Slave raiding and slave trading in early England

Abstract

Slaves were an integral and numerically important part of English society in the Anglo-Saxon period. They appear in the earliest English law code promulgated between 597 and 616 by Æthelberht of Kent; nearly half a millennium later at the beginning of the Norman age their continued widespread presence in English society is attested by Domesday Book. Yet they do not seem to have excited much attention from scholars. The longest treatment in print remains that by Kemble, which was written over a century ago. Stenton in his magisterial survey of Anglo-Saxon England made only four references to them. Some other recent histories, however, have discussed slavery in more detail. Professor Whitelock rightly included slaves in her analysis of the social classes of England up to the time of the Norman Conquest. H. P. R. Finberg took this further in his agrarian history of Anglo-Saxon England by dividing the society into three chronological periods and examining the regional variations within England during those periods. Both works mention the slave trade. This receives a more detailed discussion in H. R. Loyn's economic and social history. But the evidence on slavery in England is mostly fragmentary and in widely scattered sources. Inevitably general histories of the period but skim the surface. Only by patiently assembling all the evidence, as Professor Verlinden has been doing for many years in his studies on slavery in continental Europe, can knowledge about this significant element in English society be advanced.

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