the early 18th century, the khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire
and the Middle East. In a process called the "harvesting of the steppe
", they enslaved many Slavic peasants.
, which was reorganized in the Byzantine Empire
by Justinian I
as the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Although the Corpus was lost to the West for centuries, it was rediscovered in the 11th and 12th centuries, and led to the foundation of law schools in Italy and France. According to the Corpus, the natural state of humanity is freedom, but the "law of nations" may supersede natural law and reduce certain people to slavery. The basic definition of slave in Romano-Byzantine law was:
It was, however, possible to become a freedman or a full citizen; the Corpus, like Roman law, had extensive and complicated rules for manumission
of slaves.
concluded that slavery was contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and by the 11th century when almost all of Europe had been Christianized, the laws of slavery in civil law codes were now antiquated and unenforceable. There were a number of areas where Christians lived with non-Christians, such as Al-Andalus
and Sicily
, the crusader states, and in the still-pagan areas of northeastern Europe; therefore, canon law permitted Christians to keep non-Christian slaves, as long as these slaves were treated humanely and were freed if they chose to convert to Christianity. In fact, there was an explicit legal justification for the enslavement of Muslims, found in the Decretum Gratiani
and later expanded upon by the 14th century jurist Oldradus de Ponte
: the Bible states that Hagar
, the slave girl of Abraham
, was beaten and cast out by Abraham's wife Sarah
. A popular medieval legend held that Muslims were the descendents of Hagar, while Christians descended from the legitimate marriage of Abraham and Sarah. By extension it was therefore permitted for Christians to enslave Muslims.
The Decretum, like the Corpus, defined a slave as anyone whose mother was a slave. Otherwise, the canons were concerned with slavery only in ecclesiastical contexts: slaves were not permitted to marry or to be ordained as clergy.
, founded in 1099, at most 120,000 Franks ruled over 350,000 Muslims, Jews, and native Eastern Christians. Following the initial invasion and conquest, sometimes accompanied by massacres or expulsions of Jews and Muslims, a peaceable co-existence between followers of the three religions prevailed. The Crusader states inherited many slaves. To this may have been added some Muslims taken as captives of war. The Kingdom's largest city, Acre, had a large slave market; however, the vast majority of Muslims and Jews remained free. The laws of Jerusalem declared that former Muslim slaves, if genuine converts to Christianity, must be freed. In 1120, the Council of Nablus
forbade sexual relations between crusaders and their female slaves: if a man raped his own slave, he would be castrated, but if he raped someone else's slave, he would be castrated and exiled from the kingdom.
No Christian, whether Western or Eastern, was permitted by law to be sold into slavery, but this fate was as common for Muslim prisoners of war as it was for Christian prisoners taken by the Muslims.
The 13th-century Assizes of Jerusalem
dealt more with fugitive slaves and the punishments ascribed to them, the prohibition of slaves testifying in court, and manumission of slaves, which could be accomplished, for example, through a will, or by conversion to Christianity. Conversion was apparently used as an excuse to escape slavery by Muslims who would then continue to practise Islam; crusader lords often refused to allow them to convert, and Pope Gregory IX
, contrary to both the laws of Jerusalem and the canon laws that he himself was partially responsible for compiling, allowed for Muslim slaves to remain enslaved even if they had converted.
was the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus
to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back booty and people. For example, in a raid on Lisbon
in 1189 the Almohad
caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, and his governor of Córdoba
took 3,000 Christian slaves in a subsequent attack upon Silves in 1191.
from before the founding of the principalities of Moldavia
and Wallachia
in 13th–14th century, until it was abolished
in stages during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the slaves were of Roma
(Gypsy) ethnicity. Particularly in Moldavia there were also slaves of Tatar
ethnicity, probably prisoners captured from the wars with the Nogai and Crimean Tatars
.
The exact origins of slavery in the Danubian Principalities
are not known. There is some debate over whether the Romani people came to Wallachia and Moldavia as free men or as slaves. In the Byzantine Empire
, they were slaves of the state and it seems the situation was the same in Bulgaria
and Serbia
until their social organization was destroyed by the Ottoman
conquest, which would suggest that they came as slaves who had a change of 'ownership'.
Historian Nicolae Iorga
associated the Roma people's arrival with the 1241 Mongol invasion of Europe
and considered their slavery as a vestige of that era, the Romanians taking the Roma from the Mongols
as slaves and preserving their status. Other historians consider that they were enslaved while captured during the battles with the Tatars. The practice of enslaving prisoners may also have been taken from the Mongols. The ethnic identity of the "Tatar slaves" is unknown, they could have been captured Tatars of the Golden Horde
, Cumans
, or the slaves of Tatars and Cumans.
