Slave girls under the early Abbasids
Every one in Abbasid society who could compose poetry, good or bad, composed about slave-girls or at least made mention of them.
The Black Road – Trade and State-building in Medieval Sub-Saharan Africa
By the early fourteenth century, the Mediterranean was approaching maturity as a commercial structure. Various arteries of exchange brought into its scope the full range of European, African and Asian commodities.
What work did Viking slaves do?
‘Slave work in general was heavy and dirty’ explains Janken Myrdal in his article ‘Milking and Grinding, Digging and Herding: Slaves and Farmwork 1000-1300’.
Black Africans’ Religious and Cultural Assimilation to, or Appropriation of, Catholicism in Italy, 1470-1520
Current scholarship emphasizes that the old model of conversion—of, say, Christianity being actively forced onto passive and subordinate peoples—is no longer satisfactory, and instead prefers to frame the issue around concepts of cultural interaction or cultural transmission, and selective appropriation of the host religion.
Singers and Soldiers: Slavery in Early Abbasid Society
Individuals of slave descent led significant households in Baghdad and Samarra, the capitals of the Abbasid caliphate, the second great empire of the Muslim world.
Was St Patrick a slave-trading Roman official who fled to Ireland?
With St Patrick’s Day upon us, a new study asks whether the saint fled his native Britain to escape a career as a Roman tax collector, only to arrive in Ireland and sell slaves.
Slavery and the slave trade in pre-colonial Africa
Slavery and the Slave Trade have been age old institutions and practices in almost every continent in the world.
The Disappearance of Ancient Slavery
Since access to ancient documents was unobtainable, the information in this paper is based on the writings of twentieth century historians.
When pregnancy gets you out of a bad relationship – female slaves in medieval Spain
Debra Blumenthal examines 33 cases found in the archives of the Spanish city between 1425 and 1520 where female slaves sued to get their freedom on the basis that they bore the children of their male masters.
Muslims as property: slavery episodes in the realms of Aragon 1244-1291
Muslims as property: slavery episodes in the realms of Aragon 1244-1291 By Robert I. Burns Sharq Al-Andalus, No. 14-15 (1997-1998) Introduction: Muslim slaves…
A Viking Slave’s Saga
A Viking Slave’s Saga By Jan Fridegård, translated by Robert E. Bjork Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007 ISBN: 978-0-86698-375-4 ACMRS…
Slavery and Conversion of the Slaves to Islam in the Ottoman Society
Slavery and Conversion of the Slaves to Islam in the Ottoman Society: According to the Canonical Registers of Bursa between XVth and XVIIIth Centuries…
The Viking Slave Trade
Slavery was a feature of Irish society long before the vikings arrived. St Patrick was first brought to Ireland as a captive, and slave raiding across the Irish Sea is attested (in both directions) at the time when Roman power collapsed in Britain.


