Medievalists.net » Slavery

Penal enslavement in the early middle ages

Medievalists.net — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 03:38:09 +0000

In the specific form it took during the medieval period, penal enslavement therefore amounts to a strikingly new phenomenon. How did such a system come about, and what functions did it serve?

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Genoa: The cog in the new medieval economy

Medievalists.net — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 23:07:59 +0000

Journalist and author Nicholas Walton writes about medieval Genoa's economy, trade and role in the Black Death. Walton recently published a book on Genoese history entitled, "Genoa: La Superba"

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The Scale of Slave Raiding and the Slave Trade in Northumbria and Ireland, 7th-11th Centuries

Medievalists.net — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 05:08:25 +0000

Slave raiding and the slave trade in early medieval Northumbria and Ireland were transcultural and inter-regional processes, involving the enslavement and transportation of people across permeable borders.

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BOOK REVIEW: Genoa ‘La Superba’: The Rise and Fall of a Merchant Pirate Superpower by Nicholas Walton

Medievalists.net — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 15:54:10 +0000

While most books about Italy have been dedicated to tourist hubs like Milan, Florence, Rome, Sicily and Venice, Genoa with its rich history, rugged landscape, and tenacious residents, has been given only a passing mention.

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Crusading Warfare, Chivalry, and the Enslavement of Women and Children

Medievalists.net — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 19:00:09 +0000

The subject of the treatment of prisoners taken in crusading warfare, long neglected, has attracted considerable interest in the last fifteen years, but more can still be said, particularly on the ways in which crusaders dealt with their enemies’ women and children, the archetypal non-combatants.

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Unexpected Evidence concerning Gold Mining in Early Byzantium

Medievalists.net — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 16:40:28 +0000

One of the consequences of the decline of Roman imperial might was the shortage of slaves at state-run mines. Consequently, criminals were often sentenced to damnatio ad metallum. The need for gold especially soared when the gold solidus was introduced at the beginning of the fourth century.

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Domestic Slavery in Renaissance Italy

Medievalists.net — Sun, 05 Oct 2014 15:35:52 +0000

The ways merchants in Italy differentiated along ethnic and religious lines among the slaves they dealt in sheds light more on how the people of Italy made distinctions among themselves than on the origins and religion of their captives.

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Slaves, Money Lenders, and Prisoner Guards: The Jews and the Trade in Slaves and Captives in the Crimean Khanate

Medievalists.net — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 07:50:33 +0000

Trade in slaves and captives was one of the most important (if not the most important) sources of income of the Crimean Khanate in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

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The Daily Life of Slavery and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt, 969-1250 CE

Medievalists.net — Fri, 02 May 2014 03:39:56 +0000

This dissertation examines the geography of the slave trade, the role of slavery in the household, and the lives of domestic slave women in the Egyptian Jewish community under the rule of the Fatimid caliphate and Ayyubid sultanate

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Why did Medieval Slave Traders go to Finland?

Medievalists.net — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 19:01:47 +0000

The demand for blonde girls and boys was so lucrative that slave traders would hunt for these people as far away as northern Finland, a recent study finds.

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