While it is possible that some Romani people were slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars, the bulk of them came from south of the Danube
at the end of the 14th century, some time after the foundation of Wallachia
. By then, the institution of slavery was already established in Moldavia and possibly in both principalities, but the arrival of the Roma made slavery a widespread practice. The Tatar slaves, smaller in numbers, were eventually merged into the Roma population.
and the Ottoman wars in Europe
brought large numbers of Christian slaves into the Ottoman Empire
. In the middle of the 14th century, Murad I
built his own personal slave army called the Kapıkulu. The new force was based on the sultan's right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. The captive slaves were converted to Islam
and trained in the sultan's personal service. In the devşirme (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"), young Christian boys from Anatolia
and the Balkans
were taken away from their homes and families, converted to Islam and enlisted into special soldier classes of the Ottoman army
. These soldier classes were named Janissaries
, the most famous branch of the Kapıkulu. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the Ottoman military conquests in Europe. Most of the military commanders of the Ottoman forces, imperial administrators and de facto rulers of the Ottoman Empire, such as Pargalı İbrahim Pasha
and Sokollu Mehmet Paşa, were recruited in this way. By 1609 the Sultan's Kapıkulu forces increased to about 100,000.
The concubines of the Ottoman Sultan
consisted chiefly of purchased slaves. Because Islamic law forbade Muslims to enslave fellow Muslims, the Sultan's concubines were generally of Christian origin. The mother of a Sultan, though technically a slave, received the extremely powerful title of Valide Sultan, and at times became effective ruler of the Empire (see Sultanate of women
). One notable example was Kösem Sultan, daughter of a Greek Christian priest, who dominated the Ottoman Empire during the early decades of the 17th century. Another notable example was Roxelana
, the favourite wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
.
s. A kholop's master had unlimited power over his life: he could kill him, sell him, or use him as payment upon a debt
. The master, however, was responsible before the law for his kholop's actions. A person could become a kholop as a result of capture, selling himself or herself, being sold for debts or committed crime
s, or marriage to a kholop. Until the late 10th century, the kholops represented a majority among the servants who worked lordly lands.
By the sixteenth century, slavery in Muscovy consisted mostly of those who sold themselves into slavery owing to poverty. They worked predominantly as household servants, among the richest families, and indeed generally produced less than they consumed. Laws forbade the freeing of slaves in times of famine, to avoid feeding them, and slaves generally remained with the family a long time; the Domostroy, an advice book, speaks of the need to choose slaves of good character and to provide for them properly. Slavery remained a major institution in Russia
until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.
In 1382 the Golden Horde under Khan Tokhtamysh
sacked Moscow
, burning the city and carrying off thousands of inhabitants as slaves. For years the Khanates of Kazan
and Astrakhan
routinely made raids on Russian principalities for
slaves and to plunder towns. Russian chronicles record about 40 raids of Kazan Khans on the Russian territories in the first half of the 16th century. In 1521, the combined forces of Crimean Khan Mehmed I Giray
and his Kazan allies attacked Moscow and captured thousands of slaves. About 30 major Tatar raids were recorded into Muscovite
territories between 1558-1596. In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin and taking thousands of captives as slaves. In Crimea
, about 75% of the population consisted of slaves.
code (in about 1160), domestic slaves could not, unlike foreign slaves, be sold out of the country. This and other laws defined slaves as their master's property at the same level as cattle. It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. A freed slave did not have full legal status; for example, the punishment for killing a former slave was low. A former slave's son also had a lower status, but higher than that of his parents. The Norwegian law code from 1274, Landslov (Land's law), does not mention slaves, but former slaves. Thus it seems like slavery was abolished in Norway by this time. In Sweden, slavery was abolished in 1343.
and Scotland
were among the last areas of Christian Europe to give up their institution of slavery. Under Gaelic custom, prisoners of war were routinely taken as slaves. However, ironically, it was during the period that slavery was disappearing across most of western Europe that it was reaching its zenith in Ireland and Scotland; during the Viking invasions and the subsequent warring between Scandinavians and the native Irish the number of captives taken as slaves drastically increased. The Irish church was vehemently opposed to slavery, and blamed the 1169 Norman invasion on the persistence of the practice, as well as the practices of polygyny
and divorce
.
in medieval Europe was separate and distinct from chattel slavery; serfs were tied to the land and obliged to work for their lord in a variety of capacities, including working the land, building or repairing structures, mining, or craftworking. But serfs were not chattel property and could not be bought or sold except as part of the land they lived on, and usually could not leave or be removed from the land to which they were bound, absent criminal or civil violations.
