IMC 2015: Sessions
Session 1202: 'Melior est subjecta servitus': Looking for Slaves in the Early Medieval West
Wednesday 8 July 2015, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | Centre for Renaissance & Medieval Studies, University of Edinburgh |
|---|---|
| Organiser: | Thomas J. MacMaster, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh |
| Moderator/Chair: | Marek Jankowiak, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford |
| Paper 1202-a | Discerning Slaves in Early Medieval British and Irish Sources (Language: English) Index terms: Archives and Sources, Charters and Diplomatics, Daily Life, Economics - General |
| Paper 1202-b | 'British' Slaves and the Remaking of West Saxon Elite Landscapes in the Reign of King Ecgberht (Language: English) Index terms: Economics - Rural, Geography and Settlement Studies, Local History, Social History |
| Paper 1202-c | Merchants and Conquerors?: The Trade in British Slaves to the Continent in the Early Middle Ages (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Demography, Economics - Trade, Historiography - Medieval |
| Abstract | Each of these three papers presents a new path in studying the ubiquity of slavery in Early Medieval Britain, a subject that has, until recently, been largely ignored. The first paper re-examines literary sources from the British Isles to determine the distinctions between chattel slaves, captives for ransom, and hostages and to discover to what extent raiding was intended for the creation of slaves. The second paper uses a different methodology, seeking through the spatial and material context of place-names to search for evidence of the presence of slaves in Wessex. The last paper will then examine evidence for the presence of slaves from these Isles exported to the continent. |