No longer slaves? Slavery and European identity

Interestingly, according to the 1454 version of the Statutes of the city of Bologna, in force until 1796, having and keeping male and female slaves from the Slavic lands, the land of the Tartars and other overseas places was allowed.3 Filippo Carlo Sacco, Statuta Civilia et Criminalia Civitatis Bononiae, vol. 1 (Bologna, 1735), p. 508. Giuliana Vitale, ‘Servi e padroni nella Napoli del XV secolo’, Prospettive Settanta, n.s., 10 (1988), 306–32, here 326, mentioned a similar case. As early as 1256 Bologna had abolished slavery and freed serfs.4 Armando Antonelli (ed.), Il “Liber Paradisus” con un’antologia di fonti bolognesi in materia di servitù medievale (942–1304) (Venice, 2007); Armando Antonelli and Massimo Giansante (eds), Il “Liber Paradisus” e le liberazioni collettive nel XIII secolo: cento anni di studi (1906–2008) (Venice, 2008). Yet explicit exceptions to the prohibition of slavery and of personal dependency had been foreseen by the Statutes in the fourteenth century,5 The possibility of having Slavic slaves and slaves from oversea countries was probably introduced in the Bologna statutes in 1376, the reference to Tartars in 1454. Besides the 1454 Statutes, I checked the following: Archivio di Stato di Bologna, Governo del Comune, Statuti, vol. 10 (1335); vol. 11 (1352); vol. 12 (1357); vol. 13 (1376, c. 245v); vol. 14 (1389, c. 318). as also happened in other cities, such as Florence.6 In Florence a decree of 6 August 1289 forbade serfdom, whereas a decree dated 2 March 1363 permitted the importation of foreign slaves, provided they were not Christians: see Agostino Zanelli, Le serve orientali a Firenze nei secoli XIV e XV (Florence, 1885), pp. 24, 64; Iris Origo, ‘The Domestic Enemy: The Eastern Slaves in Tuscany in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, Speculum, 30 (1955), 321–66, here 324, 335; Samuela Marconcini, ‘Una presenza nascosta: battesimi di “turchi” a Firenze in età moderna’, Annali di Storia di Firenze, 7 (2012), 97–121, here 109. However, the places of origin of slaves changed, if compared with those mentioned in the Bologna Statutes. The year before the publication of the 1454 version, the Turks had conquered Constantinople and soon after took possession of the Genoese and Venetian colonies on the Black Sea. This reduced the slave trade from the East, which was compensated by increasing imports of slaves from Africa to Italy (this lasted until the mid–late sixteenth century, when the Atlantic slave trade absorbed most of the African flow), and by ‘Turks’ captured by pirates and corsairs, and during wars.7 Bono, Schiavi; Raffaella Sarti, ‘Bolognesi schiavi dei “Turchi” e schiavi “turchi” a Bologna tra Cinque e Settecento tra Cinque e Settecento: alterità etnico-religiosa e riduzione in schiavitù’, Quaderni storici, 36 (2001), 437–73, with further references.

In 1673, De Luca argued that in his times a Christian was not allowed to keep a fellow Christian as a slave; thus, in Europe, soldiers captured in wars no longer became the slaves of the winners; rather, they were prisoners of war. It was different for Turks captured in wars or by corsairs: they became slaves, and were then mainly employed as rowers on galleys or (less frequently) as household servants.8 De Luca, Il Dottor Volgare, vol. 4, pp. 13–14. The role of Christian religion in making slavery rare was stressed by many authors. Piccolomini had argued that Italians ruled over their slaves at their will only until the latter became Christians.9 Piccolomini, Della institution morale, p. 523. Similarly, Tommasi had stressed the difference between the ancient Greeks, Romans and Muslims, on the one hand, and Christians on the other. According to the first, only the master could decide to free a slave, whereas, thanks to the Christian religion, all human beings were acknowledged to be free and made confident in the freedom granted by Christ our saviour. More pious than other religions, Christianity tolerated the slavery of infidels captured by Christians, yet only until these infidels converted to Christianity or were able to buy their freedom, thus becoming free again.10 Tommasi, Reggimento, p.194.

