eastern imports to europe the northern regions of Carolingian Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries than had been the case in the seventh century. If future research bears this out, it would confirm further much thatwe have seen in these chapters. So rare spices, Arab drugs, incense, and precious silks were making their way to Italy, and from Italy across the Alps to the Frankish heartland. Continuing research will probably add more wares to the list.138 These extremely costly goods were being purchased in the markets of the Muslim world and, perhaps to a lesser extent, of Byzantium. It is here that the testimony of the Arab coins of Carolingian Europe resonates most obtrusively. The conventional wisdom has tended to be that whatever luxury goods the impoverished Carolingians imported from the Middle East had to be paid for in cash; hence one might have supposed a drain of Carolingian silver toward the Islamic world.139 But the merchants who were purchasing these luxuries were also acquiring dirhams and dinars: the purchase of the costly luxuries of the more developed economies, in other words, did not exhaust the resources the western traders had brought to eastern markets. Despite the high value of the goods they acquired in the southeast, whatever wares westerners had brought to exchange there seem to have been of greater value than incense, spices, and silks, for the Adriatic traders returned home with Arab currency. The great influx of Arab money started around 775. In precisely theseyears we observe very substantial imports of silk into Rome. Within another decade or two, at most, the first new Arab drugs were reaching northern Italy, and an Arabic word of Malay extraction was written in a parchment book near the middle Rhine; the markets of Rome attracted Arab merchants at the same time that Venetians traveled to the Middle East. What wares allowed the underdeveloped economy of Carolingian Europe to buy and import such extraordinary and expensive luxuries from the greater economies of the south and east, and still bring home the cold, hard cash of the dinar manqush and dirham? 138 For instance die sherds oflraqi or Egyptian glazed glass dated c. goo, and discovered in 1992 in a fill layer atFulda during the construction of the Dommuseum, where I recently saw them. 139 Spuffordig88,49-52, nonetheless has argued for a more positive balance of trade when slave exports permitted. 25 European exports to Africa and Asia Amidst a general surge in the communications linking northwestern Europe to the more developed economies of the Mediterranean, coins and high-value goods entered the Frankish empire from the Arab and, probably, Byzantine worlds. Since there is not the slightest hintthatprecious metals flowed out of Europe, this leaves little doubt that Europe exported goods of high value to exchange for the eastern imports. Frankland certainly moved some goods toward the south. Alcuin, for instance, expected help for his merchant clearing customs both on his way to Italy and en route home: necessarily he was conveying some merchandise to sell in the south.1 What exactly he and other merchants were transporting is less clear. Whatever it was needed to be of high value, portable and saleable in Italy or beyond. I. Lumber, fur, and arms The most emphatic statement has claimed that Europe exported English tin, Venetian lumber, furs, Frankish weapons, and slaves, but spent little effort sustaining these assertions with evidence.2 A source from the second half of the tenth century shows that horses, slaves, wool, linen and canvas textiles, tin, and swords were shipped across the Alps in that period (above, p. 680). Slaves, tin, and swords will have been marketable beyond Italy. But one cannot use developments of 1000 to prove those of 800. 1 Alcuin, Ep. 77, rig.2 and 4-5: "Italiae [in the dative] mercimonia ferentem" and "... in montium claustris a vestris non teneatur tolneariis constrictus, sed per latitudinem carkatis latam habeat eundi et redeundi semitam." 2 Lombard 1972,23 (originally published 1947). With effortand goodwill, one can discover some evidence for some ofthese assertions in his further essays published ibid.; see below. The lack of method necessarily compromised the impact of his stimulating and valuable insights. 728 729 european exports to africa and asia lumber, fur, and arms Nonetheless, arguments of increasing strength can be made for Carolingian exports of lumber, furs, swords, and slaves. Alcuin's merchant certainly did not drag logs across the Alps. But Italy and the Adriatic facade of the Balkans had forests closer to the sea and the ships. The hypothesis that lumber was exported from Italy to the wood-deprived areas of the Caliphate gains plausibility from the ecological disparities between the two areas.3 But it must remain a hypothesis, since today the evidence for ninth-century Adriatic lumber exports to the Arab world is zero.4 The hypothesis receives some encouragement from late tenth-century Byzantine concern about Venetian wood shipments to the Arabs.5 Furthermore, the Venetian treaty with Lothar I paid careful attention to the Venetian rights to cut wood on the mainland. This might point indirectly in the same direction, but the Venetians will have needed lumber for their own ships and the treaty seems to imply in any case that these rights are limited to firewood.6 Future archaeological and palaeobotanical evidence from the seabed or the Arab world may someday allow us to go further. Fur is another matter. Some of the fine furs voraciously consumed by the Islamic world certainly traveled along the northern arc.7 Perhaps this was the source of supply for the Constantinopolitan furriers' shops that a fire destroyed in 931.8 Although details are hard to come by in the Carolingian sources, we know that Jewish merchants operating out of Frankland imported furs into the Arab 3 Lombard 1972,107-76. 4 Ibid., 133 and 14911176 (originallypublished 1958), typically claims that Andreas Dandolo's Chronica perexrensum descripta, 8,1 (for which he supplies the reference, "Muratorj, 12, p. 170") states that Leo V categorically prohibited the export of long lumber needed for shipbuilding. It says nothing of th e sort. At 144.31-3 (ofPastorello's edn., 1942-58; cf. the i8th-C. edition: L. A. Muratorius, Rtrum italicarum scrtptores, 12 [Milan, 1728J.167B-C), Dandolo says only that Leo forbade communications with Syria and Egypt ("ne quis In Syriam vel Egiptum auderetaccedere"). Cf. Dölger no. 400; R328. 5 A Byzantine embassy of 971 threatened to bum any Venetian ships carryingwood to the Arabs, after which the doge forbade the shipping of weapons and wood ofstrategic sizes to the Arabs, Decrerum, July 971: Venedig, no. 14, pp. 26-30; Dandolo, Chronica, 8,14,178.17-24. Contrast Lombard 1972,133-4, who has confused the report of the three ships. Pactum Hlotharii, 24-5 and 30,134. 21-34 and 135.15—I7;c. 24 and 30 are imprecise; c. 25 specifies that the woodcutters may only fell non-(fruit-)bearingtrees "quantum ad collum portarepotuerit, lignamen faciendum, non ad pectus trahendum," which I take to mean limited to sizes which can be carried (in a basket) fastened at the neck, as firewood [lignamen, not materia), notpieces which must be carried over the shoulder. Ibn Khurradadhbih, text, Pritsak, p. 253, translation, p. 256, cf. for gzi, Ibn Fadlan, p. 107, with 980207. For the Arab evidence on the fur trade, see the thorough discussion offacob 1891,18-50, and Martin ig86, 5-14. On furs in Abbasid costume, Serjeant "Leo Grammaticus," 321.4-8; Ps.-Symeon, Constantine and Romanos, 40, 744.18-20; cf. John Skylitzes, Synopsis hrstoriamm, Ro manos 1,26, 226.20-3; A. Kazhdan, ODB 2:809. 730 world.9 Furs do occur in Frankish monastic inventories, and itwould be surprising if the Frisian merchants who exported Frankish wine, swords, and grain to Scandinavia did not acquire there the forest products whose subarctic collection system is well known.10 They were certainly an object of commerce inside the Carolingian empire. Records of a meeting that Charlemagne held with his grandees in 808 show that he attempted to fix the prices of high-quality cloaks, especially fine marten and otter coats (priced at 30 s.) as well as sable ones (10 s.). The meeting occurred at either Nijmegen or Aachen. In the former case, it is worth remembering that Dorestad was but a day distant, and that the place for which these prices were to be fixed may have been the market associated with the palace. The fact that the meeting seems to be concerned only with luxury goods reinforces this hint.11 We cannot follow the furs through Frankland toward the Alps.12 In fact, when Notker depicted the oriental finery which Charlemagne's grandees had purchased from Venetians atPavia, he seems to include fine furs along with silk and other exotic textiles.13 This shows that the monk of St. Gall did not fully understand the sources and circuits of Venetian trade. It is also the earliest text which indicates that the Venetians dealt in the other great forest product of their time, after slaves. Since the finest furs came from the far north and the Slavic territories of central and eastern Europe, Notker's ignorance of their western origin may hint that, in the 880s, the Venetian stock was not reaching the Mediterranean g Ibn Khurradadhbih, trans. Jacobi 1971, 252; see Ch. 23.3. 10 Whether furs mentioned in Carolingian inventories were of local origin or imported from afar is unclear; cf. e.g., Gesta Font. 13,4, p. 103, where Johanek's caution (1987,37) about a mention of Black Sea beaver ("ex cane Pontico") is well founded. The author loves to enliven his vocabulary, and he lifted the expression unaltered from Isidore, Oriaines, 12, 2,21, Lindsay. Cf. the bishop of Augsburg's gifts of fur to the monks ofSt. Gall in 908, Schatzwrzeichnisse, no. 118,121.21-2. Subarctic collection: Ohthere, intheOld English Orosius, p. 20. 11 MGH Capi t. no. 5 2, 5,1.140.1-6; cf. no. 51, 7," De roccis et sagis," 13 9.1. The next item of Captt. no. 51 (which could be the agenda for the meeting in which the decisions recorded in no. 52, were made) was c. 8, "De mercato palacii nostri," 139.2. That year Charles was at Nijmegen from the beginning of spring until Easter; otherwise he was at Aachen: BM 4310-439^ 12 The 107 "pelles ad pellicium" recorded as annual imperial revenue from Remedius' ministerium in the Lower Engadine and Vintschgau in the Rhaetian Alps, presumably came from local trapping: Imperial Polyptych, 394.10. 