A thousand years ago, merchants from medieval Italy were bringing expensive silks, spices and other luxury goods home from the wealthy cities of the Islamic world. But how could they afford these treasures when western Europe was comparatively poor? Historian Romney David Smith suggests that part of the answer lies in a lucrative and troubling business: the buying and selling of enslaved people across the Mediterranean.
In a study published in the Journal of Medieval History, Smith examines the role of human trafficking in the growth of Mediterranean commerce between approximately 900 and 1100. His research suggests that profits from selling enslaved people may have provided merchants in cities such as Amalfi, Pisa and Genoa with the capital needed to expand their commercial activities.
During this period, the Islamic world was considerably wealthier than much of western Europe. Cities such as Cairo were major centres of trade, where merchants could purchase silks, spices, ivory, incense and other valuable commodities. These goods were in demand among Europe’s aristocracy and religious institutions, but Italian traders faced a fundamental problem: what could they offer in exchange?
The Economics of the Medieval Slave Trade
Enslaved people depicted in the Cantigas de Santa Maria from the 13th century.
Historians have suggested that Italian merchants exported agricultural products, timber and other raw materials. However, Smith argues that these commodities presented considerable difficulties, particularly for merchants who lacked the ships and infrastructure needed to transport large quantities of goods. He writes:
As a practical example, in the 1020s the abbot of Montecassino purchased a cloth in Amalfi, presumably a spectacular piece of fabric, as a gift for the emperor. We might imagine it cost its Amalfitan dealer 50 dinars in Egypt. But to cover such a purchase, our Amalfitan would have had to move and sell 7143 litres of grain – approximately 45 modern American oil barrels (at approximately 159 litres each), which take up some 41 square metres of deck space. This is perhaps two-thirds of the deck space of the Serçi Limanı vessel, our only well documented cargo ship of the era. The infrastructure difficulties are obvious. The Amalfitans had ships capable of moving grain – they used them to move it from their estates in Campania back to the city. But this is a very different matter from sailing to Egypt.
Enslaved people, however, could command much higher prices while requiring comparatively little cargo space. Smith found that a person purchased in Italy for the equivalent of three to seven gold dinars might be sold in Egypt or North Africa for 20 dinars or more.
These potential profits could have helped Italian merchants acquire the money needed to purchase luxury goods and establish themselves within the wider Mediterranean trading network.
The People Behind the Transactions
Surviving medieval documents provide glimpses of the individuals caught up in this trade. In Genoa in 1005, a woman named Erkentruda was sold for just 10 solidi, one of the lowest prices Smith identified in Italian records. The following year, documents from Pisa record men and women being sold for 20 solidi, equivalent to less than seven gold dinars. Another case comes from Amalfi in 1090, where a mother placed her daughter into lifelong servitude in return for a payment equivalent to approximately three dinars.
These transactions stand in sharp contrast to prices recorded in Egypt. As Smith explains:
Humans were worth a lot of money. A customary price of 30–33.3 dinars prevailed throughout our period as the ransom price of a healthy adult male. This amount was not always achieved in commercial transactions, but humans were always valuable. For women, who then as now made up the majority of slaves, a price of around 20 dinars was typical. The cheapest humans I am aware of in the House of Islam in this era went for 12.5 dinars for a male child in the early eleventh century, and 7.5 for a male slave in 922/3.
A fragmentary account book belonging to an early eleventh-century slave trader in Fustat, the commercial centre adjoining Cairo, records several sales of enslaved women for 27, 40, 57.5, 100 and 110 dinars.
The surviving evidence does not establish that the people sold in these Italian transactions were subsequently transported to Egypt. Nevertheless, the differences in prices help explain why Mediterranean merchants might have found human trafficking so financially attractive.
How Enslaved People Crossed the Mediterranean
1572 Portolan chart of the Central and Eastern Mediterranean Sea by Diogo Homem
The medieval slave trade did not necessarily resemble the large-scale transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic centuries later.
Some early medieval sources describe ships carrying substantial numbers of captives. Around 870, the monk Bernard reported seeing six ships at Taranto carrying thousands of enslaved Christians from Benevento. Smith regards the reported figure of 9,000 captives as highly exaggerated.
For the tenth and eleventh centuries, however, the evidence suggests that enslaved people could be transported in relatively small numbers aboard ordinary merchant vessels. These ships carried a variety of goods, with merchants or their agents accompanying the cargo.