Interestingly, already some sixteenth-century European authors described the presence of slaves in their societies as uncommon and considered the absence or scarcity of slaves as a feature that distinguished their civilisation from the ancient and from contemporary people whom they considered as barbarous and/or infidel. Furthermore, they presented slavery with Christian owners as less severe than other forms, thanks to the possibility for slaves to be freed as a consequence of conversion or self-liberation. However, not every author considered slavery in Europe as a rare phenomenon or an ‘easy’ condition. For instance, Paolo Caggio – perhaps because he lived earlier (he died in 1562) and was a Sicilian – spoke of slaves as a usual possession and a useful presence in a household.11 Paolo Caggio, Iconomica (Venice, 1562), pp. 41–7. While many studies have shown that slaves were numerous in sixteenth-century Sicily,12 Antonio Franchina, ‘Un censimento di schiavi nel 1565’, Archivio Storico Siciliano, n.s., 32 (1907), 374–420; Matteo Gaudioso, La schiavitù in Sicilia dopo i Normanni (Catania, 1926); Giovanni Marrone, La schiavitù nella società siciliana dell’età moderna (Caltanisetta–Rome, 1972); Rossella Cancila, ‘Corsa e pirateria nella Sicilia della prima età moderna’, Quaderni storici, 36 (2001), 363–78; Giovanna Fiume, Il santo moro: i processi di canonizzazione di Benedetto da Palermo (1594–1807) (Milan, 2002); Giuseppe Bonaffini, ‘Corsari schiavi siciliani nel Mediterraneo (secoli XVIII–XIX)’, Cahiers de la Méditerranée, 65 (2002), 301–10; Maria Sofia Messana, ‘La “resistenza” musulmana e i “martiri” dell’islam: moriscos, schiavi e cristiani rinnegati di fronte all’inquisizione spagnola di Sicilia’, Quaderni storici, 42 (2007), 743–72; Antonino Giuffrida, ‘La legislazione siciliana sulla schiavitù (1310–1812). Da Arnaldo Villanova al consultore Troysi’, in Alessandro Musco (ed.), I Francescani e la politica. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studio, Palermo 3–7 Dicembre 2002 (Palermo, 2007), pp. 543–59. the descriptions of slavery as a marginal condition elsewhere in Italy are not confirmed by historical research: slaves have turned out to be present more or less everywhere, although they were generally not numerous.13 Bono, Schiavi; Bono, Schiavi musulmani. The difference between Caggio’s comments and those by other authors cannot be explained only by regional differences.

The importance attributed to Christianity in making slavery rare supports the idea that many narratives were ideological and did not mirror social practices. Conversions, in particular, did not play the role suggested by Piccolomini and Tommasi. Rather, things were more or less as De Luca outlined in the late seventeenth century: slavery was forbidden among Christians. This meant that capturing Christians was forbidden. Capturing infidels was allowed. Infidel slaves who converted to the Christian religion would remain slaves.14 De Luca, Il Dottor Volgare, vol. 4, pp. 18–19. In my article ‘Bolognesi schiavi’ (see footnote 48), written when research on conversion was scarce, I tentatively suggested that conversions that took place in the so-called Case dei Catecumeni (institutions encouraging conversion), especially in the Papal State, might imply liberation. Later studies have not confirmed my hypothesis, even though some slaves believed that they would be freed after converting: see Marina Caffiero, ‘Battesimi, libertà e frontiere. Conversioni di musulmani e ebrei a Roma in età moderna’, in Giovanna Fiume (ed.), Schiavitù e conversioni nel Mediterraneo, special issue of Quaderni storici, 42 (2007), 821–41; Pietro Ioly Zorattini, I nomi degli altri. Conversioni a Venezia e nel Friuli Veneto in età moderna (Florence, 2008), p. 33; Peter A. Mazur, ‘Combating “Mohammedan Indecency”: The Baptism of Muslim Slaves in Spanish Naples, 1563–1667’, Journal of Early Modern History, 13 (2009), 25–48; Marconcini, ‘Una presenza nascosta’, 110; Peter A. Mazur, Conversion to Catholicism in Early Modern Italy (New York–London 2016), p. 35; Marina Caffiero, ‘Non solo schiavi. La presenza dei musulmani a Roma in età moderna: il lavoro di un gruppo di ricerca’, in Sara Cabibbo and Alessandro Serra (eds), Venire a Roma, restare a Roma. Forestieri e stranieri fra quattro e settecento (Rome 2017), pp. 291–314. Furthermore, in some circumstances (not mentioned by De Luca) native Christians, too, might be enslaved.15 Sarti, ‘Bolognesi schiavi’; Bono, Schiavi, pp. 53–4. Orthodox Christians subject to Ottoman rule could be captured and kept as slaves; in 1674, the year after the publication of De Luca’s work, the city authorities of Rome allowed people to buy Orthodox Christian slaves.16 Wipertus Rudt de Collenberg, ‘Le baptême des musulmans esclaves à Rome aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, 101 (1989), 9–181, 519–670, here 537. East-European Christians, even Catholics from Poland, captured and trafficked by Tatars and Turks, might arrive in Italy as slaves: in 1628, after requests by the king of Poland to the king of Spain, in the Kingdom of Naples, then under Spanish rule, the trading of Polish slaves was forbidden.17 Ginesio Grimaldi, Istoria delle leggi e magistrati del Regno di Napoli, vol. 10 (Naples, 1772), p. 470. Christians enslaved as rowers by the Ottomans might be kept in slave-like conditions when Western Europeans captured the ships where they served; in theory, this was illegal, but galley slaves might not be able to claim their freedom before a tribunal and/or demonstrate their religion.18 Sarti, ‘Bolognesi schiavi’; Bono, Schiavi, p. 53.