13 Gesta Karoli, z, ij, 86.15-21, with ibid., Hefele's nng-io: "Ceteri vero urpote feria-tis diebus, etqui modo de Papia venissent, ad quam nuper Venetici de transmarinis partibus omnes orientalium divitias advec-tassent, Phenicum pellibus avium serico circumdatis et pavonum collis .., alii de lodicibus, quidam de gliribus circumarnicti procedebant." The king was making fun of their lovely furs and silks. They were destroyed by the brambles, rain and blood spatters that came with a royal romp in the woods, while the king's cheap sheepskin emerged intact. european exports to africa and asia through the Frankish empire.14 One way to explain his misunderstanding would be if the furs were then coming from the north through the Slavlands, perhaps along the Amber Trail and through the Noric Alps, thereby skirting the Frankish toll stations, not to mention the Viking invasions. If Venice was in fact the "Frankish" port where Ibn Khurradadhbih's Jewish merchants embarked, the testimony of Frank and Muslim converge, for fine furs were one of the Radhanite merchants' exports to the Caliphate (Ch. 23.3). Weapons leave deeper tracks. As iron production increased around the empire, Frankish craftsmen manufactured more exceptionally fine weapons and armor. European swords traveled the entire length of the northern arc to users in Baghdad. Thus Ibn Khurradadhbih identifies swords as one of the Rus traders' key wares.15 A generation later, Ibn Fadlan mentions their arms, and he calls them "Frankish" (ifranjiya).16 Though this prohibition was no more effective than others, Charlemagne's effort to halt the export of weapons signals that the volume was large enough to alarm the Frankish ruler.17 The sword market was highly competitive, to judge from the fact that the blades bore the ninth-century equivalent oftrademarks. They were inscribed with "ULFBERHT" or other Frankish men's names, and they have been discovered in large numbers outside the Carolingian empire. The names are those ofFrankish armorers or imitators whose shops seem to have centered on the Rhineland. Archaeologists have retrieved such weapons from the Rhine near Mannheim and Speyer; eight have been found at Dorestad itself.18 That exports overcame Charlemagne's embargo is proved by the swords themselves. Overall, some 100 Ulfberht swords have been found along routes associated with the entire northern arc. At least seventy-nine Frankish swords have been identified in Scandinavia from the late eighth into the tenth century.19 Some eighty examples of another, tenth-century type have been excavated in Norway and Sweden.20 From an economic perspective, it is striking that, while the first Frankish swords were exported as finished products, subsequently sword blades were sent unfinished to Scandinavia. There they received handles in the local taste. This suggests specially targeted export production, which hints at growth.21 14 On the geography of fur producing, Lombard 1972, map facing p. 1 go; and Martin 1986, 5-14. 15 Pritsak 1971, text, p. 256; trans, p. 253. 16 Pritsak 1971, 250-1, with 1136. Cf. Ibn Fadlan, p. 118. 17 MGHCapit. no.44,7(a.d.805), 1.123.13-19; "De negotiatoribus qui partibus Sclavorum et Avarorum pergunt... ut arma et brunias non ducantad venundandura..."; swords are explicitly mentioned in one RhenishMS (Vat. Pal. Iat. 773, s. ix1; Mordek 1995, 799-801) ofMGH Capit. no, 40,7 (803), 1.115.18 with 39; cf. ibid., no. 20 (779), 20, i.51.15 ("Debrunias"); cf. also ibid., no. 273,25,2.321.1-19. 18 Steuer 1987a, 156 and 152, respectively. ig Ibid., i52-3nng5 and 96. 20 Ibid., 153. 21 Ibid., 152 with n95. 732 europeans Charlemagne's efforts to curtail the export ofFrankish swords were explicitly aimed at the Slavs and Avars. In fact swords manufactured around 800 and in the early ninth century are found outside the empire, along the same Amber Trail where Arab and Byzantine coins cluster.22 The famous blades also reached the Muslim world across the Mediterranean: Ibn Khurradadhbih lists them as one of the Radhanites' wares.23 Recent archaeology tends to confirm their southward export. In the late eighth and ninth centuries, such weapons found theirway across the Alps into the Slavic principalities of the Adriatic facade. The logical route for these swords will have been through Venice, and it is not impossible that the Frankish weapons discovered in Croatia were but spillovers from a larger Venetian export stream.24 The same "trademark" inscriptions that have caught archaeologists' attention were well known in tenth-century Baghdad. A treatise on the alphabets of the world composed there in 987 describes the alphabet ofthe Franks as resembling that of the Greeks, although it seemed to Arab eyes more regular. As the learned author noted, "We have often seen it on Frankish swords."25 Such arms also traveled to Iraq from Italy as a Carolingian princess' diplomatic gift to the Caliph.26 2. Europeans But one ware we have metmore frequently than all others combined. Whether we look at merchants serving the court, trading on the Danube or traveling to Venice, over and over again we encounter the same merchandise: the human ware of slaves, Europeans hunted and captured across the continent and exported to foreign climes. Not only was their value high: they had a singular advantage 22 Ibid.,Abb, 13; cf.Vinski 1983. 23 Trans. Jacobi, p. 252. 24 Vinski 1983; Vinski 1983-4 adds no new witnesses. 25 Muhammad ibn Ishaq known as Ibn al-Nadim, a! Fihrist, p. 23. See in general Zeki Validi 1936; cf. Rjchter Bernburg 1987,677. 26 Diplomatic gifts seem sometimes to advertise the wares of a particular region: e.g. the drugs, spices, and silks Harun al Rashid sent to Charlemagne: Ann. regm Franc, a. 807, p. 123. In 905-6, Bertha of Tuscany sent as gifts to al Mukrafi: "fifty swords, fifty shields, and fifty lances ofthe type used by the franks, twenty garments woven with gold, twenty Slav eunuchs, twenty beautiful and elegant Slav slave girls, ten big dogs against which no wild beast could prevail, seven falcons and seven sparrow hawks, a silk (?) tent with all its fittings, twenty garments made from a wool produced by a mollusk collected from the sea bottom in that region, whose colors change like the rainbow, and three birds from the country of the Franks which if they see poison in food and drink make frightful screeches and beat their wings, and glass pearls which remove arrows and spearheads, even if the flesh has grown back around them." My trans, from the Italian ofLevi dellaVidaig54, 25.For "sea wool" (cf. Latin lana maritime) garments: R.503, which indicates that they came from Sardinia, an origin which this text seems to confirm, given the links between Tuscany and Corsica (Ch. 17.4). 733 european exports to africa and asia which nullified the cost of mountain transport imposed by the Alpine successor to the old Rhone route. They moved themselves over land. In fact, they could even be forced to carry additional wares on their way to the market.27 Slavery has played a notable part in the broader discussion about the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages and the nature of medieval society. Scholars have lately resumed a debate launched by Marc Bloch on the fate of slavery and the transformations of the European labor force and the social system in which itwas embedded. The question has been whether agrarian slavery died under the Carolingians or later, and why.28 Important though it is, this debate has shed little light on the other aspect of early medieval slavery investigated by modern scholars, the slave trade. The main features of the Carolingian slave trade have already been mapped.29 Still, a few new sources deepen and extend the picture. Work to date has relied almost exclusively on the Latin evidence. The slave trade which, after all, was geared to export, gains by being seen in a broader context. It was a Carolingian phenomenon, but it was not only that. From a general and economic perspective, the Arab slave raids on the Frankish, Italian, or Byzantine shores might have been but a variation on Charlemagne's army attacking Saxony, or Frankish (or Slavic) and Scandinavian slave hunters operating in the obscure but overflowing human reservoir of the Slavic principalities. Mutatis mutandis, the better documented life-stories of enslaved Byzantine boys shed some light on the tragedies we will never recover, those of the silent peoples dragged down to the shore at Venice, Cherson, or points in between, and shipped across the sea to a life of enslavement in a foreign world. The language of slavery The terminology of slavery in the Carolingian age has never been exhaustively analyzed.30 Latin servus or Greek doulos had meant "slave" clearly enough in the 27 Verlinden 1955-77,2:120. 28 The discussion has moreover fed into the broader debate about the "feudal revolution," the shift from predominantly public structures of administration and governance to private ones; see Bloch 1947. Bonnassie iggr (originally published 1985), 1-59, andHoffmann 1986 come to rather similar conclusions from different evidence; Bois 1992 (originally published 1989), i3-33;Wickham 1991. On the Marxist inspiration of much of the debate: Verhulstand Bourin 1991, 55. For an excellent review of die literature, Pelteretigc>5, 4-24, which ranges far beyond the early medieval England of the title. For the "Feudal Revolution" debate, see Bisson 1994 and 1997, and the responses which he has elicited. 29 Verlinden 1955-77,1:7°5-I9 and 2: 114-33. Schaub 1913 is primarily concerned with patristic (and a few Carolingian, 72-8T) theories of slavery. 30 Contrast the systematic lexical scrutiny of europeans classical period. By the eighth century, they had become more ambiguous. Very noble bishops used them to refer to themselves in a humility formula that was becoming fashionable - "Servant of the servants of God" - while Byzantine officials commonly and proudly called their state service "servitude" (douleia). In neither case would the classical meaning "slave of the slaves of God" or imperial "slavery" render accurately the contemporary nuance.31 So we are not surprised that these words do not always refer unmistakably to slavery. Two other sets of words are less problematic. Mancipium or, in Greek, andrapo-don normally refer to slaves in a more conventional sense, even though centuries of Christian ideals had begun to undermine the classic understanding of slaves as "tools with voices," at least insofar as the slaves were also Christians.32 Most importantly for our purposes, the broader word for "prisoner" (captiuus; cf. Greek aichmalotos) came to mean, usually, "slave," for military violence remained the main source of the stream that fed the international slave trade of the early Middle Ages. This was the most miserable sort of slave, the "captive" whose status was deplorable enough to give Italians the word for "bad" (cartiuo).33 Coptiuus was so used on both sides of the Alps. Thus the eighth-century Life of St. Bonitus of Clermont records the saint's efforts to curtail the slave trade when, late in the seventh century, he was the royal official in charge of Marseilles: Not long thereafter, as it was customary in that place that men were sold and condemned by the punishment of exile and enslavement (captiuitatis), he commanded by his decree that it should never occur; rather, those whom he could find who had been sold, he redeemed and brought home, as was his habit.34 Around the middle of the eighth century, the biographer of St. Eligius of Noyon (sed. 641-60) uses the terms interchangeably: "With great mercy and dispatch, he went wherever he understood a slave (mancipium) was to be sold, and immediately paid the price and liberated the slave (captivum)."35 Peltereti995,261-330; a similar effort for the Carolingians would scrutinize all kinds of sources, including those in early Germanic; a valuable comparative perspective would come from including the Greek and the Old Church Slavonic. 31 On "servus servorum Dei," see, e.g., Levison 1946,238^.6; dtmldfl: Kazhdanand McCormick 1997,194- 32 Bloch 1947,37-41; Bonnassie 1991,30-2; Hoffmann 1986. 33 Heers 198t, 23-64. 