Slavery in the Middle Ages

We had a spirited discussion...more humorous than serious...about slavery at the game table the other night. The party has taken it upon itself to free slaves whenever they meet them, which has led to some interesting encounters. But I posed the question as to whether slavery existed in the middle ages, specifically in the feudal kingdoms such as France. I thought that it had, but was probably less common than it had been in antiquity, but as the periord of manorialism is dominated by the serf/vassal/lord relationship the history books rarely speak of slavery.

Apparently it did exist. Some estimates report that well over 10% of the population of the Carolingian Empire were slaves. Criminals could be enslaved. Slaves were actively traded in the southern cities, mostly sold to the Middle East.

Later realms, such as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw made owning slaves illegal, but for the most part they were not addressed in the various codes. William of Normandy made owning Christian slaves in England illegal in 1066, but had no affect on the French realms to the south. By the time the Church had declared that owning Christian slaves was against the spirit of the religion and as a practice it died out. However, owning non-Christian slaves was allowed. It did die out for the most part as the middle ages progressed and serfdom, that one was tied to the land they farmed, not to one who owned them, replaced all.

This all makes sense, rarely do things end abruptly unless done so in a wave of cataclysmic violence, and the Roman Empire with its hosts of slaves, did not die in a cataclysmic collapse, but rather through as slow grind of economic ruin.

 photo from Monty Python and the Holy Grail