Introduction to the Slavic Slave Trade

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Before any meaningful introduction  into the history of the slavic slave   trade can be conducted first we must address the   etymology of the word slave. But even before  that this video was made possible thanks to   my Patreons and YouTube members. If you want  to support what I do it would be tremendously   appreciated if you checked my Patreon or  YouTube membership. Now back to the video. Latin had multiple words that could mean slave,  like mancipium and ancilla, but the most common   latin word for slave was servus or servi in  plural. This word survived in usage even after   the fall of the Western Roman Empire because Latin  still largely remained the governing language of   both the state and the church. Of course, some  new Germanic words for slaves were sometimes   used interchangeably with the latin ones like þeow  in old English or þræll in old Norse, but largely,   in most written documents, the latin word  of servus remained the most dominant word   for slave in early medieval Europe. However,  this dominance of the word servus at a time   when slavery lacked the standardization  and uniformity of the old Roman system   meant that the word began to be increasingly  ambiguous in its definition. In other words,   there are a lot of different types of servitude  and the word servus, ever since the 5th century,   was increasingly ambiguous about the type  of servitude it was referring to. As Alice   Rio states ‘it is almost impossible to tell  what exactly the word servus was intended to   describe when it is found in an early mediaeval  text without further contextual information.’ For example, when the law books of King  Stephen mention some servi in charge   of a castle these are most certainly  ‘royal servants’, not slaves. However,   when in the same time period, King Ladislaus  orders that the escaped servi be captured,   punished, and returned to their masters, he was  most definitely referring to slaves not royal   servants. To add even more confusion, during  the early to high middle ages a linguistic   shift occurred where the word servus started  to increasingly mean serf rather than slave,   and by the late middle ages servus was  almost exclusively used to refer to   serfs not slaves. In fact, the modern English  word serf comes from the latin word servus. This changing of the meaning of the word servus,  over the course of the middle ages, presented a   problem, because, even though yes certain kind  of feudal serfdoms could resemble slavery,   serfdom in practice, and in medieval legal  terms, was never actual slavery. Therefore,   the word servus could no longer be used to mean  slave and so, a new word had to be adopted. There   were several candidates for this new word. For  example, the latin word for a ‘captured person’   captivus was sometimes used in the middle ages as  the word for a slave, either in combination with   the word servus or on its own. The previously  mentioned other latin words which could mean   slave where also sometimes used. However, what  eventually became the most common type of word   to define a slave was not somekind of a  latin word but an ethnonym. To explain,   enslaved people were often recorded as captivus  or servus or both plus an ethnonym. e.g.,   servus captivus wealh or captivus sardus.  After a while, especially if the slaves   being captured and sold in a particular  area were regularly the same ethnicity,   these written recordes became abbreviated to just  the ethnonym. So, in areas like in early Medieval   England, where most of the slaves captured were  Welsh, the latin word for welsh, wealh, became,   for a bit, synonymous with the word slave.  Same thing happened in medieval Genoa with   the ethnonym sardus, meaning sardinian, and with  many other ethnonyms in other slave trading areas. However, there was one ethnonym to rule them  all, one ethnonym that would not only become   synonymous with the word slave … it is where  the word slave comes from, and that ethnonym   is … slav, or Sclavus in medieval latin or  Σκλάβος (sclavos) in Byznatine Greek. But,   to understand how the slavic ethnonym became  the foundation for almost every western   language’s word for slave, we must talk about  the history of the medieval Slavic slave trade. The first undisputed appearance of the Slavs in  the written record was in the mid 6th century on   the Byzantine northern border. The Byzantines  wrote that these people were called Σκλαβηνοί   (Sclavenoi), or Σκλαβοί when shortened (Sclavoi  (second declension plural)) or, when Latinized,   Sclaveni, or Sclavi when shortened. These  latin and greek names for the Slavs were   obviously derived from the Slavic endonym  (Slověně) which either came from the slavic   word ‘slovo’ meaning word or ‘slava’ meaning  glory. There were slight variations in the way   the slavic ethnonym was written in early mediaeval  texts but over the course of the middle ages the   shortened versions of the name (that is Σκλαβοί  in Greek and Sclavi in Latin) became the standard. The early Slavs of the 6th century proved  increasingly bothersome for the Byzantines,   mainly because the Slavs weren’t unified, which  meant it was really hard for the Byzantines to   control them. If Byzantium made peace with one  tribe, there were 10 other tribes that it didn’t   apply to. As a result of this disjointed nature of  the Slavs, there were some Slavic tribes that held   frequent independent raids into the Byzantine  Balkan territories while other Slavic tribes   settled in those territories. Some tribes allied  themselves with the various central European   peoples like the Cutrigurs, the Gepids, and the  Lombards and fought with them in frequent wars.   