34 V. Boniti (BHL1418), 3,121.3-6: "Non multo postinibi, utmoriserat, homines venundari atque exulitatis capfivitatisque pena damnari, suo nusquam fieri praecepit esse decreto; sed magis eos quos repperire potuisset venditos, sicut semper agere con -sueverat, redimendo ad propria reduce-bat." Note that this report of prohibition is ambiguous. Did it refer to the slave trade in general? Or merely to judicial enslavements? 35 Vita Eligii Nouioma^jensis (BHL 2474-6), 1,10, MGH SRM 4.677.4-6: "Sane ubicumque venundandum intellexisset mancipium, magna cum misericordia et festinatione occurrens, mox dato praetio liberabat 734 735 european exports to africa and asia Capture, sale, a lifetime of enslavement and, for a few, redemption, intertwined in ninth-century minds. Thus, for instance, Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, whose ecclesiastical purview extended into the Slavic lands and whose province straddled the Amber Trail: in a theological treatise, he interwove the words of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans with Colossians 2,14 about the "sale" of mankind into the "captivity" or enslavement of sin. The deed of sale was erased by the redeeming blood of Christ. Revealingly, he slipped in the word captiui where his biblical source had spoken of the serin who were "sold under sin."36 Describing the devastation wrought in Italy by Arab raiders, Pope John VIII wrote to Charles the Bald: ". . . the blood of the Christians is poured out, a people devoted to God is devastated by constant massacre. For if any escapes the flame or the sword, he becomes booty, he is dragged away as a captiuus and made forever an exile. Behold, the towns, castles and estates perish, stripped ofinhabitants.. ."37 In the words of a Lombard monk of Monte Cassino, the combination of civil war and Arab marauding were devastating southern Italy even as the shipment of Italian slaves to the Caliphate had the opposite effect on the enemies of Christendom: "the places across the sea are bolstered by the male and female captiui... of our race."38 A moralizing treatise which is no later than the eighth century enjoins: "Do not dare to make a man captive, because the Lord says 'He who has kidnapped a person and sold him and has been convicted of the crime, let him be put to death'" (Exod. 21,16). The further connection between captiui and commerce is implicit in the statement's context, for itis redolent oftrade: let there be no greed, no love of gold and silver, no lending at interest, no tampering with weights and measures: one must do unto others as you would have them do unto you.39 Footnote 35 (cant.) captivum..." On the date, Wattenbach et at. 1952-90,127-8. The work combines with invented stuff genu ine material from the first, lost Life. It is in any case revealing of the 8th C. CF. the Leges Alamannorum, 27,2, 97.9-10, where "captivum faciendi potes-tas" seems to refer to selling the mancipium of [ine 7 outside the province (cf. 97.14-15). 36 "Nos uero redempti, quia filimus captiui, uenundati sub peccato (Rom. 7,14), obligati nimirum in eo cyrographo decreti quod ipse tulit de medio, delens sanguine suo, quod nullius alius redemptorum delere potuit sanguis." Contra Felicem libri tres, 1,25, CC Cont. Med. 95.30.7-31.11. Cf.Romans 6, 16-22 on the "slaves of sin" ("serui... peccati") and their liberation. 37 Registrum, 22, JE 3062, 20.3-5. 38 Erchempert, História Lang. Ben., 18,241,11: ".. .ultramarina loca captivis nostrae gentis diversi sexus etaetatis ŕulciebantur." 39 Pirmin (?), Scarapsus, 17,48.22-49.22: "Nullus avarus sit, quia apostolus ait:... auriim et argentum vestrum eruginavit... usuras uulluspresumataccipere, quia dominus ait: 'Non fenerabis fratri tuo ad usuram pecuniam nec fruges' (Dent., 23, 19)... Nemomensuras dublicias, nec stateras iniustas habeat, quia dominus ait: 'Non habebis in saeculo diversa pondera, maius et minus' (Deut., 25,13), ... Quod enim proficithomini, si Iucretur universum mundum, se autem ipsum perdat? (Luc. g, 25) Etiterum ipse dominus: 'Proutvuítis, utfaciantvobis europeans The spread of capriuus as a common word for slave reflects an incipient and informal distinction. "Normal" slaves were assumed to be linked to the land and immobile; slaves subjugated by violence, on the other hand, were mobile merchandise. The latter might sometimes be called mancipia, but the former were never called captiui.40 "Land" slaves are well attested, for instance in the constantly repeated Frankish formulas confiscating, describing or confirming ownership of "real estate and slaves" (res et mancipia).41 Such human chattels are equally well-attested in lists of individual slaves attached to specific estates or slated for manumission.42 The last aspect of the Carolingian language of slavery is the most famous. Whether we speak English, French, German, or Italian, our word for "slave" derives from "Slav." The medieval Latin ethnic term "Sclavus" added to its proper meaning the derived one of "slave." Nothing could make more clear the role of the Slavic east in supplying the slaves sold by early medieval Europe. The earliest attestation of the new meaning had been thought to occur in imperial diplomas for Magdeburg issued in 037.43 The general lag between language and reality would make an early tenth-century record of a Carolingian linguistic innovation unsurprising. Some scholars nonetheless contend that the new meaning actually emerges in 857, in east Francia, in royal diplomas issued for Niederaltaich and Wiirzburg.44 homines bona, etvos facite illis similiter' (Luc. 6, 31). Hominem caprivarenonprae-sumitis, quia dominus in legem ait: 'Qui furatus fuerit hominem etvindederiteum etconvictus fuerit noxie, morte moriatur.' Etiterum.. ."Theattributionoftbework to Pirmin has been seriously challenged. In any case, it su rvi ves in at least two M S S from around 8oo: Angenendt 1972, 59-61, cf.56-7. 40 In 806, Charlemagne's Dimsio retjnorum, n, MGH Capit. no. 45,1.128.45-129.6, forbade his sons to obtain real estate and established slaves (casati serui) in their brothers' kingdoms; he explicitly exempts merchants'wares, including mancipia. Similarly, Charles declared that those guilty of failure to perform their military duties must pay notinlandor slaves, but in gold, silver, patlea (fine textiles of uncertain nature), weapons, animals, or other wares, which are "useful."The implication is that such slaves were not eas ily transformed into cash or otherwise of value to the king; that is, Charles is thinking of slaves established on the land, with which they are mentioned in the same breath. MGH Capit. no. 74, 2 (811), 1.166.28. 41 For instance, in the capitularies and related documents: e.g., MGH Capit. no. 196,15 (a.d. 829), 2.34.18 ("praedia et mancipia"); no. 259,12 (853), 2.270.7; no. 273, 6 (864), 2.313.24-314,7; 14, 2.315.30-316.7; 23,2.320.13 and ly, ConciliumTrtburense, 49 (895), ibid., 2.240.36. Confirmation: e.g., D Loth [, no. 22(823). 42 E.g., the gift of Helmgaud, one of our travelers, to St. Martin ofTours in 8:3 included over 300 slaves: Gallia Christiana 14 (Paris, 1856), Instrumenta, no. t2; D Loth I, no. 136(855). 43 Verlinden 1942,122-3; cf- Verlinden 1955-77,2:999-1010. 44 Thus Renter rg85, 93, with ng2, on D LG no. 80 (Bodman, 857; original confirmation of immunity for Altaich; p. 117.27 "homines ipsius monasterii tarn ingnuos 736 737 european exports to africa and asia Two changes Two very important changes affected the slave trade under the Carolingians. The first is a double expansion: volume increased, even as the geographic scope grew, for the trade now became geared more to export than to satisfying local needs.45 The slave trade seems strangely disconnected from slave labor inside the Frankish empire, if in fact slave production continued to be crucial to the agrarian economy. So far there has been little specific evidence of the settling of enslaved captives on Frankish estates. Although Verlinden made a plausible case from changing patterns in collections of model legal documents that the purchase and use of slaves on Carolingian estates was declining, the capitularies and records of real transactions show that the process was drawn out and complex, if indeed itwas occurring in such a clear-cut fashion.46 More work is needed to clarify how patterns of slave-owning inside the empire changed over time and space. For instance, slaves and other unfree laborers seem proportionately more numerous toward the eastern edges of the empire. This has been connected with these regions' less developed rural economy, compared with the areas west of the Rhine. But it is worth noting that these eastern lands bordered on the main slave-hunting grounds and first document the semantic equivalence of "Slav" and "slave."47 The second main shift concerned the geography of Frankish supply. In the sixth and seventh centuries, warfare against Frankland's neighbors had fed the slave markets.48 England's quarreling kingdoms supplied more wares, as is clear T Footnote 44 (cont.) [!] quam servos sriavos et accolas super terram ipsius commanentes"; cf p. 117.31-2: "cum omnibus rebus sibi sub-iectis nibus tamingenuis quam srvis, cutuscumquesintnationts..." where the last clause seems to recognize the ambivalence of the term slauus), following?. Kehr (MGH Diplomata return Gcrmaniae ex StirpeKarolinorum 1, Berlin, 1932,426 s.v., where "sclavus" is treated as a common noun), and on D Arnulf no. 66 (Frankfurt 889; original confirmation of immunity for Würzburg; p. 99.10: "aut homines ipsius a eel esiae sive accolas vel Sclauos in ulla re stringendos.. ."where it alone is a new word. Comparison with the older form of the formula seems to me particularly revealing, e.g. BM 910 ofLouis the Pious for Marmoutier (rg November 832): PL, 104.1216B-C: "cum mancipiis etaccolabus diversi sexus etaetatis." 45 Verlinden 1955-77,1: 718-19; Johanek 1985,253-4. 46 Verlinden 1955-77,1:718-28. Cf. Hoffmann ig86, andBonnassie 1991,51-9. Pelteret 1995,251-g, lays outiu clear and thoughtful fashion how evolving mentalities, including a changingunderstandingof freedom, conspired with economic and social developments to foster the disappearance or transformation of slavery in England. 47 Verhulsc 1990, ioo-r; Verhulstrggr, 200. Cf. Pelteret's analysis of the differing geography of slave-holding in Anglo-Saxon England reflected by Domesday Book: Pelteret 1995,185-240. 48 Verlinden 1955-77,1:663-7. europeans from anecdotal evidence ranging from Gregory the Great's purchase of English slave boys in Gaul to the story of Balthild, the Anglo-Saxon slave girl who rose to be queen of the Franks and founder of Chelles and Corbie.49 The latest hints of this stream of supply - in which the Frisians were involved - comes in that early eighth-century legend about Gregory the Great's Angle slave boys in Rome and also, I should think, in the fact that a Carolingian bishop's English father had been a merchant at Marseilles around the middle of the eighth century.50 It is possible that English slave shipments to the Po valley resumed - or continued - late in the ninth century (above, pp. 6jgf). The establishment of more peaceable relations within Britain may have lessened the flow of English slaves.51 The Anglo-Saxons' conversion to Christianity was another factor. In any case, the English supply was probably supplanted by another source, which increased as the British flow diminished.52 That source was the Slavs. The beginning of the European trade in Slav slaves is murky. Slave trading, it is frequently supposed, attracted into the Slavlands in 623 or 624 the caravan of Frankish traders led by the merchant Samo, though there is no explicit evidence ofwhat they were buying and selling. Samo helped the Slavs defeat the Avars and became their ruler, in the process fathering thirty-seven children by his twelve Slavic wives. Frankish merchants apparently continued to trade in Samo's territory for at least seven years, until Samo's Slavs turned on them. This triggered wars with the Merovingian king Dagobert and Slavic raids on Thuringia.53 Whether or not Samo and the others were already dealing in slaves, the conflict itself produced a large number of them. Dagobert encouraged the Alamannians and the Lombards to attack the Slavs around 632. They returned home with a "great number of caprivi from the Slavs."54 Although obscurity veils the later 49 Ch. 2in29; see in general, Levison 1946, 8-10. 