Empire, Monotheism and Slavery in the Greater Mediterranean Region from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era

Abstract

Nearly a decade ago, the American Historical Review held a forum entitled ‘Crossing Slavery's Boundaries’, in which David Brion Davis called for a longer-term and geographically broader view of the Atlantic slave system, one that went beyond paying lip service to its antecedents in the Canary Islands, and which delved into the structures of the European, African and western Asian slave networks from which the Atlantic slave system was calved.1 Whereas until quite recently it was believed that the Atlantic slave trade was a largely self-contained phenomenon, it is now acknowledged by most writers that this slave trade is part of a much wider picture, which includes traditional African slave systems and the advance of Islam in Africa.2 Recent volumes such as Davis's own Inhuman Bondage and the important essay collection Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern have invited us to find new parallels in what were formerly seen as discrete problems in the history of slavery.3 As the present article will show, our increasing understanding of the relations between Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages can now enable us to take a more synthesized view of the history of what I shall call ‘Greater Mediterranean slavery’ from antiquity to the end of the early modern era.4

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