Such arrangements made trafficking accessible to merchants who did not possess their own ships. Italian traders could purchase passage aboard vessels operating between Mediterranean ports, transporting enslaved people alongside other commodities.
This flexibility was particularly important for developing commercial centres such as Pisa and Amalfi. Unlike grain or timber, transporting a small number of enslaved people did not require extensive storage facilities or specialised cargo vessels.
A Slave Transaction in Alexandria
Alexandria by Piri Reis
One particularly revealing example comes from a document preserved among the Cairo Geniza, a collection of medieval Jewish writings that provides valuable evidence about Mediterranean commerce.
Around 1050, three Jewish captives were purchased by merchants from Amalfi after their ship had been seized by another group of Christians. The captives eventually reached Alexandria, where members of the Jewish community arranged to purchase their freedom. The Amalfitan merchants received 16 dinars for each of two captives and 12 dinars for the third.
Although the merchants presented themselves as helping the Jewish community, the surviving letter described them as harsh masters. Smith interprets the episode as evidence of commercial trafficking, in which merchants purchased captives with the expectation of reselling them at a profit.
The transaction also demonstrates how closely slavery and ransom were connected in the medieval Mediterranean. A captive might be purchased by relatives or members of their religious community, but the financial transaction was essentially the same as a sale into continued servitude.
For merchants, the possibility of receiving a ransom could make captives valuable even when they were not ultimately sold as slaves.
Where Did the Enslaved People Come From?
The Mediterranean slave trade was connected to networks extending far beyond the Italian peninsula. Smith identifies northern Italy as an important link between the markets of central and eastern Europe and those of the Mediterranean. Enslaved people were brought across Alpine passes to cities such as Pavia, where merchants from Amalfi, Salerno, Gaeta and Venice conducted business.
Further north, Verdun was another important centre. Historical sources describe enslaved people arriving there from eastern Europe, including male captives who were castrated for sale in markets farther south or east.
Some of these people were transported towards Muslim Spain, while Smith suggests that others may have travelled south through Italy to Sicily, North Africa and Egypt. Although the evidence for particular routes remains incomplete, the existence of interconnected markets made such movements possible.
Sicily was especially important. Under Muslim rule, the island occupied a strategic position between the Italian peninsula and North Africa, allowing merchants to participate in a wider network of Mediterranean commerce.
The trafficking of enslaved people was also not confined to one religious community. Christians and Muslims alike captured and sold people during raids and military campaigns, while merchants from different backgrounds participated in the commercial networks through which captives were exchanged.
Did Slavery Help Build Italy’s Commercial Wealth?
Smith’s central argument is that even relatively modest numbers of slave transactions could have generated enough wealth to help merchants establish themselves in international commerce.
Rather than requiring large fleets or extensive commercial infrastructure, a trader might begin by transporting a small number of enslaved people to a wealthy market, selling them for gold or silver, and using the proceeds to purchase luxury goods.
To illustrate the potential scale of these profits, Smith offers a hypothetical example involving Amalfi:
If Amalfi could bring 2000 slaves to market in Egypt in a year (an improbable number, but perhaps not impossible), the city would be generating wealth in the same class as the German emperor.
Profits could then be reinvested in further voyages, allowing merchants to expand their activities and eventually participate in other forms of commerce. Trade was not necessarily a simple exchange between Italy and Egypt: merchants might move through several Mediterranean ports, buying and selling different commodities before returning home.
This does not mean that human trafficking was the only foundation of medieval Italian prosperity. Smith acknowledges that much of the evidence is indirect and that the precise scale of the trade remains difficult to establish.
Nevertheless, his research suggests that the buying and selling of enslaved people may have played an important role in the commercial development of western Italian ports during the centuries before the Crusades.
The luxury goods that reached medieval European courts and churches were part of a complex trading system connecting societies with very different levels of wealth. Behind some of these exchanges, Smith argues, lay a profitable trade in human lives.
Romney David Smith’s article, “The Business of Human Trafficking: Slaves and Money Between Western Italy and the House of Islam Before the Crusades (c.900–c.1100)”, was published in the Journal of Medieval History, Vol. 45:5 (2019). The article can be accessed through Taylor & Francis Online.