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
in early medieval Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
was relatively common. It was widespread at the end of antiquity
Slavery in antiquity
Slavery in the ancient world, specifically, in Mediterranean cultures, comprised a mixture of debt-slavery, slavery as a punishment for crime, and the enslavement of prisoners of war....
. The etymology of the word slave comes from this period, the word sklabos meaning Slav. Slavery declined in the Middle Ages in most parts of Europe as serfdom
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
slowly rose, but it never completely disappeared. It persisted longer in Southern
Southern Europe
The term Southern Europe, at its most general definition, is used to mean "all countries in the south of Europe". However, the concept, at different times, has had different meanings, providing additional political, linguistic and cultural context to the definition in addition to the typical...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. In Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
slavery was forbidden in the 15th century; it was replaced by the second enserfment. In Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, slavery was formally abolished in 1588.
Throughout this period slaves were traded openly in most cities, including cities as diverse as Marseilles, Dublin, Verdun
Verdun
Verdun is a city in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital of the department is the slightly smaller city of Bar-le-Duc.- History :...
and Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, and many were sold to buyers in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. The town of Caffa in the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
was called the capital of the medieval slave trade, but an overland route to Caliphate of Córdoba
Caliphate of Córdoba
The Caliphate of Córdoba ruled the Iberian peninsula and part of North Africa, from the city of Córdoba, from 929 to 1031. This period was characterized by remarkable success in trade and culture; many of the masterpieces of Islamic Iberia were constructed in this period, including the famous...
took pagan and dualist Slavs from Kiev through Lviv and Prague, at that time the borderlands of Christianity, this arduous land route competing with the North-South route by river which led to the Black Sea.
Early Middle Ages
Invasion
An invasion is a military offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a...
made the taking of slaves habitual throughout Europe in the early Middle Ages. St. Patrick, himself captured and sold as a slave, protested an attack that enslaved newly baptized Christians in his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. In the Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
era starting c. 793, the Norse
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
raiders often captured and enslaved peoples they encountered. In the Nordic countries
Nordic countries
The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...
the slaves were called Thrall
Thrall
Thrall was the term for a serf or unfree servant in Scandinavian culture during the Viking Age.Thralls were the lowest in the social order and usually provided unskilled labor during the Viking era.-Etymology:...
s (Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
: Þræll).
Germanic laws provided for the enslavement of criminals, as when the Visigothic Code
Visigothic Code
The Visigothic Code comprises a set of laws promulgated by the Visigothic king of Hispania, Chindasuinth in his second year...
prescribed enslavement for those who could not pay the financial penalty for their crime http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg4-4.htm#l1, and specifically for those who committed certain crimeshttp://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-1.htm#l3, http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-3.htm#l3, http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-4.htm#l1. They would become slaves to their victims, often with their property.
In Carolingian Europe 10-20% of the entire population consisted of slaves. Some people sold themselves to powerful landowners in order to receive protection, work and food; one Anglo-Saxon will has a land-owner freeing those slaves who had "given her their heads for food." Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
continued and expanded their slave system, sometimes in league with Norse
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
traders. About 10% of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
’s population entered in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
in 1086 were slaves. Chattel slavery of English Christians was discontinued after 1066, when William of Normandy
William I of England
William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...
conquered England. The slave trade in England was abolished in 1102.
The restoration of order as the early Middle Ages passed was accompanied by the transmutation of this state into serfdom
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
, and after the earlier portions, slaves were seldom of the same country as their owner in Western Europe.
Slave trade
Between the 6th and 10th centuries AD, members of paganPaganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
Slavonic peoples
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
were taken prisoner by the Khazars
Khazars
The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...
, Kypchaks and other steppe peoples and taken to the slave markets in Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
. In addition, during the wars between the pagan Slavonic states and Christian states of Europe, many prisoners of war from both sides were sold as slaves. After the Muslim conquests
Muslim conquests
Muslim conquests also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab conquests, began with the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He established a new unified polity in the Arabian Peninsula which under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Muslim power.They...
of North Africa
Umayyad conquest of North Africa
The Umayyad conquest of North Africa continued the century of rapid Arab Muslim expansion following the death of Muhammad in 632 CE. By 640 the Arabs controlled Mesopotamia, had invaded Armenia, and were concluding their conquest of Byzantine Syria. Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad caliphate....
and most of the Iberian peninsula
Umayyad conquest of Hispania
The Umayyad conquest of Hispania is the initial Islamic Ummayad Caliphate's conquest, between 711 and 718, of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania, centered in the Iberian Peninsula, which was known to them under the Arabic name al-Andalus....