50 AnnatePetauiani, a. 790, MGH SS 1.70; cf. 3.170 and, for the date, Levison 1946,7n3. 51 Seee.g.,Peltereti995,70. 52 Peltereti995, 74-9, nonetheless suggests (77) that "from the mid-tenth century on the [Anglo-Saxon] slave trade was geared mainly to the export of persons abroad, although the internal trade did not cease." But he is mainly focusing on the problem of export in general, not export toward the Mediterranean. His examples suggest that these later exports were goi ng mainly toward Scandinaviaand Ireland; the relative distances - and therefore transport costs - equally suggest that closer sources of supply were economically advantageous for Mediterranean markets. 53 Fredegarius, Chronicae, 4,48,68, and 74-5, 144.14-145.6; 154.18-155.17 and 158.13-159.5. Slave trade: Verlinden 1933 and Verhulst 1970,14; no evidence: Claude 19853,74-5. 54 Fredegarius, Chronitae, 4, 68,155.1-17, "... etpluremum [!] nummerum [H captivorum de Sclavos Alamanni et Langobardi secum duxerunL" 738 739 european exports to africa and asia development of the trade in Slavs, there is no question of its reality under the Carolingians.55 Developments beyond Europe decisively influenced this second shift. Christians or not, up until the mid-seventh century, Europeans who were exported south wound up as slaves in the Byzantine empire or one of the Germanic successor states. However miserable their mortal existence, their souls were safe. The Muslim conquests changed that. After some hesitation, European Christians came to a consensus that the Muslims were not Christian heretics, but "infidels," indeed, "pagans," alien to the biblical tradition.56 To convinced Christians it was of small consequence that Christian slaves lost their mortal bodies to alien masters. But their immortal souls were a different matter. It was but a small step to conclude that any who contributed to their damnation were liable to a similar fate themselves. For an age obsessed with salvation and hell, this was no trifle. The Arab triumph can only have reinforced nascent efforts by Christian leaders to curtail the export of their own people. Hence there arose a series of partial prohibitions on the export of slaves, that is, of Christian slaves.57 This new development enhanced the attractiveness of the heathen Slavs in the path of expanding Frankish power, even though Christians still were sold overseas, one way or another. 55 Vercauteren 1934,212-14, suggested that the slave convoy traveling to the market mentioned in the Life of St. Gaugericus of Canibrai (d. 623/6) came from Slav territory, a suggestion echoed by Verhulst 1970, 14; VitaGau^erici (BHL3286), r2, MGHSRM 3.656.16-657.2. This is no more than a possibility. The suggestion is based on the deduction that the slave trader was traveling southwest on the old Roman road between Bavay and Cambrai. While it is true, as Vercauteren asserts, that this road continues toward the "east," to Cologne, that by no means proves that slaves traveling on it necessarily had been hunted east of Cologne. The same road crosses the Meuse at Maastricht (see, e.g., Chevallier 1997, 229-30) and the slaves were just as likely to have been purchased there, from a North Sea source. The later 7th-C. Life in this instance most likely bears witness to the age of its composition: see Van der Essen 1907,207-8. 56 Rotter 1986,247, although the concept of "paganus" itself may not have been perceived as starkly as "heathen" (49). 57 Nonetheless, the earliest texts from the Frankish kingdom are aimed at Jews as much as at "pagans." The Council of Clichy (626/7) forbade selling Christians to Jews or pagans: ConciliaGalliae, a. 511-a. 695, CCL148A.294.106-114. The council of Chalon-sur-Saone (647/53), 9, forbade the export of any slaves outside the kingdom because of fear that Christians would be subject to "Jewish servitude," "Iudaica ser-vitute... inplicita,"ibid., 305.50. Kinglne ofWessex (688-726) also forbade west Saxons to sell members oftheir own tribe {"hisagennegeleod") overseas: Laws, 14, DieGesetze defAngtlsaAsen, 1.94. In the second or third decade of the 8th C, Duke Landfrid I forbade the sale of slaves outside Alamannia without his approval, without giving any reason: leges Alamcmnorum, 27, 1-2,97.1-17. europeans Getting slaves Christian or pagan, the export of Europeans is inherently hard to track. Almost nothing survives which compares to the later medieval Italian notaries' records of sale, or what has been reported as the "day-book" of a tenth- or eleventh-century slave merchant at Old Cairo in Egypt.58 Moreover, exporting slaves is by definition a transient phenomenon and less liable to leave lasting traces. Slaves destined for export will have been in the Frankish empire only for a few weeks. Historians have sometimes pointed to a holy man's biography which minht give a glimpse of a troop of Slav slaves bound for the block in Mainz. But if they were indeed slaves, the meaning was so obvious to the contemporary biographer that he felt no need to specify it.59 Individual exported slaves and their traders generated no records connected with ecclesiastical real estate, which is where we get most Carolingian archives. The best documents are legal sources that attempted to control or tax the trade. Narrative and other literary sources cast occasional shafts of light. The first glimmer has just appeared from archaeology, in the form of the cartography of the very instrument of enslavement: iron shackles (Figures 25.1 and 25.2) that constrained captives' necks have recently been mapped across central Europe.60 Future research might draw inspiration from the well-studied Atlantic slave trade. Pens must have held the slaves at assembly points, which would have to be situated near major routes. One might further imagine that such holding conditions, not to mention castration, would engender poor hygienic conditions and therefore higher mortality rates. The result will probably have been summary burials of a population abnormally weighted toward the prime slave profiles of 58 See the sources used by Verlinden 1955-7, e.g. 2:840-68; "day-book," Richards 1989, 67. 59 Eigil of Fulda, Vita Sturmi (BHL 7924), 7, 139.12-15: "Tunc quadam die dum perge-ret, pervenit ad viam, quae a Turingorum regione mercandi causa ad Mogontiam pergentes ducit, ubi platea ilia super Humen Fulda vadit; ibi magnam Sclavorum multitudinem repperit, eiusdem fluminis alveo gratia lavandis corporibus se immer-sisse"; cf. the judicious reserve of Johanek 1985, 246-7. 60 Henning 1992, who assumes that they are as likely to reveal slavingcentersasother forms of imprisonment. Even with that uncertainty the inquiry is worth pursuing. From our period, Henning (419) identifies an iron collar, partofa small hoard ofiron objects, atthelategth-/early ioth-C. Slavic ringfortor "moundcastle" ("Burgwall") at "Staré Zámky," at Brno-Líšeň (Figure 25.r). On the site in general, see Stana 1985,190; on the find, Stana 1961,111, a copy of which I owe to the kindness of Dr. Blanka Kavánová. The scarcity ofiron probably made metal shackles the exception; wooden yokes or rope were 1 ikely m ore frequent. For instance, Liber pont., Duchesne, 1.178.19 and 179.6; Theophanes, a.m. 6254,1.433.12-13; cf- A-M- 6078, 1.255.6-7. 740 741 EUROPEANS o ^_ <= o 42 fcs u '& o ■V aj -. TO he | - E _^ • o a. ZJ .v- C oj c "O aj -Q TO _c viands c iTJ CU . o -C TO > c e he T3 o C WO TO to > TO TO _D ~o C U O o urn E to Oj "a vendere" is unnecessary. The present infinitive (dimittere) functions as an imperative in late Latin (e.g. Vaananen 1981,134); uendere is the substantivized object of dimittere. The sentence is correctly translated as it stands: "And never allow selling a Christian to the pagan people." Granting privileges to churches: Cathwulf, 503.23-4. 83 Ibid., 504.14, 84 R.201. IfGundlach's dating is correct, the accusation came at a time when abundant (pagan and Christian) war slaves would have been available from the Saxon campaigns of 782 and 783. 85 See above, however, n79, on the 781 capitulary of Mantua. 748 749 european exports to africa and asia europeans In Charles' last years, his son Louis was on the offensive against the northern marches of al Andalus. Prankish power subjugated Barcelona and, we may believe, produced prisoners. These campaigns are usually reckoned the context for another treatise on right rulers hip.86 Smaragdus' The Royal Road (Via rerjia) has sometimes been dismissed as a web of biblical quotations. This accurately describes the texture of the work but misses its plan, and the point. In Carolingian culture, appeal to the word of God trumped all arguments. The concluding chapters reveal what Smaragdus thought was on the king's mind.87 Therefore, O most famous king, always seek His support and and take refuge in His protection, so that the Lord may grant you both strength in your arm and victory in war. For thus it has been written A most mig fmj tower is the name of the Lord; the just man runs to him, and he will be exalted (Prov. 18,10). Therefore salvation lies notin the multitude of men (cf. Ps. Heb. 32,16; iMacc. 3, ig), nor in numerous weaponry: itliesincallingonthenameofthe Lord. And therefore you too, O mostfaithful king, so that you might rely on the help ofthe Lord to defend your kingdom, pray constandy to ask for his protection.88 The notion that Carolingian rulers relied on God as well as tactics to achieve victory will surprise no one who knows how they solicited prayers for military success. Smaragdus was simply buttressing with scripture a deeply held tenet of his time,89 But it took more than prayers to get God's help. The catch had come a little before. In order for God to hear the king's prayers, he had to obey God; the king must forbid the taking of slaves in war (capti vitas). 86 For Louis the Pious: Anton ig68,161-8. For learned and subtle arguments that the treatise was written at about the same time, for Charlemagne, during the Danish war, see Eberhardt 1977,29-73 arl|ä I95_2('3. Though the case for Charles is not implausible, it does not suffice to exclude Louis the Pious. The main argument is that this particular Visigoth, Smaragdus, cannotbe proved to have been associated with Louis when he was king of Aquitaine, although in 8og he already served Charlemagne. But even if Smaragdus were at Charles' court, this would not rule out dedicating a work to the aging emperor's son. And it is striking that he repeatedly calls his addressee rex, but never imperátor (e.g., quotations below; contra: Eberhardtig77, 224-63. Whether intended for Charlemagne or Louis, the Via rerjia was probably written before c. 814/16, and there was warfare enough to justify the 87 treatise's references to it: Eberhardt ig77, 197-225. The MS link with theFilioque dossier of 809 is only suggestive for the date. The new edition of that material further weakens the case: it shows that Smaragdus was not at Charlemagne's court, since he sent a letter to the emperor about the Filioque, and that his embassy to Rome is an old error: Das Konzil von Aachen, MGH Com. 2, Suppl. 