All while some Slavic tribes allied themselves  with the Byzantines and fought alongside them,   and some entrepreneurial slavs simply fought  as mercenaries for anyone who would hire them.   This disjointed nature of the slavs, combined  with the 6th century political instability of   central Europe, resulted in a structure in  which slavs could be easily captured through   frequent wars and raids and sold into the  mediterranean slave markets which were still   alive even after the fall of the Western Roman  Empire. Capturing slaves in wars and raids,   however, wasn’t a new thing nor was  it initially more common in central   and eastern Europe than in other parts of  Europe. The Byzantines and Sassanids often   enslaved each other's people during war, as  did the various post Roman Germanic kingdoms. With that said, between the 7th to  the 8th centuries there was a steady   increase in written documents mentioning  slavic slaves. To give some examples,   there is a 7th century account of Justinian  II selling Slavic slaves in Anatolia,   there is an 8th century mention of  slavic slaves being sold in Thessaloniky,   there is another 8th century mention of Bavarian  slave raids into Carinthia, today’s slovenia, and   there is also a particularly interesting mention  of a Slavic female slave in the Freising Diocese   called Saška the Slav (Sasca Sclauam). However,  this steady increase of Slavic slaves in the 7th   to 8th centuries was nothing compared to the 9th  and 10th centuries’ explosion of slavic slavery. This explosion of Slavic slavery in the 9th  and 10th century can be attributed to multiple   factors. The first and most important factor  was the establishment of the quite rich Islamic   Caliphate which had a huge demand for slaves.  Second, unlike in the south or west, political   power in eastern europe was still very disjointed,  meaning it was much easier to raid the numerous   slavic tribes and polities for slaves than more  established larger kingdoms. Third, the newly   consolidated Frankish Empire, even though largely  moving away from slavery in favor of serfdom, was   in a perfict position to not necessarily use the  slaves they captured on their eastern frontier,   but sell them into the Medditeranea Slave markets.  Fourth, considering that by this point all the   major religions ‘forbade the enslavement of people  adhering to the same faith’, the still largely   pagan slavs proved to be the perfect source  of pagan slaves. Lastly fifth, the emergence   of the ‘viking raiding and trading network’ in  the 9th century opened up new trade routes in   eastern Europe through which Slavic slaves could  be more easely captured and sold to Byzantium or   the Caliphate. And so, due to all these reasons,  the slavic slave trade blew up in the 9th and   10th centuries as the lands of Eastern Europe  proved to be the perfect source of new slaves. Due to this boom in slavic slavery  new trade routes developed that began   in Eastern Europe and flowed into  the markets of the Mediterranean,   Black, and Caspian seas. These trade  routes could initially be divided into   two major areas of operation. The western  trade routes and the eastern trade routes. In the east the slavic slave trade  was largely dictated by vikings,   known as Varangians in eastern europe, the  Byzantense, and Nomadic polities like the Khazars,   Volga Bulgars, and Hungarians. The majority of  slaves from eastern Europe were sold to to the   Islamic Caliphate. It should, therefore, not be  surprising that many of the written records we   have about these eastern trade routes come from  Arab explorers and geographers like Ibn Fadlan   or Ibn Rustah, the latter of whom stated that ‘The Varangians … raid the Saqaliba (the Slavs),   sailing in their ships until they come  upon them, take them captive and sell   them in Khazaria and in Bulgaria. They have no  cultivated fields and they live by pillaging   the land of the Saqaliba (the Slavs) … They  have no dwellings, villages or cultivated   fields. They earn their living by trading … They  treat their slaves well and dress them suitably,   because for them they are an article of trade.’ Ibn Rusta also mentions the Hungarians,   or in other words the Magyars, while they  were still living in the pontic steppe.  ‘They [the Magyars] are lords over all the  Saqaliba (Slavs) who neighbour them and impose   a heavy tribute on them. These Saqaliba  (Slavs) are completely at their mercy,   like prisoners … They make piratical raids on  the Saqaliba (Slavs) and then follow the coast   of the Black Sea with their captives to a port in  Byzantine territory named Kerch (in Crimea) … When   the Magyars bring their prisoners to Kerch, the  Greeks go there to trade. The Magyars sell their   Saqaliba slaves and buy Byzantine brocade, woollen  rugs and other products of the Byzantine empire.’ Slave raiding parties of Khazars,  Bulgars, Hungarians, Varangians,   and rival Slavic tribes where a common place  in medieval eastern slavic lives. There where   even mentions of slavic raiding parties along  the danube river which sold slavic slaves to   Byzantium. The Byzantines also often enslaved  the Slavs living on their northern border. As   Youval Rotman states, for the Byzantines ‘the  taking of captives and their enslavement seem   to have been the general rule in the  Balkans until the eleventh century.’ Switching now over to the western trade routes.  They began on the Frankish and Moravian eastern   frontiers and flowed into the trade ports of  Venice, Marseilles, and overland to Verdun,   often eventually ending up in Cordova. Arab geographer Ibn Hawqal, tells us   that in the 10th century all of the slaves in  al-Andalus, todays Spain, came from the ‘western   lands of the Saqaliba’. For they are being raided  from one side by nomadic tribes and from the other   by the Franks. He concludes with ‘In these  areas, many captives can still be obtained’. In fact, so many captives can still be obtained  from this area that Prague became one of the most   well known European slave markets of the 10th  century. Ibrahim ibn Ya‘qub visited Prague in   the 10th century, most likely on a trading trip,  and described the city thusly. ‘The city of Prague   is built of stone and lime and it is the most  important trading-site of this country … The   Norse and the Saqaliba (the slavs) come there  from Kraków with commodities to trade, and so   do Muslim merchants from the lands of the Turks,  as well as Hungarians and Jews, all with gold.   They carry away slaves, tin and various kinds  of furs. Their country is the best in the north’ Just like in the east, slave raiding expeditions  into the western Slavic lands where quite common.   Franks raided the Polebian Slavs, Moravians  and later Bohemians raided Silesians and Poles,   and Bavarians raided the Carinthians,  today’s Slovenia. Venice also frequently   raided the adriatic coast for slavic slaves. The slavic slaves captured by the Bohemians  and the Franks where mostly sent to Verdun,   which was a major medieval slave hub where many of  the Slavic Slaves where castrated. This was mostly   done to prepare them for the islamic market which  preferred eunuchs. As one muslim writer put it,   ‘If there are two Slavic brothers from the same  mother and father, even if one of them is the   twin brother of the other, when one of them  is castrated, he becomes a better servant and   smarter in all kinds of activity and manual work.  He will be more skilled in them and more fitting   for them. You will also find him more intelligent  in conversation – these are all his qualities.’ The volume of primarily Slavic slaves,  but not just, being traded through   western Europe to the primarily Muslim but  also the Byzantine worlds, was so large,   that according to Michael McCormick this trade  was the Origins of the European Economy well,   more precisely, the origin of the western  european economy. McCormick argues that the   export of slaves played a primary, but not  exclusive, role in securing the privileged   economic position of Western Europe going into the  late middle ages and beyond. The fact the west did   not use a lot of slaves in the middle ages but  traded them for what he calls ‘southern riches’,   created a massive trade surplus for western  Europe which paved the way for later Western   European economic expansion. Now this theory  is currently being debated, but the fact that   it can even be seriously proposed showcases  the scale of the medieval Slavic slave trade. Due to this large scale slavic slave trade,  it should not be suprising that the slavic   ethnonym became to be synonymous with slavery. The  fact that the majority of slaves being traded in   the European and Islamic markets where Slavs  meant that the latin word for Slav, sclavus,   became first synonyms with the word servus,  and then, when servus became to mean serf,   sclavus simply took its place and gradually,  over the course of the 9th to 11th centuries,   became the default word for slave. To quote  William Phillips ‘To describe the true slaves   a new word was coined, derived from the most  numerous ethnic group in the medieval slave trade,   the Slavs. The word has cognates in all Western  languages: slave in English, escalve in French,   esclavo in Spanish, escravo in Portuguese,  schiavo in Italian, and Sklave in German.’   Same linguistic change happened in Greek, where  the word sclavos, derived from the original   Byzantine word for the Slavs, today means slave.  Same thing also briefly happened in Arabic, where,   during the middle ages, the word Saqaliba could  mean both slavs or white slaves, although this   change wasn’t uniform across the arab world  nor did it survive past the middle ages. The life of a slave during the middle ages was  heavily dependent on where they ended up. But,   for the most part, the kind of slavery present  in 19th century Americas wasn’t really common in   the middle ages. As William Phillips states ‘Most  societies had mechanisms for slave acculturation,   most provided means for them to become free,  and most allowed a lesser or greater degree   of assimilation into the dominant group.’ This is  not to say that they weren’t treated poorly. They   most certainly were, after all the survival rate  of castration in mediaeval Europe was quite low,   however, it is important to give some  point of reference as to the scale   of the treatment compared to something  that people might be more familiar with. It is also prudent to mention, if it wasn’t  obvious already, that not all medieval slaves   were slavs. The slavs constituted the majority  of the medieval european slave population not   its entirety. Also, as Mats Roslund states ‘Slave  traders made no ethnic distinctions when selling   and buying’. In other words, slavs weren’t more  likely to be enslaved because they were slavs.   Slavery based on some kind of perceived race  or ethnicity didn’t really exist in the middle   ages. Slavs constituted the largest number of  slaves because of their economic, political,   geographical, and religious situations  not because of their quote unquote ‘race’. In the 11th and 12th century, when Hungarian,  Polish, Rus and various Nomadic polities where   more firmly established in central and eastern  Europe, the slavic slave trade didn’t stop. Wars   among these polities provided a supply of slaves  and lawless areas inbetween them still harbert   some pagan Slavs who could be captured and sold.  But past the high middle ages the slavic slave   trade did slow down. The primary reason for this  slow down was the full conversion of all the Slavs   to christianity. Once christian it became harder  for the Hungarians, the Germans, and various   other Slavs to justify the enslavement of other  fellow christians. Plus, the slow expansion of   feudalism into eastern europe, and the expansion  of control by the various polities into all the   lawless areas of eastern europe, meant that slave  raiding became much harder to conduct. This didn’t   mean that slavic enslavement went fully away,  trading cities like Genoa and Venice found ways   around the religious rules, and areas in today's  southern Ukraine and Russia continued to be   raided for slaves by various Nomadic groups who  where primarily sponsored by the Ottomans. But,   the height of the medieval Slavic slave trade,  the trade that gave us the word slave itself and   possibly even contributed to the kickstarting  of the Western European economy, was no more. With all that said, some slavs today often react  negatively to the idea that the word slave comes   from the word slav and sometimes even try  to deny it. This response is not unfounded   as anti-slavic sentiments had been very strong  in Western Europe for centuries. German scholar   Friedrich Schlegel in 1808 described the Slavs  as a ‘shallow Chinese race’, Engels and Marx   stated in 1851 that ‘the natural and inevitable  fate of these dying Slavic nations is to allow   this process of dissolution and absorption  by their stronger [Germanic] neighbours to   complete itself.’ A British ethnologist Robert  Knox, in 1862, described the ‘barbours slavs’   as ‘uncivilised’ and ‘inferior to the Saxon  race’. And, of course, I don’t even need to   mention the idea of the ‘Untermenschen from the  east’ which was based on 19th century anti-slavic   propaganda and was extensively used by the Nazis.  With all this history of racism against the slavs   it should not be surprising that some slavs  today are quite defensive, even denialist,   when someone mentions the prominent medieval  slavic slave trade or the fact that the word slave   comes from the word slav. Because, after all, it  can seem like yet another racist historical take   against the slavs rather than actual history. However, denying the obvious historical and   etymological facts isn’t really going to  help us improve our understanding of the   past or learn from it for the future. Plus, I  think the slavic slave trade is an interesting   part of history that is sadly not talked about  outside of academia. So, hopefully this video   introduced you to an interesting part of  history that you didn’t know much about. Well, this video will not be controversial at  all. If you want to learn more about slavery   in the middle ages a good introduction is  the book Slavery After Rome, by Alice Rio,   and if you want a more complicated academic  deep dive into specifically viking and slavic   medieval slavery then I recommend reading  The Archaeology of Slavery in Early Medieval   Northern Europe. Other than that it’s the  holidays so I hope you’re all having a   good time and maybe considering giving me some  support whether on Patreon or here on YouTube,   it really does help and makes a difference  and is tremendously appreciated. This fall   I was sick for a month and the financial  support really did help a lot so thank you   to all my supporters. And with that, my name  is Matus Laser, and stick around, for history.
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Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)
Published: Tue Dec 13 2022
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