Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia

Introduction

Introduction Slavery (servitus) is named from saving (servare), for among the ancients, those who were saved from death in battle were called slaves (servi). —Isidore of Seville, early seventh century This present work of synthesis surveys the history of slavery in Iberia from ancient times to the modern period. It relies in part on the studies of slavery I published in the 1980s but differs greatly in its content, focus, and structure from those earlier works. Though I cite a few archival sources, I have based the work on my reading of as much of the available scholarly literature as possible . This has occupied me for a longer period than I anticipated or would have preferred, in large part because the study of slavery in Iberia has become popular among scholars since the late 1980s. Their publications appeared in a boom period that began in the second half of the 1980s and peaked around the year 2000, though important contributions have continued to appear.1 Several factors accounted for the accelerated production, including the greater number of students pursuing advanced degrees and an increased availability of venues for publication.2 This outpouring of material has made it impossible for any one individual to read and digest all that is available. The bibliography indicates what I have been able to do. Before the 1980s there were a few pioneering studies, and from the midtwentieth century the most prominent scholar on the topic was Charles Verlinden (1907–1996). His massive survey of slavery in medieval Europe, the first volume of which appeared in 1955 and covered Iberia and France, relied heavily on legal sources and created interest in a subject that had not been comprehensively studied before.3 In addition to his major survey, Verlinden’s wide-ranging scholarship included items that he published on medieval slavery for well over half a century.4 Antonio Domínguez Ortiz (1909–2003) introduction 2 opened the debate and the scholarly path for the study of slavery in Spain’s early modern period with a seminal article in 1952 on slavery in Castile.5 Together , the works of Verlinden and Domínguez Ortiz sparked renewed interest in an almost forgotten topic. In 1981 Jacques Heers, the distinguished historian of Genoa, published a survey of the historical literature on slavery in the Mediterranean in which Spain figured prominently. Heers stressed domestic slavery and related it to the work done by free domestic servants.6 In 1985 my survey of the medieval continuity of slavery devoted considerable attention to Iberia.7 Several able historians anticipated the boom in Iberian slavery studies in publications that appeared from the 1960s through the 1980s. Among the best known was Vicenta Cortés Alonso, who published many articles and an important book on slavery in Valencia at the time of the Catholic Monarchs.8 Early modern Valencia found its historian in Vicente Graullera Sanz.9 The city of Seville had one of Spain’s largest populations of slaves, and Alonso Franco Silva published a major work on slavery in Seville that appeared in 1979.10 Ruth Pike provided important discussions of slavery in Seville in an article and in sections of two of her books and later wrote a book on Spanish penal servitude in the early modern period.11 The topics of raids across religious lines and the subsequent captivity and ransoming attracted the attention of James Brodman for the Middle Ages and Ellen Friedman for the early modern period.12 The Canary Islands, the first stage of European conquest and colonization in the Atlantic, were another focal point for slavery. For slavery in the Canaries, Manuel Lobo Cabrera was the major historian.13 The most prominent book on slavery in Portugal was that of A. C. de C. M. Saunders.14 The majority of the older and more recent studies deal with areas of Christian Iberia in the late medieval and early modern centuries. The medieval studies have been most abundant for areas of the late medieval Crown of Aragon, particularly Catalonia, Valencia, and Mallorca. For Castile, the chronological focus has been the period of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Notably, these works have usually concentrated on local areas and regional patterns, with scholars examining local sources and publishing in local venues. At times these publications dealt with places with important slave populations, whereas elsewhere the number of slaves in the place studied was miniscule even though the records are comprehensive.15 Studies of slavery in Portugal have...