2.29-35. For Louis' campaigns, e.g., in 811 and 812: BMp. 238, after no. 5ig; for Charlemagne's: BM 449b—450, 463a, etc. D'Achery's edition, reprinted in PL, combines into his ch. 30 what are five separate and short chapters in the manuscripts: Eberhardt 1977,103-4, whose findings in this respect I follow. Smaragdus, Via rerjia, 3i[MSS = c. 35] and 32 [=c. 36],PL, i02.g6gB-C andg7oB-C. McCormicki984. 750 Forbid therefore, O most clement king, the taking of slaves in your kingdom. Be a most faithful son of that Father [a cagey reference to the issue of fidelity to the other, earthly father] to whom you daily call out with the other brethren: Our Father tuho art in heaven. Whatever He loves and cherishes, you love too. Whatever He hears and forbids, you forbid too... For He spoke in command to Moses: If any man shall be caught ajjlictina one oj"his breth-ern ofthe tribe oflsrael and, having sold him, receives the price, let him be killed andyouremouethis soil _from your midst" (Deut. 24, 7). He also spoke out through the Prophet Amos and said:... For three transgressions of hrad and for four, I will not turn it back: because it sold the righteous Jor silver, and the needy/or a pair of shoes (Amos 2, 6),1)0 Smaragdus continues in this vein for several chapters, reminding the impressionable Louis that the Lord weakened and crushed the arm of any king who offended Him. The abbot's point is unmistakable. It also appears to be original.91 God Himself had forbidden the taking of slaves jrom one's own tribe. Smaragdus was notworried about enslaving Arab infidels, but about Christians. That would be the Visigothic brethern ofthe tribe of the New Covenant The choice of biblical quotations suggests, strongly, that they were being captured and sold as slaves.92 Smaragdus' concern for them was perhaps strengthened by the fact that he too was a Visigoth, quite possibly from Spain.93 So the victorious armies of Pippin III, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious took substantial numbers of war slaves. Contemporary moralists complained not about slave sales to pagans in general, but against selling Christians to "pagans," i.e., Muslims, and they did so in the context of victorious Frankish military action. Numerous assemblies of bishops reiterated the complaint, showing that it struck a chord with leading representatives of the church. But it was a rare bishop who worried about the sale of pagans to "pagans."94 It would 90 Via regie, 30, PL, 102.967A-C: "Prohibendum ne taptiuitasjiat. Prohibe ergo, dementis-sime rex, ne in regno tuo captivitas fiat. Esto fidelissimus illius Patris filius... Ipse enimMoysi praecipiens ait: 'Si deprehen-SUS fiierit homo sollicitans fratrem, et venditoeo acceperitpretium, interficietur, etauferes malum de medio tui.' Ipse quoque per Amos prophetam clamatet dicit:'... Super tribus sceleribusIsrael, et super quatuor non convertam eum: pro eo quod vendiderit pro argento justum, e t pauperem pro calceamentis'." 91 Eberhardt's detailed research (list: 1977, 136-42) shows that the treatise is even more heavily indebted to earlier writers than previously imagined. But precisely, and almost uniquely, in this chapter, Eberhardt identified no new borrowings (141-2). 92 Eberhardt 1977; 593; cf. 652 and 655, seems to take this differently. It would in any case fit the Christian Visigoths better than the pagan Danes. 93 Ibid., 31-3, Mightthe Spanish campaigns have been connected with Count Aureolus' enigmatic commercium south of the Pyrenees? Ann. rerjm Franc, a. 809, p. 130; cf. Ch. 2jn23. 94 Paulinus of Aquileia did urge Heiric of Friuli to redeem slaves (captivos) in his moral treatise, Liber exhortaticmis, 56, PL, gg.281B.B0th men lived on the main route to Venice, but the recommendation is buried in a host of other injunctions. 751 european exports to africa and asia europeans be surprising if some of the Frankish capttm did not find their way into the slave trade. Carolingian conquests did not continue. In all probability, the relative proportion of slaves stemming from Frankish - if not Viking and Arab - victories decreased over time. Contemporaneously, there was a change in the geography of acquisition, if not of disposition. As the Frankish juggernaut ground to a halt, other sources of supply opened up along the empire's eastern marches. The 900 slaves the Slav princelings of Pannonia liberated at the request of Sts. Cyril-Constantine and Methodius had been kidnapped for a reason. When the profits were great, the trend was irresistible. But what kind of money could one make selling Europeans in the southeastern Mediterranean? The economics ofslaue trading The difficulties of understanding the workings of an early medieval economy only increase when one considers a phenomenon that connected several different economies, none of which is very well mapped yet. These difficulties make it tempting for historians to rely more on theories than evidence. I shall try to avoid the theoretical and keep it simple. For now, the best thing is to consider the slave trade of early Europe in simple terms of supply and demand, costs, profits, and scale, and to make clear what exactly we can document, and what we must suppose. Supply and demand Demand is primordial. Were there no demand for slaves, there would have been no market, no incentive to hunt them down and ship them across the sea. Internal demand for slaves seems to have been slackening in the more advanced regions of western Frankland.95 The recognition that slavery persisted as a not insignificant feature of the Carolingian countryside once made this observation somewhat perplexing. Two tilings have lessened the perplexity. The evidence is mounting that, contrary to even recent conventional wisdom, the population and economy of the Carolingian empire were not stagnant. Demographic growth inside the empire was increasing the supply of labor of all categories, including, probably, home-born slaves.96 A second factor was the spread of the bipartite estate and its system of land tenancies held by free or servile peasants, who were obliged to feed and shelter themselves in return for labor services on the owner's reserve. Manumission has plausibly been proposed as one carrot which would have helped estate operators move slave workers into the heavy burdens of servile tenancy. Not quite free, but not slaves either, servile tenants had to sustain diem-selves from their mansus, their tenant householding, in return for heavy labor services on the lord's domain. The lord's responsibilities to them lessened, even as his profits remained the same or increased.'57 At the same time that demand for slaves inside Europe was lessening, external demand was probably increasing, atleast in the Arab world. It may also have been growing in Byzantium, but the pacification of Greece and some successful campaigns in the east may have reduced the Byzantines' need to import slaves. In the House of Islam, on the other hand, the western wars of conquest ended for several generations with the failed siege of Constantinople in 718 and the Carolingian success in soutiiem France. With them stopped the enormous flow of war slaves, such as that from Visigothic Spain.98 The conquests of Sicily and Crete, both in the 820s, were very important, strategically and in terms of slave supply but, in the grand scheme of things, they were more in the nature of codas than overtures. Byzantine resistance was stiffening also, making the annual raids into Asia Minor increasingly expensive. Other sources of slaves became more appealing. We have dated the Venetians' first recorded effort to supply slaves to the Muslim world to c. 748, that is, during the devastating final onslaught of the bubonic plague (R157). The unusually lethal bubonic plague had struck Africa in 745 and continued to rage over the next seven years (R153). Historical demography, epidemiology, and Arabic sources seem to offer a coherent pattern that suggests in that final pestilence an urban mortality rate of 25 to 35 percent.99 One economic consequence of the better documented fourteenth-century Black Death was that it concentrated wealth among survivors and, of course, increased the value of labor.100 If similar causes produced similar effects in eighth-century Africa, such an epidemic will have supplied survivors with greater means to purchase replacement laborers from any healthy populations which could deliver them to Africa. The epidemiological fact that bubonic plague traveled with - and killed - ships' crews, may imply a temporary dislocation of African shipping, just as we saw at the outset of the era of plagues. What is more, African access to the slave-hunting grounds of Sicily was limited by local political disturbances and renewed Byzantine defenses (Ch. 17.2). The Venetians, in other words, seized a very specific opportunity, created by a spike in demand for labor that arose out of 95 Verlinden 1955-77,1:718; Verhulst 1990, 100. 96 Demographic growth: e.g., Toubertig95, 128-32; Lohrmann 1990,115; slave fertility was probably comparable to that of other low-status peasants: Pelteretigg5, 252-3. 97 E.g., Verhulsti99i, 200-2. 98 Ashtorig6g, 58. 99 Conrad 1981,429-41. 100 Concentration: Genicotiggo, 52-3; labor: Genicot 1971,688-90; more evidence for both: Pirilla 1994, 200-6. 753 european exports t o a f ric a an d as ia europeans heavy mortality in the Caliphate. The configuration was new. That mortality had not much affected western Europe, which was then "unplugged" from the Mediterranean shipping world that conveyed the contagion. Once the last wave of plague had receded, and regardless of the long-term demographic trend of the Caliphate and Muslim Spain, their economies were booming in the later eighth and early ninth centuries.101 This further increased the demand for labor. And a strong economy meant that there was no shortage of local or more exotic goods, or even silver and gold, to be exchanged for European labor in the form of slaves. In fact the demand was too great for even a burgeoning Europe to satisfy since, at the same time, large numbers of slaves were also imported from subsaharan Africa and from Asia. As far as Europe was concerned, the supply of slaves looked unending thanks to demographic growth and the inviting wilderness stretching toward the east. But cultural factors would complicate the simple economics of slave supply. Even though some Christian slaves continued to be exported to the Muslim world, the growing barriers to such sales must have raised the costs and constricted the sources of supply toward the unconverted regions of Europe, particularly the Slav territories to the east. It suddenly becomes obvious why the first theological opposition to the mission of Constantine and Methodius arose in Venice.102 The lagoon settlements were known more for their slave trade than for their dynamic ecclesiastical culture. Control of the new Christendoms springing up between the Prankish empire, Byzantium and Bulgaria had obvious political and ecclesiastical stakes, as the east Frankish court and metropolitan churches of Salzburg and Passau vied with Rome, Constantinople, and even Pliska. But beyond ecclesiastical politics there was the profound issue of conversion: shipping baptized Slavs to death and damnation in the Muslim world may have given pause, even to Venetians.103 Costs and profit margins Direct data on the price of slaves at, say Walenstadt or Venice, compared to the price they brought at a place like Alexandria is lacking. What scholarly opinion there is on relative values is not in agreement. But various slave prices scattered through the sources of the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries nonetheless allow us ioi Booming economy: above, p. 586. We do notyetknow for certain the demographic trends of the Muslim world in the 8th and 9th C. Dwindling populations in some Syrian villages may indicate only a regional decline, for the consensus is that the Caliphate experienced slow demographic growth at least down to the 10th C: Gatier 1994,44-8; Shatzmiller I994.56-7- 102 Liji of Constantine the Philosopher, 16,1-59, pp.162-5. 