Top Image: A medieval slave market depicted in a 13th-century manuscript of Maqamat al-Hariri, showing merchants negotiating over enslaved people. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
A thousand years ago, merchants from medieval Italy were bringing expensive silks, spices and other luxury goods home from the wealthy cities of the Islamic world. But how could they afford these treasures when western Europe was comparatively poor? Historian Romney David Smith suggests that part of the answer lies in a lucrative and troubling business: the buying and selling of enslaved people across the Mediterranean.
In a study published in the Journal of Medieval History, Smith examines the role of human trafficking in the growth of Mediterranean commerce between approximately 900 and 1100. His research suggests that profits from selling enslaved people may have provided merchants in cities such as Amalfi, Pisa and Genoa with the capital needed to expand their commercial activities.
During this period, the Islamic world was considerably wealthier than much of western Europe. Cities such as Cairo were major centres of trade, where merchants could purchase silks, spices, ivory, incense and other valuable commodities. These goods were in demand among Europe’s aristocracy and religious institutions, but Italian traders faced a fundamental problem: what could they offer in exchange?
The Economics of the Medieval Slave Trade
Historians have suggested that Italian merchants exported agricultural products, timber and other raw materials. However, Smith argues that these commodities presented considerable difficulties, particularly for merchants who lacked the ships and infrastructure needed to transport large quantities of goods. He writes:
As a practical example, in the 1020s the abbot of Montecassino purchased a cloth in Amalfi, presumably a spectacular piece of fabric, as a gift for the emperor. We might imagine it cost its Amalfitan dealer 50 dinars in Egypt. But to cover such a purchase, our Amalfitan would have had to move and sell 7143 litres of grain – approximately 45 modern American oil barrels (at approximately 159 litres each), which take up some 41 square metres of deck space. This is perhaps two-thirds of the deck space of the Serçi Limanı vessel, our only well documented cargo ship of the era. The infrastructure difficulties are obvious. The Amalfitans had ships capable of moving grain – they used them to move it from their estates in Campania back to the city. But this is a very different matter from sailing to Egypt.
Enslaved people, however, could command much higher prices while requiring comparatively little cargo space. Smith found that a person purchased in Italy for the equivalent of three to seven gold dinars might be sold in Egypt or North Africa for 20 dinars or more.
These potential profits could have helped Italian merchants acquire the money needed to purchase luxury goods and establish themselves within the wider Mediterranean trading network.
The People Behind the Transactions
Surviving medieval documents provide glimpses of the individuals caught up in this trade. In Genoa in 1005, a woman named Erkentruda was sold for just 10 solidi, one of the lowest prices Smith identified in Italian records. The following year, documents from Pisa record men and women being sold for 20 solidi, equivalent to less than seven gold dinars. Another case comes from Amalfi in 1090, where a mother placed her daughter into lifelong servitude in return for a payment equivalent to approximately three dinars.
These transactions stand in sharp contrast to prices recorded in Egypt. As Smith explains:
Humans were worth a lot of money. A customary price of 30–33.3 dinars prevailed throughout our period as the ransom price of a healthy adult male. This amount was not always achieved in commercial transactions, but humans were always valuable. For women, who then as now made up the majority of slaves, a price of around 20 dinars was typical. The cheapest humans I am aware of in the House of Islam in this era went for 12.5 dinars for a male child in the early eleventh century, and 7.5 for a male slave in 922/3.
A fragmentary account book belonging to an early eleventh-century slave trader in Fustat, the commercial centre adjoining Cairo, records several sales of enslaved women for 27, 40, 57.5, 100 and 110 dinars.
The surviving evidence does not establish that the people sold in these Italian transactions were subsequently transported to Egypt. Nevertheless, the differences in prices help explain why Mediterranean merchants might have found human trafficking so financially attractive.
How Enslaved People Crossed the Mediterranean
The medieval slave trade did not necessarily resemble the large-scale transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic centuries later.
Some early medieval sources describe ships carrying substantial numbers of captives. Around 870, the monk Bernard reported seeing six ships at Taranto carrying thousands of enslaved Christians from Benevento. Smith regards the reported figure of 9,000 captives as highly exaggerated.
For the tenth and eleventh centuries, however, the evidence suggests that enslaved people could be transported in relatively small numbers aboard ordinary merchant vessels. These ships carried a variety of goods, with merchants or their agents accompanying the cargo.
Such arrangements made trafficking accessible to merchants who did not possess their own ships. Italian traders could purchase passage aboard vessels operating between Mediterranean ports, transporting enslaved people alongside other commodities.
