p-slavery-msg - 6/5/08 Slavery in medieval Europe and the Middle East. NOTE: See also the files: Kiev-Slavery-art, peasants-msg, p-police-msg, punishments-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ * Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 23:57:44 -0400 (EDT) From: Jenne Heise Subject: RE: SC - Columbus' chilies > Was slavery still going on from within Europe as late as the 17th and > 18th centuries? I thought that it had pretty much stopped even from > Eastern Europe well before then. Well, the last mention of slaves in Silesia appears to be in the late thirteenth century; but the Domostroi (Rus, late 16th-Early 17th century depending on which bit you are reading) talks about slaves and the master's responsibility toward them... I'm not sure when slavery was abolished in Russia, but I would guess post-period. Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise jenne at tulgey.browser.net Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 08:04:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Jenne Heise Subject: Re: SC - period slavery > > Well, the last mention of slaves in Silesia appears to be in the late > > thirteenth century; but the Domostroi (Rus, late 16th-Early 17th century > > depending on which bit you are reading) talks about slaves and the > > master's responsibility toward them... I'm not sure when slavery was > > abolished in Russia, but I would guess post-period. > > Thanks. I am curious which sources you are using to say late 16th and > Early 17th century Russia. Reading this article and my rememberance of > the class indicated that the slaves were much better treated and that > the numbers were declining by the 12th and 13th century. It doesn't > give any dates for when the slavery stopped, though. So I guess it > could have been held onto much longer than that. The source I'm citing is _The Domostroi_ (trans. Caroline Pouncy) subtitled 'Rules for Russian Households in the time of Ivan the Terrible' section 28, 'If Someone keeps more slaves than he can afford'... The custom of keeping slaves is also explained in _Bread and Salt_. Slavery in 16th century Rus was apparently an option to escape debts or destitution, and so functioned more like indentured servititude than the Western black slavery of the period. The wholesale slavery by capture in war had in fact died out by that time... it shows up in Jan Dlugloz's Annals in the 12th and part of the 13th century, as I recall, with regard to wars between the Poles and the Ruthenians, but isn't mentioned much after that. > For those who might be interested, this article is in the CULTURES section > of my files and is from Pennsic class notes from last Pennsic: > Kiev-Slavery-art (22K) 9/ 8/99 "Slavery in Kievan Rus" by Peotr > Alexeivich Novgrodski. > It seems to be well written and contains a number of referances. It > also appears that the keeping of slaves was often more of a status > thing than an economic imperative. In fact the monetary cost of keeping > slaves could be quite high. I believe that the author also wrote an article on the topic for the Slavic Interest Group newsletter, Slovo. Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise jenne at tulgey.browser.net Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 03:01:34 -0600 From: "Terry Decker" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grains of Paradise To: , "Cooks within the SCA" > Now I'm completely lost-- what country are we in? Slavery had become > uncommon in most European countries by approximately the 12th > century as far as I knew? > -- > -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Slavery was uncommon, but not unknown. In 1434, the Portuguese introduced African slaves into Europe. The trade seriously expanded in the early 16th Century as the Portuguese opened plantations in Brazil. Pope Nicholas V authorized the Portuguese to "attack, subject and reduce to perpetual slavery the Saracens, pagans and other enemies of Christ southward from Cape Bajador and Non including all the coast of Guinea" in 1514. The English and the Dutch began raiding Portuguese slavers and selling the human plunder into the Caribbean. John Hawkins got his start raiding Portuguese slavers in 1562 and was backed by Elizabeth in his ventures in 1564. The trade continued to expand and the various plantation systems of the New World demanded a steady stream of replaceable labor. The initial cost of purchasing a slave tended to limit their purchase to the wealth and to extremely profitable, but lethal enterprises. The less well to do hired their servants or retained them in what is occasionally referred to as "bastard feudalism." Indentured servitude is largely a product of the 17th Century. Bear Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 08:45:44 +0100 From: Volker Bach Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grains of Paradise To: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net, Cooks within the SCA Am Sonntag, 31. Dezember 2006 20:02 schrieb Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise: >> I have never seen "servants' allotments" for sugar, spices or other >> luxury products in the 15th century. What was available to those >> who could not buy slaves was locally produced - not pepper. > > Now I'm completely lost-- what country are we in? Slavery had become > uncommon in most European countries by approximately the 12th > century as far as I knew? In England certainly, but it appears to have been far more common in places like Italy, Spain or the Balkans, and not unknown in Russia and Poland. However, the model of 'slavery' we should think of in this context is the Islamic world, where slaves were mostly a status good, not the New World's investment slavery. Datini IIRC writes in one of his letters that he needs to get his wife a new slave, and complains about the bad selection on the market. I don't think you'd see terribly many slaves in England in the 15th century, though. Where would they fit in, other than as exotic souvenirs? Giano Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:32:29 +0100 From: Suey Subject: [Sca-cooks] Slavery in Europe To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org Jadwiga Zajaczkowa wrote: > Now I'm completely lost-- what country are we in? Slavery had become > uncommon in most European countries by approximately the 12th > century. . . From Romans time slavery was known to have existed From 711, during the 700 years of Moorish rule in Spain. black slaves were introduced to Andalusia and owners prided in the color of their skin to which they added gold tonalities by rubbing it with caraway dissolved in water. Slaves remained common in Iberian for centuries. Human Immunology, 62(9):871-874 (2001) points out that repopulation of Andalusia after being reconquered by Christians included Moorish and black slaves imported from Africa to work in households and as field laborers, see _Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule_ - page 218 by Frank W. Sweet. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1017/p05s01-woeu.html indicates: "Columbus was also a strong supporter of slavery, refusing to baptize the indigenous people of Hispaniola so that he could enslave them (Spanish law prohibited the enslavement of Christians), and auctioning Spaniards into slavery. . ." As late as 1772 ownership of slaves in England was considered a status symbol. France was the first to abolish slavery in 1794 but Napoleon revoked the act which was not reenacted until 1848. Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain followed between 1856-1868. Edited by Mark S. Harris p-slavery-msg Page 3 of 4