, the Islamic world became a huge importer of slaves
Arab slave trade
The Arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in the Arab World, mainly Western Asia, North Africa, East Africa and certain parts of Europe during their period of domination by Arab leaders. The trade was focused on the slave markets of the Middle East and North Africa...
from Eastern Europe. The trade routes were established between slave trade centres in the pagan Slavonic countries (for example Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and Wolin
Wolin
Wolin is the name both of an island in the Baltic Sea, just off the Polish coast, and a town on that island. It is separated from the island of Usedom by the Świna river, and from mainland Pomerania by the Dziwna river...
) and Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
metropoles in the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
-controlled regions of the Iberian peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
(Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
). Because of religious constraints, the slave trade was monopolised by Iberian Jews (known as Radhanites) who were able to transfer the slaves from pagan Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
through Christian Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
to Muslim countries in Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
. However, the converted Christian ruler Mojmír I
Mojmír I
Mojmir I or Moimir I was the first known ruler of the Moravian Slavs . In modern scholarship, the creation of the early medieval state known as "Great" Moravia is attributed either to his or to his successors' expansionist policy...
of the Great Moravian Empire
Great Moravia
Great Moravia was a Slavic state that existed in Central Europe and lasted for nearly seventy years in the 9th century whose creators were the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks. It was a vassal state of the Germanic Frankish kingdom and paid an annual tribute to it. There is some controversy as...
taxed the slave caravans that passed through his lands, providing an important source of revenue, if indirectly. This trade came to an end in the 10th century after the Christianisation of Slavic countries.
Slavery in medieval Europe was so common that the Church repeatedly prohibited it—or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands was prohibited at, for example, the Council of Koblenz in 922, the Council of London
Council of London (1102)
The Council of London in 1102 was a Roman Catholic church council of the church in England convened by Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, to debate and pass decrees to reform the clergy. The council made several decisions, including confirming homosexuality as a sin in the English and wider church,...
in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171. William the Conqueror, too, banned export of English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
slaves. The medieval
Middle age
Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. Various attempts have been made to define this age, which is around the third quarter of the average life span of human beings....
slave trade was mainly to the East: Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
and the Muslim World
Muslim world
The term Muslim world has several meanings. In a religious sense, it refers to those who adhere to the teachings of Islam, referred to as Muslims. In a cultural sense, it refers to Islamic civilization, inclusive of non-Muslims living in that civilization...
were the destinations, pagan Central
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an important source. The Persian traveller Ibn Rustah described how Swedish Vikings, the Varangians
Varangians
The Varangians or Varyags , sometimes referred to as Variagians, were people from the Baltic region, most often associated with Vikings, who from the 9th to 11th centuries ventured eastwards and southwards along the rivers of Eastern Europe, through what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.According...
or Rus
Rus' Khaganate
Rus' khaganate is a historiographical term for the formative phase of the Rus state in the 9th century AD....
, terrorized and enslaved the Slavs
East Slavs
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...
. So many Slavs were enslaved for so many centuries that the very name 'slave' derived from their name, not only in English and other European languages.
The Mongol invasions
Mongol invasions
Mongol invasions progressed throughout the 13th century, resulting in the vast Mongol Empire which covered much of Asia and Eastern Europe by 1300....
and conquests in the 13th century made the situation worse. The Mongols enslaved skilled individuals, women and children and marched them to Karakorum
Karakorum
Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, and of the Northern Yuan in the 14-15th century. Its ruins lie in the northwestern corner of the Övörkhangai Province of Mongolia, near today's town of Kharkhorin, and adjacent to the Erdene Zuu monastery...
or Sarai
Sarai (city)
Sarai was the name of two cities, which were successively capital cities of the Golden Horde, the Mongol kingdom which ruled Russia and much of central Asia in the 13th and 14th centuries...
, whence they were sold throughout Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
. Many of these slaves were shipped to the slave market in Novgorod
Novgorod Republic
The Novgorod Republic was a large medieval Russian state which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains between the 12th and 15th centuries, centred on the city of Novgorod...
.
Genoese
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....
and Venetians
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
merchants in Crimea were involved in the slave trade with the Golden Horde
Golden Horde
The Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire...
