Book in process

French Queen Bathilde, enslaved in 6th century, shown in Chronique de St. Denis

Mongol slave girls, from “Martyrdom of the Franciscans,” by Lorenzetti, Siena, Italy, 1331

Kievan people with offers to Polovtsian raiders to keep their lives and freedom, from Radziwiłł Chronicle, 12th century

St. Adalbert, d. 997, with slaves in chains, door of Gniezno Cathedral, Poland

Saracen prisoner, Cathedral of Sainte Marie, Oloron, Béarn, France, 12th century

Knights of San Stefano with galley slaves, by Ligozzi, 1610, Pisa, Italy

St. George rescuing a Cretan slave boy, Crusader workshop, Crete, mid 13th-century

Spanish King Alfonso X with gamblers at risk for debt (and galley) slavery, Spain, c. 1254

Dead Viking with beheaded thrall, 8-11th century, archaeological gravesite rendering, by Mirosław Kuźma

Tentative Publication
Date: 2027

European Slavery from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Transatlantic Trade

Slavery in the Roman Empire, and the transatlantic slave trade, are widely known. But what about the 1,500 years between the two? European Slavery from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Transatlantic Trade answers this question.

  • Five years in the making, and utilizing over 1,000 sources, this book looks at slavery over this long period in each major region of Europe, synthesizing what is known now and what is currently being studied.
  • Slavery indeed existed in Europe between the fall of Rome and the rise of the transatlantic trade. People in every European region – from the British Isles to European Russia, the Nordic lands to the Mediterranean islands – practiced or experienced enslavement, and traded in captive people, during some part of this time frame.
  • Likewise, emancipation efforts – some ephemeral, some with lasting effects – dot the timelines of all these regions.
  • Slavery in Europe over this period differs from what “slavery” signifies to most readers today. While plantation slavery of the Americas was race-based, agricultural, and involved men, women, and children, much European slavery was religion-based, was not agricultural, and used men, women, and children in different roles.
  • European Slavery from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Transatlantic Trade is a synthesis of secondary and published primary work, with emphasis on scholarship of the last 15 years.
  • The book is accessible for general readers and undergraduates, while the annotations provide scholars ample pathways into this rich and growing area of research.

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