103 See below, on failed Venetian efforts to curtail the slave trade. to establish the broad oudine. The data on the comparative cost of slaves confirms what the direction of die flow of human wares implies: slaves were cheaper in Europe than in the Muslim world.104 To supply a very rough yardstick for comparison, the first columns of Table 25.1 give the approximate weight of the precious metals contained in the coins.105 In only one case does a slave command a comparable price in Europe and in the Muslim world. For male slaves, the price runs about three to four times higher on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. Chart 25.1 lays this material out graphically. Even allowing for its imperfections, the comparison makes clear just how profitable the export ofEuropeans to the Muslim world must have been: the same slave will have tripled or quadrupled in value when transported across the Mediterranean Sea. It suggests furthermore that, though slaves may have been more valuable in Byzantium than in the early medieval west, Byzantine prices sometimes equaled and sometimes were cheaper than those of the Muslim world. This implies two further consequences. Westerners will generally have preferred to sell their slaves in the Muslim world, where they probably commanded a higher price than in Byzantium. And it would have been profitable in some circumstances to export slaves from Byzantium to the Caliphate. But it would have been even more profitable for Byzantine slave traders to seek their wares in the Latin west. This data on prices finds confirmation in the activities of Byzantine slave dealers in the west.1"6 Another consideration suggests that the value of European slaves was high enough to produce profits, even if the scale were limited. Most of the Europeans we see enslaved in the Caliphate served in domestic capacities, and so may have commanded a higher price than field laborers, for example. Eunuchs are a case in point. 104 Thus already Lopez 1987,315, butwith small evidence. Ashtor 1969,498-9 with ni2, thinks that in our period, the price of slaves was generally comparable, though not equal, around the Mediterranean. For this he cited the 712 document, but converts itsvalueerroneously (=13 dinars: cf. Table 25.1). He recognizes the cheapness ofthe prices mentioned byAgobard, but dismisses them, since he "doubts mostof these [Carolingian] slaves were sold" in the Caliphate. 105 It should be stressed that the comparison only approximates the relative values of slaves in the different economies. The sources are disparate, and slaves' values varied according to their desirability and short-term supply; the relatively rare Carolingian coinage probably gave it a higher local purchasing power than the sameamountofsilver in theMuslim economies. I have not included extreme cases where special circumstances seem to shape prices, for instance, the famine prices mentioned in Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, 1.115, or th ose which are not clearly dared and localized in Ashtor 1969. Ragib 1993,758 estimates that ordinary slaves costaround2odinarsinthe Caliphate; however, he too relies on the same work of Ashtor used here. 106 R186; the Byzantine Calabrian dealer condemned by Elias 2: V. Eliae Spel., r8,85 5 C-856D; in June 960, when the doge attempted to outlaw the slave trade at Venice, he foresaw that Venetian merchants might attempt to set up Greeks as proxy dealers: Venedig, no. 13, p. 20. 754 755 european exports to africa and asia EUROPEANS Chart 25.1. The comparative price of a human being: Carolingian Europe, Byzantium, and the Caliphate o to i— c fa 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 a 725 763 Í 638 g □ Caliphate ■ Byzantium ■ Europe D. Later 8th nO Pre-804 I C.810 Early 9th 1 822 867 ; 922 969 c.700 c.750 Later c.798 807 Early Early 822 911 969 969 8th 9th 9th Date This chart indicates the differing value of slaves on different shores of the Mediterranean, and suggests potential profit margins (see Table 25.1 for details). table 25.1 The comparative price of a human being: Carolingian Europe, Byzantium, and the Caliphate, Sth-iothC. Intrinsic value of 1 slave (calculated values in parentheses5) Silver Gold Price Date, place Comment ifa/yb (306 g) 408 g 45 g 12 s. AV 725, Milan 47.25-69.3 g Oxen and gold worth 763, Chiusi 21 s. AV (25.5 g) 30 s. AR (for 2 staves) 807, Como {34 g) lib. AR c. 810, Arogno (37 g) 38 Benev. s. = 148 g 867, Gaeta (for 4 slaves) boy from Gaul woman with infant 2 local "infantoli" woman plus ?her agnitia 2 peasants and their wives, age unspecified table 2 5.1 (cont.) Intrinsic value of 1 slave (calculated values in parentheses*3 Silver Gold Price Date, place Comment Franklanď 408 g (37 g) 20 s. AR c. 798 restitution when a slave kills a slave 408 g (37 g) 20 s. AR 822, Lyons lower range of slave price 612 g (51 g) 30 s. AR 322, Lyons upper range of slave price Byzantiumd (630 g) 90 g 20 n. 911, Constantinople Christians sold by Rus (892.5 g) 127.5 g 30 dinars 969, Treaty with Aleppo male Byzantine slave (595 g) 85 g 20 dinars 969, Treaty with Aleppo female Byzantine slave (446.25 g) 63,75 g 15 dinars 969, Treaty with Aleppo adolescent Byzantine slave Cal esP- 3545 Wiesinger 1985, 354, notes nonetheless some earlier examples; Ernstig8g, 85. Names ending in "-hof" (not"-hofen") are equally reckoned to be of relatively recent date: Ernst 1989,44. The names cannot therefore go back to the 9th C, if the philologists are right. It is still conceivable that the names perpetuate in nth-C. form earlier traditions about the spots, or that rarer, alternative forms paint a truer picture. It does seem a remarkable coincidence that when Vol kermarkt first appears in the written sources (1105/26), it is called both "Volchimercatus" and "Forum Iudeorum," Wadl 199 2,13 9; and that a dirham was discovered there (A41). 766 767 european exports to africa and asia dropped or buried by travelers with intensive contacts with those two Mediterranean economies. The slave traders purchased their wares far inland, in exchange for goods which have yet to be identified. Directly or indirectly, they sold them to the "southern peoples" whose voracious appetite for northern slaves provided the first great impetus to the development of the European commercial economy. The Venetians could not bring themselves to abandon so lucrative a trade, and subsequent renewals of the earlier privileges no longer speak of slaves.137 Whether they had transited via Venice or some other way, the Carolingian princess of Tuscany had no difficulty finding forty Slav eunuchs and slave girls to send as a present to the caliph in 9 05-6.138 Certainly the Venetian slave trade was still flourishing in 960, when the doge attempted once again to end it, or at least make it a ducal monopoly. The terms of the prohibition show that Jews and Byzantines were still deeply involved in this Venetian trade, although Istria and Dalmatia appear to have gained importance as sources of supply.139 It is remarkable that the Venetian slave trade managed to survive the second half of the ninth century. For it faced increasingly stiff competition from the Arabs themselves. We have already seen that a real lull in Arab attacks set in around 750. Raids resumed around 800. Although they would lead to the long-term conquest and occupation of two of the great Mediterranean islands, even in those cases, the newly conquered lands would contribute to the acquisition of slaves. The raids of the ninth century in other words, added another, and important stream of supply to the networks that had sprung up in the eighth. The first attacks came from Spain. They arose out of the constant warfare that attended the expansion of Carolingian power across the Pyrenees. Thus an Arab raid into Septimania in 793 produced a prodigious haul of slaves.140 A few years later, Arab corsairs set out from Spain and captured sixty Greek monks on the monastic refuge of Pantelleria, barely 75 km from the Tunisian coast in the strait of Sicily. Charlemagne was able to redeem some of them and restore them to their home. That the Frankish emperor should become involved in so small and distant a raid underscores the novelty of die Muslim slave hunts: a few decades later an operation on this minute scale would scarcely have furrowed the royal eyebrows (R272). The early raids were hit-and-run operations aimed at collecting slaves. For instance, one attack on Corsica carried off all the inhabitants of a town 137 SeePraeceprum Wiäonis (891), MGH Capir. no. 23g, 2.147-8; Praeceptum Rudolf!, (924), ibid., no. 240,148-9; Pmeteprum Hiyonis (927), ibid., no. 241,150-1. 138 Above, n26. 139 Drerrtum, June960, Venedkj, no. 13, here pp. 20-1. Kretschmayr 1905, i: 110-11, takes the exemption clause ("excepto... pro causa palatii") as establishing a monopoly; cf. Hoffmann 1968. 