. Between 1414 and 1423, at least 10,000 eastern European slaves were sold in Venice. Genoese organized the slave trade from the Crimea to Mamluk Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. In 1441, Haci I Giray
Haci I Giray
Hacı I Giray Angel was the founder and the first ruler of the Crimean Khanate. He is sometimes referred to as Hacı Devlet Giray or Devlet Hacı Giray...
declared independence from the Golden Horde and established the Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate
Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...
. For a long time, until the early 18th century, the khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and the Middle East. In a process called the "harvesting of the steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
", they enslaved many Slavic peasants.
Secular law
Slavery was heavily regulated in Roman lawRoman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...
, which was reorganized in the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
by Justinian I
Justinian I
Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...
as the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Although the Corpus was lost to the West for centuries, it was rediscovered in the 11th and 12th centuries, and led to the foundation of law schools in Italy and France. According to the Corpus, the natural state of humanity is freedom, but the "law of nations" may supersede natural law and reduce certain people to slavery. The basic definition of slave in Romano-Byzantine law was:
- anyone whose mother was a slave
- anyone who has been captured in battle
- anyone who has sold himself to pay a debt
It was, however, possible to become a freedman or a full citizen; the Corpus, like Roman law, had extensive and complicated rules for manumission
Manumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...
of slaves.
Canon law
Medieval canon lawyersCanon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
concluded that slavery was contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and by the 11th century when almost all of Europe had been Christianized, the laws of slavery in civil law codes were now antiquated and unenforceable. There were a number of areas where Christians lived with non-Christians, such as Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
and Sicily
Emirate of Sicily
The Emirate of Sicily was an Islamic state on the island of Sicily , which existed from 965 to 1072.-First Arab invasions of Sicily:...
, the crusader states, and in the still-pagan areas of northeastern Europe; therefore, canon law permitted Christians to keep non-Christian slaves, as long as these slaves were treated humanely and were freed if they chose to convert to Christianity. In fact, there was an explicit legal justification for the enslavement of Muslims, found in the Decretum Gratiani
Decretum Gratiani
The Decretum Gratiani or Concordia discordantium canonum is a collection of Canon law compiled and written in the 12th century as a legal textbook by the jurist known as Gratian. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which together became known as the Corpus Juris Canonici...
and later expanded upon by the 14th century jurist Oldradus de Ponte
Oldradus de Ponte
Oldradus de Ponte was an Italian jurist born in Lodi, active in the Roman curia in the early fourteenth century. Previously he had taught at the University of Padua. According to Joseph Canning he was an authority in both canon law and civil law, and his consilia are the earliest surviving...
: the Bible states that Hagar
Hagar (Bible)
Hagar , according to the Abrahamic faiths, was the second wife of Abraham, and the mother of his first son, Ishmael. Her story is recorded in the Book of Genesis, mentioned in Hadith, and alluded to in the Qur'an...
, the slave girl of Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, was beaten and cast out by Abraham's wife Sarah
Sarah
Sarah or Sara was the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Her name was originally Sarai...
. A popular medieval legend held that Muslims were the descendents of Hagar, while Christians descended from the legitimate marriage of Abraham and Sarah. By extension it was therefore permitted for Christians to enslave Muslims.
The Decretum, like the Corpus, defined a slave as anyone whose mother was a slave. Otherwise, the canons were concerned with slavery only in ecclesiastical contexts: slaves were not permitted to marry or to be ordained as clergy.
Slavery in the Crusader states
In the crusader Kingdom of JerusalemKingdom of Jerusalem
The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....
, founded in 1099, at most 120,000 Franks ruled over 350,000 Muslims, Jews, and native Eastern Christians. Following the initial invasion and conquest, sometimes accompanied by massacres or expulsions of Jews and Muslims, a peaceable co-existence between followers of the three religions prevailed. The Crusader states inherited many slaves. To this may have been added some Muslims taken as captives of war. The Kingdom's largest city, Acre, had a large slave market; however, the vast majority of Muslims and Jews remained free. The laws of Jerusalem declared that former Muslim slaves, if genuine converts to Christianity, must be freed. In 1120, the Council of Nablus
Council of Nablus
The Council of Nablus was a council of ecclesiastic and secular lords in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, held on January 16, 1120. It established the first written laws for the kingdom.-History:...
forbade sexual relations between crusaders and their female slaves: if a man raped his own slave, he would be castrated, but if he raped someone else's slave, he would be castrated and exiled from the kingdom.
No Christian, whether Western or Eastern, was permitted by law to be sold into slavery, but this fate was as common for Muslim prisoners of war as it was for Christian prisoners taken by the Muslims.
