This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 580 - 720 Thomas J. MacMaster Thesis submitted for PhD The University of Edinburgh 2015 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 1 580-720 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 2 580-720 Declaration: This is to certify that that the work contained within has been composed by me and is entirely my own work. No part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Signed: T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 3 580-720 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 4 580-720 Table of contents 4 List of Abbreviations 6 Introduction: Slave trading between antiquity and the middle ages 8 1. A world full of slaves 40 1.1. ‘What is a slave?’ Defining slavery in the post-Roman world 41 1.2. An encyclopaedia filled with slaves: Isidore’s Etymologiae 46 1.3. The ubiquity of slaves in seventh-century societies 58 1.4. Neither gang-labour nor sharecroppers: slaves in economic production 67 1.5. Cleaners, cooks, and concubines: slaves in the household 75 1.6. The cruelest cut: eunuchs and slavery 91 2. Maintaining an enslaved population 98 2.1. Natural growth and purchase 101 2.2. Demographics and the slave supply 108 2.3. From freedom into slavery 114 2.4. Slave recruitment and slave supply in peacetime 128 2.5. Becoming a slave in violent times 135 3. The slave trade in the post-Roman trading system 158 3.1. Humans as articles of trade 159 3.2. Merchants and traders 165 3.3. Ethnic merchants: Syrians, Egyptians, and Greeks 173 3.4. Jewish slave-traders in the post-Roman world? 177 3.5. The Mediterranean at the end of the sixth century 193 3.6. A Post-Roman System of Exchange 208 4. Islam, the slave trade, and the collapse of the post-Roman system 218 4.1. Before they were rich: slavery at the origin of Islam 219 4.2. ‘World crisis’ and the slave supply 229 4.3. Slavery and the conquest of Africa 237 4.4. The collapse of the post-Roman system 249 4.5. The Mediterranean in the early eighth century 258 Conclusions: Slave trading and the transformation of the Roman world 264 References: 272 I. Primary sources a. Latin 272 b. Greek 279 c. Arabic 282 d. Old English 285 e. Armenian, Coptic, and Syriac 285 II. Modern works 287 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 5 580-720 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 6 580-720 List of Abbreviations: AA Auctores Antiquissimi BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies CCSL Corpus Christianorum Series Latina CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum CJ Codex Justinianus CT Codex Theodosianus DLH Decem Libri Historiarum, DI Doctrina Iacobi nuper Baptizati DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers EHR English Historical Review EME Early Medieval Europe FI Forum Iudicum GT Gregory of Tours HE Historia Ecclesiastica JLA Journal of Late Antiquity JRS Journal of Roman Studies LÆ Laws of Æðelberht LB Lex Burgundionum (Lex Gundobada) LL Leges Liutprandi LR Lex Ripuaria MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica OED Oxford English Dictionary PG Patrologia Graeca PL Patrologia Latina PLS Pactus Legis Salicae PTA Poenitentiale Theodori Archiepiscopi RBPH Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire RE Gregorii magni registrum epistularum SRM Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum VDB Vita Domnae Balthildis T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 7 580-720 T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 8 580-720 Introduction: Slave trading between antiquity and the middle ages According to its first great historian, the story of the English Church began in a street market in Rome sometime around 580. There, Bede reported, a young cleric named Gregory joined a large crowd examining what newly arrived merchants had to sell: Dicunt, quia die quadam cum, aduenientibus nuper mercatoribus, multa uenalia in forum fuissent conlata, multi ad emendum confluxissent, et ipsum Gregorium inter alios aduenisse, ac uidisse inter alia pueros uenales positos candidi corporis, ac uenusti uultus, capillorum quoque forma egregia. Quos cum aspiceret, interrogauit, ut aiunt, de qua regione uel terra essent adlati. Dictumque est, quia de Brittania insula, cuius incolae talis essent aspectus.1 The conversation continued as Gregory quizzed them regarding their religion and homeland, including the part usually summarized as “non Angli, sed Angeli!” The slaves were from Deira and their king was named Ælla; Gregory made further puns on these. Afterward, he went to the Bishop of Rome, begging to be sent as a missionary to the English. Though the Pope was willing to send him, the Roman people would not allow Gregory to leave the city. Eventually, Gregory himself became Pope and dispatched Augustine and his companions to fulfil his ambition. Gregory’s encounter with the angelic slaves has long been one of the most familiar stock-images of English history even though, in the principal source,2 Bede himself warns that he cannot testify to its veracity as he only knows the story from 1 Bede, HE, 2.1 (“Some merchants who had just arrived in Rome displayed many items for sale in the crowded marketplace. A large number of people came to buy, including Gregory himself. Among 2 A somewhat different account is found in the late seventh or early eighth-century Whitby Life of Gregory (Vita Sancti Gregorii I Papae, 9). T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 9 580-720 oral accounts.3 However, the very strength of an oral tradition makes it seem likely that the idea of English slaves being sold in Rome did not surprise Bede or his audience while, as Pope, Gregory himself wrote instructing his representatives in Marseille to purchase English slaves there.4 Other written evidence demonstrates that, at the end of the sixth century, there was a movement of slaves from the Anglo- Saxon kingdoms southwards to Gaul as well as a further movement of slaves from Gaul into the Mediterranean world. Whether or not Gregory ever actually had the reported conversation, it was widely seen as likely that slaves from Britain would be offered for sale in Rome. This slave trade across Gaul, as well as a second route along the Atlantic coasts of western Europe, brought a steady supply of goods from the developed economies of the eastern and southern Mediterranean to these western lands while, in return, the peoples of those regions exported both raw materials and other humans. At the time of Gregory’s papacy, this system of exchange linked all the parts of the former Roman Empire. Within little more than a century, however, it had all but disappeared. That trade within the former boundaries of the Roman Empire and its disappearance in the period between the time of Gregory’s visit to the market (roughly 580) and Bede’s recording of it (sometime before 731) is the subject of this thesis. Investigating the slave trade in the long seventh century in the post-Roman world will involve investigations into both slavery and commerce in a period in which neither was static. Instead, the seventh century was an era of rapid and profound change in many things, not least of which were transformations within the slave trade itself. Yet, the slave trade, as argued in this thesis, can be seen as providing a critical framework for understanding the economic and cultural 3 Bede, HE, 2.1. 4 RE, 6.10. T. J. MacMaster, The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 10 580-720 developments of the entire period. The slave trade and its fluctuations may even have been a driving force in some of the enormous social changes of the time that continue to shape the present world. Four principal theses will be advanced and supported through the combination of a reading of the written sources (primarily, though not exclusively, those in Arabic, Greek, and Latin), an examination of relevant archaeological data, and the use of analogous evidence from other periods. These four propositions may be seen as the basis of the overall argument demonstrating 1) that slaves were numerous and that they played a crucial role in the societies of the post-Roman world, 2) that the continuing function of these societies required a greater supply of slaves than could be provided internally, 3) that this resulted in a long-distance slave trade that was a key force in the post-Roman system of exchange in the Mediterranean world, 4) and that the breakdown of this system of trade and of many contacts across the Mediterranean during the seventh century was caused primarily by alterations in the sources of the slave supply of the most developed economies.