140 Levi-Provencal 1950-3, is 145-6, observes that the implied total of 225,000 slaves is impossible. geography of the european slave trade except the aged and infirm: the raiders left behind those without value on the slave market (R290). By 813, slave-gathering raids had become so regular that a count of the Spanish mark could foresee their movements and set an ambush for one, capturing eight Arab ships returning from Corsica; he liberated more than goo captives manifestly destined for the markets of al Andalus (R318). The Spanish raids got attention from as far away as Rome. They reached a new sophistication by adding ransom to their operations, since Pope Paschal I redeemed captives from Spain. The same incident implies that the Africans were also entering the slave-collecting business.141 The African invasion of Sicily brought new system and scale to the slave hunting. This is clear, for instance, from the story of one of our travelers, Elias the Younger. The tasks were clearly divided. Some men were slave hunters: they tracked down the children and captured them. They then took them down to the beach, where they sold their prey to a slave merchant who awaited with a transport ship. The trader presumably could refuse any unsuitable captives. Once the ship was full- 220 slaves in Elias' case - it shoved off for Africa. The second time, no Byzantine warship rescued Elias, and the African Christian slave merchant sold him directly to a customer in Africa (above, p. 246), Over and over again, the profile is the same. The Arab raiders were as eager to collect saleable men and women as to plunder treasure (e.g. R441-42; R451; R654). As the "industry" matured, it probably took on new characteristics aimed at maximizing profits and reducing costs. When the raiders established a relation of symbiosis with the societies on which they preyed, they expanded profits by entering the ransom business.142 All it took was regular relations with the prey society that allowed them to communicate with their prisoners' homes and to negotiate handsome payments for captives whose age made them worthless on the block, or who were worth more in ransom than their market value. Although the process is best attested for the Cretan Arabs, it surely functioned in similar fashion in the west, as Pope Paschal's ransoms suggest. One eastern text depicts with chilling detachment the standard procedure. Around 873, the raider Said attacked various Aegean islands with a fleet of some fifty-four ships, ranging as far north as Proconnesus. To evade Byzantine pursuit they moved quickly: everyone they captured was loaded into the ships, and sorted only when they reached a safe haven. At that point, the prisoners were separated into three groups. One group was imprisoned, surely because they convinced their captors they would be ransomed. Another group was earmarked for sale. The members of the third group were killed. The reason we know about this occasion is because a priest 141 R350, esp. "a transmarinis regionibus." Ummayad and early Abbasid periods, 142 On ransoming of prisoners otherwise Khourii99i. destined for slave markets in the 768 769 european exports to africa and asia bound for slaughter - he must have been too old to fetch a decent price on the market - talked the executioner out of it.143 A second feature of the economic development of this Arab slave trade was the proliferation or expansion of local slave markets. When Elias was captured in the 830s, the market was improvised on the beach. As the slave-collecting industry-expanded, it was clearly advantageous to develop permanent markets closer to the hunting grounds. From the local market, middlemen could convey the slaves across the Mediterranean to the great markets of Tunis, Tripoli, Alexandria, and Baghdad. And so we hear of slave markets at Palermo, Reggio di Calabria, and Naples and probably at Taranto.144 The slave collecting showed no sign of abating as the ninth century turned into the tenth, and the Italian peasant or cleric snatched from his field or church and transported to Africa became a familiar figure.145 Slaves, Muslim or "infidel," became a typical cargo of Muslim ships hired in Sicily for the voyage to Africa.146 Meanwhile, human wares continued to pack the beaches, and informal markets sprang up wherever the haul was rich, It is remarkable that northern European slave trading survived the powerful competition of this direct Arab slave collecting in southern Europe. But it would be surprising if that competition did not eat into northern European profits. Reggio and Naples were of course Christian towns. The symbiosis of the slave hunters and the prey population went very far indeed. For Italian Christians were deeply involved in hunting down other Christians, a development not discouraged by the ethnic diversity of the southern Italian population. Thus the Beneventans had to extract from the Campanian sea cities the promise not to sell mostLombards across the sea (above, p. 748). The prohibition shows that by 836 143 Which could only be attributed to the miraculous intervention of his patron St. Nicholas: R627; Laudatio Nkolai (BHG 13522 etc.), 42-4,171.n-173.19; date: ibid., 2.295-6; cf. 293. 144 E.g., in 857/8, the Atabs conquered the "Iron Casde" of Sicily and sold its inhabitants in the slave market of Palermo: Amarii93o-g, ^462-3. Taranto: R577-9; Reggio and Naples: Ch. 21.2. Another such market may be implied by an enigmatic Hebrew poem preserved by the Cairo Genizah. Apparendy composed by the southern Italian poet Rabbi Amitai of Oria or Rabbi Silano of Venosa, who flourished in the second half of the ninth century, it describes the arrival of ships loaded with young male and female slaves: ed. and trans. Z.Malachi, "A Hebrew Poem from Italy on the Slave Trade," Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972).288-9. Iam grateful to Ms. Deborah Tor for bringing this remarkable document to my attention. 145 See e.g., V. Eliae iim., 55, 84.r 134-86.1160; 57, 88.1186-90.1220; 65, 102.1403-104.1422. Later slave gathering expeditions: e.g., R671 (the victorious Byzantines sold Taranto's whole population into slavery); R746; R793; R801. In 925, the Arabs captured the fewish scholar Donnolo, aged twelve, at Oria; his family was sold in Sicily and Africa while he escaped in Taranto: R804. 146 In the early roth C: Muhammad ibn "Umar ibn Yusuf, Booko/Charterina. Ship?, tr. Christides 1993, p. 92, cf. p. 87; see also Cahen ig88. geography of the european slave trade not only Muslim and Christian Africans, but also Campanian Christians had entered into the lucrative circuits which sold other Italians into slavery. They stayed there, to judge by the Roman threat to sell the pope's opponents to the Saracens at Naples (Ch. 21.2). Nor were the Italo-Byzantines absent from the trade. They were, says Erchempert, pseudo-Christian beasts, who hunted for Christian slaves or bought them from the Arab hunters roving across the Italian countryside and then kept them for themselves or "stuffed the beaches" with their human wares.147 Places like Naples welcomed Arab corsairs and the slaves they had captured.148 Christians not only sold slaves to the Muslims: they bought them, as Erchempert states and a lawsuit proves. The case opposed the bishop of Gaeta to a cleric and a layman. The latter two had bought two Italian peasants and their wives from the Arabs and then freed them in return for their land. The bishop fought againstthis extortion but, in the end, he was forced to accept it.149 Nor was this only a trait of southern Italians. The Venetians had no qualms about sellingSlav ecclesiastics, and the doge's decree of c. 876 could mean they participated in the new markets created by the Arab raids.130 In the end, allegiances were made to mo ney, not faiths or ethnic group s. By 873, things had reached s uch 2 state that the pope attempted to cajole the Christian rulers of Sardinia into not buying - and probably reselling - "liberated" Christian captives from the Christian Byzantines (R625). As we have seen, the role ofjewish merchants in the slave trade of many regions of Europe is also clearly documented in the Latin, Old Slavonic, and Arabic records; an enigmatic Gaonic raponsum from the ninth century may preserve a subtle allusion to such trading. Volume is what looks striking about Venetian and Arab merchants' shipping of slaves; geographic range is what impre ssesaboutthej ewish traders.151 147 Erchempert, Historici Lanrj. Ben., 81, 264.23-31, explaining a Byzantine defeat. His uncertain Latin requires translation: "But the Greeks, j ust as they resemble them by their habits, so mentally are they the same as animals, being Christians in name but, in conduct, sadder than Saracens. That is, they both hunted all sorts of the faithful on their own, and they bought them from the Arabs; some they put up for sale, stuffing the beaches of the sea, and (vera=vero?) others they kept as male and female slaves." "Achiviautem, uthabitudinis [!] similes sunt, ita ammo aequales sunt bestils, vocabulo christiani, set morib us tristiores Agarenis. Hii videlicet et per se fidelium omnes predabant et Saracenis emebant, et ex his alios venales 150 151 oceani litora farciebant, alios vera in famulos etfamulas reservabant." 148 Naples: R514; and Ch. 21.2. 149 Gaetfl, 1, no. 13 (October 867). Above, ni29; itmightalso refer to the Slav pirates that lurked along the Adriatic coast. As Prof. Robert Brody kindly informs me, most references to slavery in Carolingian-era responsa are banal in that they refer to domestic slaves working in a Jewish household. However, he observes that the Commentary on the Tractate ofYebamot, no. 267, p. 116, couldrefer to theprob-lems arising out of the sale of slaves to non-Jews, and might reflect awareness of a business involving such sales. I am also grateful to Deborah Tor for her help in citing this passage. 770 771 european exports to africa and asia The demand was great, the money good, and the doing easy. Although sporadic kidnappings were probably a small proportion of all slave sales, they are the ones that caught the public eye. We have already seen Agobard's report of kidnappings at Lyons and Aries whose victims were taken to Cordova. The story of the court cleric Bodo, who under pretext of pilgrimage to Rome, converted to Judaism and sold his fellow travelers into slavery was a sensational variation on an established theme.152 It was only natural that Roman fiction depict an African sea captain scheming to sell his passenger into slavery (above, p. 244). There is no reason to think that these activities were limited to Italo-Byzantines or court clergymen. The old monk who deceived Blaise of Amorion into traveling to Bulgaria with him must have turned a handsome profit from the sale of the well-born boy (Ch. 7.3). And it could have been litde different inside Carolingian Europe. Whether or not the specifics of the kidnapping cases alleged by Agobard were true, his accusations suggest that the international slave trade sometimes swept up locals in its currents. Agobard in fact claimed thathis investigation had turned up witnesses that the slave trader in question had bought Christian slaves in Lyons.153 The penitential composed by another one of our travelers foresees a standard penalty for any Christian who sold another into pagan slavery. And that was before the Northmen took up residence on Frankish soil and did unto the Franks as the Franks had done unto so many others. Small wonder that Carolingian bishops visiting their dioceses routinely asked about sales of Christians to pagans and Jews (above, n79). Even as these considerations shed a new and chilling light on the economics of the Viking and Arab raids - and allow us to surmise what was going on among the silent peoples of the Slavlands - they have another important point to make. They could not have existed without a broader, developed infrastructure for the transport and sale of slaves beyond the frontiers. Which raises the final, most difficult question for us, that of the scale of this slave trading. We have no consistently reliable figures which allow us to assess the number of exported slaves and, over time, estimate the trend. What I know is laid out in Table 25.2. Some of the numbers are manifestly impossible - the 9,000 slaves packed into six ships according to Bernard. A few numbers look more reliable, and they are big- the 900 slaves freed in southeastern Europe by Constantine and Methodius, the sixty-three slaves per ship liberated by a Frankish count in 813, the 221 delivered by a Byzantine patrol, the 200 seminarians at Methodius' mission, or the third of the Saxon nation whom Charlemagne enslaved on one campaign. They speak of a trade which dealt in substantial, even very large, quantities of slaves. geography of the european slave trade TABLE 25.2 Movements oflarge numbers ofslaves, 700-900 Quantity Date Circumstances Movement number 60-3,000 slaves 500 715-31 1,000 788 60 806 over 500 813 221 835 900 200? 