The 13th-century Assizes of Jerusalem
Assizes of Jerusalem
The Assizes of Jerusalem are a collection of numerous medieval legal treatises containing the law of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and Kingdom of Cyprus...
dealt more with fugitive slaves and the punishments ascribed to them, the prohibition of slaves testifying in court, and manumission of slaves, which could be accomplished, for example, through a will, or by conversion to Christianity. Conversion was apparently used as an excuse to escape slavery by Muslims who would then continue to practise Islam; crusader lords often refused to allow them to convert, and Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...
, contrary to both the laws of Jerusalem and the canon laws that he himself was partially responsible for compiling, allowed for Muslim slaves to remain enslaved even if they had converted.
Slavery in Muslim Iberia
The medieval Iberian PeninsulaIberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
was the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back booty and people. For example, in a raid on Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
in 1189 the Almohad
Almohad
The Almohad Dynasty , was a Moroccan Berber-Muslim dynasty founded in the 12th century that established a Berber state in Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains in roughly 1120.The movement was started by Ibn Tumart in the Masmuda tribe, followed by Abd al-Mu'min al-Gumi between 1130 and his...
caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, and his governor of Córdoba
Córdoba, Spain
-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...
took 3,000 Christian slaves in a subsequent attack upon Silves in 1191.
Slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia
Slavery existed on the territory of present-day RomaniaRomania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
from before the founding of the principalities of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
and Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
in 13th–14th century, until it was abolished
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
in stages during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the slaves were of Roma
Roma minority in Romania
The Roma constitute one of the major minorities in Romania. According to the 2002 census, they number 535,140 people or 2.5% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians...
(Gypsy) ethnicity. Particularly in Moldavia there were also slaves of Tatar
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
ethnicity, probably prisoners captured from the wars with the Nogai and Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...
.
The exact origins of slavery in the Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common...
are not known. There is some debate over whether the Romani people came to Wallachia and Moldavia as free men or as slaves. In the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, they were slaves of the state and it seems the situation was the same in Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
until their social organization was destroyed by the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
conquest, which would suggest that they came as slaves who had a change of 'ownership'.
Historian Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
associated the Roma people's arrival with the 1241 Mongol invasion of Europe
Mongol invasion of Europe
The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...
and considered their slavery as a vestige of that era, the Romanians taking the Roma from the Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
as slaves and preserving their status. Other historians consider that they were enslaved while captured during the battles with the Tatars. The practice of enslaving prisoners may also have been taken from the Mongols. The ethnic identity of the "Tatar slaves" is unknown, they could have been captured Tatars of the Golden Horde
Golden Horde
The Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire...
, Cumans
Cumans
The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
, or the slaves of Tatars and Cumans.
While it is possible that some Romani people were slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars, the bulk of them came from south of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
at the end of the 14th century, some time after the foundation of Wallachia
Foundation of Wallachia
The foundation of Wallachia , that is the establishment of the first independent Romanian principality, was achieved at the beginning of the 14th century, through the unification of smaller political units that had existed between the Carpathian Mountains, and the Rivers Danube, Siret and...
. By then, the institution of slavery was already established in Moldavia and possibly in both principalities, but the arrival of the Roma made slavery a widespread practice. The Tatar slaves, smaller in numbers, were eventually merged into the Roma population.
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire
Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society. The Byzantine-Ottoman warsByzantine-Ottoman wars
The Byzantine–Ottoman Wars were a series of decisive conflicts between the Ottoman Turks and the Byzantine that led to the final destruction of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of the Ottoman Empire....
and the Ottoman wars in Europe
Ottoman wars in Europe
The wars of the Ottoman Empire in Europe are also sometimes referred to as the Ottoman Wars or as Turkish Wars, particularly in older, European texts.- Rise :...
brought large numbers of Christian slaves into the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. In the middle of the 14th century, Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...
built his own personal slave army called the Kapıkulu. The new force was based on the sultan's right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. The captive slaves were converted to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and trained in the sultan's personal service. In the devşirme (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"), young Christian boys from Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
and the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
were taken away from their homes and families, converted to Islam and enlisted into special soldier classes of the Ottoman army
Military of the Ottoman Empire
The history of military of the Ottoman Empire can be divided in five main periods. The foundation era covers the years between 1300 and 1453 , the classical period covers the years between 1451 and 1606 , the reformation period covers the years between 1606 and 1826 ,...
. These soldier classes were named Janissaries
Janissary
The Janissaries were infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...