This flexibility was particularly important for developing commercial centres such as Pisa and Amalfi. Unlike grain or timber, transporting a small number of enslaved people did not require extensive storage facilities or specialised cargo vessels.
A Slave Transaction in Alexandria
One particularly revealing example comes from a document preserved among the Cairo Geniza, a collection of medieval Jewish writings that provides valuable evidence about Mediterranean commerce.
Around 1050, three Jewish captives were purchased by merchants from Amalfi after their ship had been seized by another group of Christians. The captives eventually reached Alexandria, where members of the Jewish community arranged to purchase their freedom. The Amalfitan merchants received 16 dinars for each of two captives and 12 dinars for the third.
Although the merchants presented themselves as helping the Jewish community, the surviving letter described them as harsh masters. Smith interprets the episode as evidence of commercial trafficking, in which merchants purchased captives with the expectation of reselling them at a profit.
The transaction also demonstrates how closely slavery and ransom were connected in the medieval Mediterranean. A captive might be purchased by relatives or members of their religious community, but the financial transaction was essentially the same as a sale into continued servitude.
For merchants, the possibility of receiving a ransom could make captives valuable even when they were not ultimately sold as slaves.
Where Did the Enslaved People Come From?
The Mediterranean slave trade was connected to networks extending far beyond the Italian peninsula. Smith identifies northern Italy as an important link between the markets of central and eastern Europe and those of the Mediterranean. Enslaved people were brought across Alpine passes to cities such as Pavia, where merchants from Amalfi, Salerno, Gaeta and Venice conducted business.
Further north, Verdun was another important centre. Historical sources describe enslaved people arriving there from eastern Europe, including male captives who were castrated for sale in markets farther south or east.
Some of these people were transported towards Muslim Spain, while Smith suggests that others may have travelled south through Italy to Sicily, North Africa and Egypt. Although the evidence for particular routes remains incomplete, the existence of interconnected markets made such movements possible.
Sicily was especially important. Under Muslim rule, the island occupied a strategic position between the Italian peninsula and North Africa, allowing merchants to participate in a wider network of Mediterranean commerce.
The trafficking of enslaved people was also not confined to one religious community. Christians and Muslims alike captured and sold people during raids and military campaigns, while merchants from different backgrounds participated in the commercial networks through which captives were exchanged.
Did Slavery Help Build Italy’s Commercial Wealth?
Smith’s central argument is that even relatively modest numbers of slave transactions could have generated enough wealth to help merchants establish themselves in international commerce.
Rather than requiring large fleets or extensive commercial infrastructure, a trader might begin by transporting a small number of enslaved people to a wealthy market, selling them for gold or silver, and using the proceeds to purchase luxury goods.
To illustrate the potential scale of these profits, Smith offers a hypothetical example involving Amalfi:
If Amalfi could bring 2000 slaves to market in Egypt in a year (an improbable number, but perhaps not impossible), the city would be generating wealth in the same class as the German emperor.
Profits could then be reinvested in further voyages, allowing merchants to expand their activities and eventually participate in other forms of commerce. Trade was not necessarily a simple exchange between Italy and Egypt: merchants might move through several Mediterranean ports, buying and selling different commodities before returning home.
This does not mean that human trafficking was the only foundation of medieval Italian prosperity. Smith acknowledges that much of the evidence is indirect and that the precise scale of the trade remains difficult to establish.
Nevertheless, his research suggests that the buying and selling of enslaved people may have played an important role in the commercial development of western Italian ports during the centuries before the Crusades.
The luxury goods that reached medieval European courts and churches were part of a complex trading system connecting societies with very different levels of wealth. Behind some of these exchanges, Smith argues, lay a profitable trade in human lives.
Romney David Smith’s article, “The Business of Human Trafficking: Slaves and Money Between Western Italy and the House of Islam Before the Crusades (c.900–c.1100)”, was published in the Journal of Medieval History, Vol. 45:5 (2019). The article can be accessed through Taylor & Francis Online.
David Romney Smith is currently a Research Fellow at the Australian National University. His new book, Amalfi, Pisa and the Islamic World Before the Crusades: Cities on the Sea, will be published later this year.
Top Image: A medieval slave market depicted in a 13th-century manuscript of Maqamat al-Hariri, showing merchants negotiating over enslaved people. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
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