867 c. 885 1,000 886 Lombards captured at Cuma taken to Naples; presumably for sale Byzantine soldiers captured by Beneventans and Franks; presumably sold Byzantine monks enslaved on Pantelleria redeemed in Spain by Charlemagne captive Corsicans intercepted at Majorca en route to Spain Italo-Byzantine captives liberated by Byzantine navy en route to Africa liberated by Constantine and Methodius in Moravia and Pannonia St. Methodius' disciples enslaved in Moravia and transported to Venice for sale given by Danelis to Basil I, who sends them to southern Italy as colonists 3,000 after 886? Leo VI later used 3,000 more of Danelis'slaves to repopulate strategic points More than 3,000 staves 30,000 714 45,000x5 793 a third of 796 the Saxons 9,000 867 taken from Visigothic Spain to Syria Arab raid into Septimania taken away by Charlemagne as aptivi captured in Italy and sent from Taranto to Africa, Tripoli and Egypt aboard 6 ships 10 1 1 12 13 Sources; 1.LiberpotiL, Duchesne, 1.400.20-1; sceCh.211145. 2.R220. 3.R272. 4. R318. 5.R431. 6.Above, 1163. 7. Above, 11140. 8. McCormick 1998b, 351136. 9. Theoph. Cont. 5,77, 321.3-6. 10. R87. n.Levi-Provenc;al 1950-3, i: 145-6. 12. Above, n74. 13. R577—g. 152 Ann. Bert., a. 838, pp. 27-8. 153 Agobard, De insolentifl itidaeorum, 195.149-59. 772 773 european exports to africa and asia But the main evidence is qualitative. A first indication comes from the number of our travelers who, incidentally, were enslaved in the course of their lives. Individuals like Elias the Younger, Blaise, the captain of Blaise's ship, and Leontius the pseudo-ambassador, all happen to have become slaves. The scale of slave dealing was important enough to figure prominently in the treaties between sea traders and continental powers. The Lombards and Franks may have been only partly successful in protecting their subjects from joining the slave cargoes of Venetians and Campanians. Notwithstanding the alacrity with which some Christians sold their fellows across the sea, slave trading was important enough to alarm influential churchmen. The protests of Agobard and Amulo of Lyons might be dismissed as fueled by their anti-semitic agendas, for this they certainly were, and the Christian slave traders who competed with the Jews did not enter their sights. But the public protest ofthe Council of Meaux is another matter. Not only do these bishops condemn in blanket terms all West Prankish slave dealers ("huius regni"), explicitly including Christians and Jews, but they voice a concern which is striking in terms of the issue of scale. They viewed the export of slaves as a strategic threat to the Frankish kingdom: the numbers were great enough that they might affect the Franks' military competition with theMuslims. A monk at Monte Cassino voiced a like concern a generation later (above n^S). The prelates assembled at Meaux could imagine no better solution to the problem than to require that the slave merchants sell their wares inside the Frankish kingdom. This of course would have throttled the trade, for it would have deprived it ofthe profits generated by the greater value of slaves in the Islamic world. The level of organizational specialization remains unclear, outside some revealing anecdotes from the Arab slave-gathering expeditions in southern Italy, where specialized hunters worked with the traders. The case ofMethodius' disciples indicates that the Jewish and Slav slave traders of central Europe - equally attested in the Raffelstetten Plea - bought from local suppliers and sold to the Venetians. The Venetian pacts with the Franks confirm that their suppliers were not Venetians, or at least did not own real estate in Venice. The Venetians therefore were chiefly middlemen, who specialized in the delivery of these slaves to the southern and eastern Mediterranean markets where they were in such demand. If we may believe Ibn Khurradadhbih, other Jewish merchants kept the entire circuit in their own hands, sailing with their wares from a port which was probably Venice. The fact that thes e merchan ts had caught the attention oftheheadof a caliphal bureaucracy that oversaw communications reinforces the impression that their operations attained an important volume. A further indication of scale comes from the fact that we hear ofatleastsix slave merchants closely connected with Louis the Pious over a few years.154 One could continue in this vein, but the 154 Form, imp., 30-1 and 52,309.4, 310.7-8 and 325.8. geography of the european slave trade point should be clear. Small wonder that when a Greek priest of Alexandria looked up and saw a Venetian gangplank, he thought of slavery. The fact that we owe the picture to a Venetian only reinforces its value.1" The export of Europeans to the richer economies of the south was as old as the hills. It was going on at the closing of antiquity, and it continued without interruption through the darkyears of the seventh century. But so far as we can tell, the scale of this trade was no larger than the small quantities of eastern goods that arrived aboard the same ships which must have left with human freight. If historians are correct in thinking that the mid-eighth-century Life of Eligius is referring to Marseilles when it describes that saint liberating boatloads of slaves, we can get some general idea of the numbers. "He redeemed from slavery up to twenty, thirty and even fifty at a time; once in awhile he freed all together a whole column, up to a hundred, as soon as they got out of the ship, of both sexes, from differentpeoples, that is Romans, Gauls, Britons, andMoors, but especially from the tribe of the Saxons, who like some flock driven from their own homes, in those times were being sold abundantly to different places."156 "Twenty, thirty, even fifty or a hundred" evokes a scale of operations smaller than the 900 slaves freed by Constantine and Methodius, the 200 enslaved seminarians, or the 220 slaves with whom Elias traveled. Whether these quantities came from Eligius' lost, seventh-century Life, or were invented by the early Carolingian author, they give some idea of the scale of the trade between 650 and 750. It was smaller than in the ninth century. Around 750, the Caliphate suffered a shortfall of labor because of the bubonic plague. Into the breach stepped the Venetians, and next to them also the Byzantine slavers, cruising the coast of Italy and loading Lombards for sale 155 Tr. S. Marci (EHL 5283-4), pp. 253-4: "Sin autemvobiscum innavem ascenderemus, duceremur utique tamquam captivi ad terram quam ignoramus." 156 "... interdum etiam usque ad viginti et triginta seu et quinquaginta numero simul a captivitate redimebat; nonum-quam vero agmen integrum et usque centum animas, cum navem egrederen-tur, utriusque sexus, ex diversis gentibus venientes, pariter liberabat, Romanorum scilicet, Gallorum atque Brittanorum necnon et Maurorum, sed praecipuae ex genere Saxonorum, qui abunde eo tempore veluti greges a sedibus propriis evnlsi in diversa distrahebantur." V. Eliaii, 1,10,677.6-12. That this concerned specifically Marseilles was argued by Krusch and accepted by Verlinden 1955-77,1: 668. This appears uncertain to me: the text rather appears incoherent, for it is difficult to imagine how Anglo-Saxons (if that, and not the continental Saxons, are who the 8th-C. author means) and Moors would be arriving from the same place; nor can we imagine that Britons and Anglo-Saxons were imported into Marseilles by ship, so that we would have to assume that the vessels were river boats coming down the Rhone. It seems to me rather that the author had no particular place in mind for Eligius' good works. 774 775 european exports to africa and asia geography of the european slave trade across the sea. The last five decades of the eighth century were also the era when the Carolingian conquests could well have flooded the market, both directly through the capture of large numbers of war slaves, and indirectly, through the disruption of food production. As the slaves flowed out in these final decades of the eighth century, Arab coins, eastern silks, new Arab drugs, and old eastern spices surged into Italy. The slave trade fueled the expansion of commerce between Europe and the Muslim world. As the Carolingian conquests subsided, and civil war increased, the supply of war slaves probably slackened. Ultimately, the Venetian, Byzantine, and other supply networks simply could not keep up with demand from the south. But even more important, the Frankish empire itself began to feed the voracious system from which it had profited. In the north, it was easier for Vikings to capture Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Irish, directly and for free, than to pay Franks or Frisians for them.157 In the south, it was easier for merchants from the Muslim world to purchase their wares on the beaches of Italy, where Italian and Arab hunters were tracking them down locally, in small-scale hunts or in large-scale raids. In an extraordinary irony of history, the European empire which had once profited by supplying slaves from its subjects and neighbors became itself a leading source of supply. Still the demand was insatiable. Next to the southern raiders and their Italian allies, Venetians and Radhanites continued hard atwork, developing the traditional supply sources in central Europe in the middle and second half of the ninth century. Central Europe became increasingly integrated into the communications network of western Europe, as some coins, swords, and other goods flowed into it, even as human wealth poured out. The trend of Venetian treaties indicates increasing latitude for slave sales, not decreasing. The turn of the century brought no changes in the substance of the trade. Amidst the hostilities, some Europeans made money. The human capital continued to flow out of Europe, and the wealth of the more developed world continued to flow in, enriching two tiny corners of the developing European economy, even if direct Arab competition began to cut into their profits from the 8ios or 820s. In the Veneto and, as the ninth century turned into the tenth, along the Campanian coast Arab gold and silver allowed more investment in ships, in goods, in churches, and in people. The European commercial economy in the Mediterranean was born precisely in the dynamic centers of the slave trade with the Arab world, in Naples and Amalfi, and in Venice, It would be another generation or two before that economy would begin to retreat from the horrible trade out of which it sprang. And even that retreat would be partial, not permanent. 157 On Viking-Irish slave trading, see Holm 1986, which I owe to the kindness of Dorothy Africa. This the flourishing slave trade of the later Middle Ages indicates, along with its last medieval prolongation, when it was carried to the western coast of Africa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.158 Once again, the roots of modern Europe - and its daughters - reach deep into the soil of the Middle Ages. 158 Verlinden 1955-77. u 358-fe observes slaves in the 14th and 15th C; cf. 1: the growing proportion of black African 835-4.6; cf. Curtinigg8, 3-10 and 17-45. 776 777