, the most famous branch of the Kapıkulu. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the Ottoman military conquests in Europe. Most of the military commanders of the Ottoman forces, imperial administrators and de facto rulers of the Ottoman Empire, such as Pargalı İbrahim Pasha
Pargali Ibrahim Pasha
Pargali Ibrahim Pasha , also known as Frenk Ibrahim Pasha , Makbul Ibrahim Pasha , and referred to him as Maktul Ibrahim Pasha after his murder in the Topkapı Palace, was the first Grand Vizier in the Ottoman Empire appointed by Suleiman the Magnificent...
and Sokollu Mehmet Paşa, were recruited in this way. By 1609 the Sultan's Kapıkulu forces increased to about 100,000.
The concubines of the Ottoman Sultan
Imperial Harem
The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire was one of the most important elements of the Ottoman court. It was known in the West as "the Seraglio", an Italian term.- Harem quarters:...
consisted chiefly of purchased slaves. Because Islamic law forbade Muslims to enslave fellow Muslims, the Sultan's concubines were generally of Christian origin. The mother of a Sultan, though technically a slave, received the extremely powerful title of Valide Sultan, and at times became effective ruler of the Empire (see Sultanate of women
Sultanate of Women
The Sultanate of Women was the near 130-year period during the 16th and 17th centuries when the women of the Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire exerted extraordinary political influence. Many of the Sultans during this time were minors and it was their mothers, leaders of the Harem, who...
). One notable example was Kösem Sultan, daughter of a Greek Christian priest, who dominated the Ottoman Empire during the early decades of the 17th century. Another notable example was Roxelana
Roxelana
Haseki Hürrem Sultan was the wife of Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire.-Names:Sixteenth-century sources are silent as to her maiden name, but much later traditions, for example Ukrainian folk traditions first recorded in the 19th century, give it as "Anastasia" , and Polish...
, the favourite wife of Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
.
Slavery in Russia
In Kievan Rus and Muscovy, the slaves were usually classified as kholopKholop
Kholops were feudally dependent people in Russia between the 10th and early 18th centuries. Their legal status was close to that of serfs.- Etymology :The word kholop was first mentioned in a chronicle for the year of 986. Its etymology is unclear...
s. A kholop's master had unlimited power over his life: he could kill him, sell him, or use him as payment upon a debt
Debt
A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...
. The master, however, was responsible before the law for his kholop's actions. A person could become a kholop as a result of capture, selling himself or herself, being sold for debts or committed crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
s, or marriage to a kholop. Until the late 10th century, the kholops represented a majority among the servants who worked lordly lands.
By the sixteenth century, slavery in Muscovy consisted mostly of those who sold themselves into slavery owing to poverty. They worked predominantly as household servants, among the richest families, and indeed generally produced less than they consumed. Laws forbade the freeing of slaves in times of famine, to avoid feeding them, and slaves generally remained with the family a long time; the Domostroy, an advice book, speaks of the need to choose slaves of good character and to provide for them properly. Slavery remained a major institution in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.
In 1382 the Golden Horde under Khan Tokhtamysh
Tokhtamysh
Tokhtamysh was the prominent khan of the White Horde, who briefly unified the White Horde and Blue Horde subdivisions of the Golden Horde into a single state. He was a descendant of Genghis Khan's eldest grandson, Orda Khan or his brother Tuqa-Timur...
sacked Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, burning the city and carrying off thousands of inhabitants as slaves. For years the Khanates of Kazan
Khanate of Kazan
The Khanate of Kazan was a medieval Tatar state which occupied the territory of former Volga Bulgaria between 1438 and 1552. Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. The khanate covered contemporary Tatarstan, Mari El,...
and Astrakhan
Astrakhan Khanate
The Khanate of Astrakhan was a Tatar feudal state that appeared after the collapse of the Golden Horde. The Khanate existed in the 15th and 16th centuries in the area adjacent to the mouth of the Volga river, where the contemporary city of Astrakhan/Hajji Tarkhan is now located...
routinely made raids on Russian principalities for
slaves and to plunder towns. Russian chronicles record about 40 raids of Kazan Khans on the Russian territories in the first half of the 16th century. In 1521, the combined forces of Crimean Khan Mehmed I Giray
Mehmed I Giray
Mehmed I Giray known as Great — a khan of the Crimean Khanate in 1515 –1523.Son of Meñli I Giray, inherited power after his father's death. In 1520 signed a temporary alliance with king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Zygmunt I Stary, against Muscovy. In 1521 he took Kazan, where he...
and his Kazan allies attacked Moscow and captured thousands of slaves. About 30 major Tatar raids were recorded into Muscovite
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia was the name of the centralized Russian state from Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar in 1547 till Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721.From 1550 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 a year...
territories between 1558-1596. In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin and taking thousands of captives as slaves. In Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, about 75% of the population consisted of slaves.
Slavery in Scandinavia
The laws from 12th and 13th centuries describe the legal status of two categories. According to the Norwegian GulatingGulating
Gulaþing is both the name of one of the first Norwegian legislative assemblies or Þing and one of the present day law courts of western Norway.-History:...
code (in about 1160), domestic slaves could not, unlike foreign slaves, be sold out of the country. This and other laws defined slaves as their master's property at the same level as cattle. It also described a procedure for giving a slave their freedom. A freed slave did not have full legal status; for example, the punishment for killing a former slave was low. A former slave's son also had a lower status, but higher than that of his parents. The Norwegian law code from 1274, Landslov (Land's law), does not mention slaves, but former slaves. Thus it seems like slavery was abolished in Norway by this time. In Sweden, slavery was abolished in 1343.
Slavery in Gaelic regions
Gaelic IrelandIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
were among the last areas of Christian Europe to give up their institution of slavery. Under Gaelic custom, prisoners of war were routinely taken as slaves. However, ironically, it was during the period that slavery was disappearing across most of western Europe that it was reaching its zenith in Ireland and Scotland; during the Viking invasions and the subsequent warring between Scandinavians and the native Irish the number of captives taken as slaves drastically increased. The Irish church was vehemently opposed to slavery, and blamed the 1169 Norman invasion on the persistence of the practice, as well as the practices of polygyny
Polygyny
Polygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time. In countries where the practice is illegal, the man is referred to as a bigamist or a polygamist...
and divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
.
Serfdom compared
The institution of serfdomSerfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
in medieval Europe was separate and distinct from chattel slavery; serfs were tied to the land and obliged to work for their lord in a variety of capacities, including working the land, building or repairing structures, mining, or craftworking. But serfs were not chattel property and could not be bought or sold except as part of the land they lived on, and usually could not leave or be removed from the land to which they were bound, absent criminal or civil violations.
See also
- Arab slave tradeArab slave tradeThe Arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in the Arab World, mainly Western Asia, North Africa, East Africa and certain parts of Europe during their period of domination by Arab leaders. The trade was focused on the slave markets of the Middle East and North Africa...
- Christianity and slaveryChristianity and slaveryChristian views on slavery are varied both regionally and historically. Slavery in different forms has been imposed by Christians for over 18 centuries. In the early years of Christianity, slavery was a normal feature of the economy and society in the Roman Empire, and this remained well into the...
- History of slaveryHistory of slaveryThe history of slavery covers slave systems in historical perspective in which one human being is legally the property of another, can be bought or sold, is not allowed to escape and must work for the owner without any choice involved...
- Islam and slaveryIslam and SlaveryIslamic views on slavery first developed out of the slavery practices of pre-Islamic Arabia. During the wars between different states/tribes in various parts of the world, prisoners/captives were either killed or enslaved...
- Slavery in ancient GreeceSlavery in Ancient GreeceSlavery was common practice and an integral component of ancient Greece throughout its rich history, as it was in other societies of the time including ancient Israel and early Christian societies. It is estimated that in Athens, the majority of citizens owned at least one slave...
- Slavery in ancient RomeSlavery in ancient RomeThe institution of slavery in ancient Rome played an important role in society and the Roman economy. Besides manual labor on farms and in mines, slaves performed many domestic services and a variety of other tasks, such as accounting...
- Slavery in antiquitySlavery in antiquitySlavery in the ancient world, specifically, in Mediterranean cultures, comprised a mixture of debt-slavery, slavery as a punishment for crime, and the enslavement of prisoners of war....
- The Bible and slaveryThe Bible and slaveryThe Bible contains several references to slavery. The Bible nowhere explicitly condemns slavery, but allowed a regulated practice of it, especially under the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament. Male Israelite slaves were to be offered release after six years of service, with some...
Further reading
- Campbell, Gwyn et al eds. Women and Slavery, Vol. 1: Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the Medieval North Atlantic (2007)
- Dockès, Pierre. Medieval Slavery and Liberation (1989)
- Finkelman, Paul, and Joseph Miller, eds. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery (2 vol 1999)
- Frantzen, Allen J., and Douglas Moffat, eds. The Work of Work: Servitude, Slavery and Labor in Medieval England (1994)
- Karras, Ruth Mazo. Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia (Yale UP, 1988)
- Phillips, William D. Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade (Manchester UP, 1985)
- Wyatt David R. Slaves and warriors in medieval Britain and Ireland, 800-1200 (2009)