Inconsistencies between representations of Europeans as the protectors of personal liberty and the acknowledgement of the presence of slaves in Europe can be found later and elsewhere, too. In the eighteenth century the heading domestiques in the French Encyclopédie stated that in France there were no slaves, and that all servants were free.19 [Antoine-Gaspard Boucher d’Argis], ‘Domestiques’, in Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 5 (Paris, 1755), p. 29. On the contrary, the heading esclave, after claiming that ‘at the present time all individuals are free’, described legislation that, from 1716 onwards, allowed slaves from the colonies to be brought to France and kept as slaves.20 [Antoine-Gaspard Boucher d’Argis], ‘Esclave’, in Encyclopédie, vol. 5, pp. 939–43. France’s most important court, the Paris Parlement, did not register the measures of 1716 and 1738; thus, the only valid rule within its jurisdiction was the old free-soil principle. From the 1750s, people of African origin who petitioned for their freedom before the court of Paris’s Admiralty were freed: see Peabody, There Are no Slaves. Furthermore, under the heading galérien (convicts condemned to work as rowers on galleys), slaves popped up as an obvious presence: when ‘the convicts are brought to the harbours, they are divided into crews with the slaves’,21 M. Durival, ‘Galérien’, in Enciclopédie, vol. 7 (Paris, 1757), p. 445. the author M. Durival junior explained. Only at the very end of the entry did he explain that the galérien were criminals condemned according to the law, whereas the slaves were ‘men captured during the wars against the infidels’. Durival claimed that, ‘according to the rights of war, they should be considered prisoners, but we reduce them into a kind of slavery because of our right to retaliation’.22 Ibid. See also André Zysberg, Les galériens: Vies et destins de 60 000 forçats sur les galères de France (1680–1748) (Paris, 1991); Gillian Weiss, ‘Infidels at the Oar: A Mediterranean Exception to France’s Free Soil Principle’, Slavery & Abolition, 32 (2011), 397–412.

Similarly, in Britain, the jurist William Blackstone (1723–1780), in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1770), observed that ‘pure and proper slavery does not, nay cannot, subsist in England’, such that ‘an absolute and unlimited power is given to the master over the life and fortune of the slave’. He made it clear that ‘now it is laid down, that a slave or negro, the instant he lands in England, becomes a freeman; that is, the law will protect him in the enjoyment of his person, his liberty, and his property’.23 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. I (Oxford, 1765), chapter 14, p. 411. See also p. 123: ‘And this spirit of liberty is so deeply implanted in our constitution, and rooted even in our very soil, that a slave or a Negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws, and with regard to all natural rights becomes eo instanti a freeman.’ However, in England there were slaves brought from the colonies without becoming free as soon as they breathed the English air. A first important step against slavery in Britain would be made only in 1772, with the well-known sentence by Lord Mansfield.24 William M. Wiecek, ‘Somerset: Lord Mansfield and the Legitimacy of Slavery in the Anglo-American World’, The University of Chicago Law Review, 42 (1974), 86–146; Carolyn Steedman, ‘Lord Mansfield’s Women’, Past and Present, 176 (2002), 105–43; Andrew Lyall, Granville Sharp’s Cases on Slavery (Oxford–London, 2017). Blackstone, besides arguing that proper slavery could not exist in Britain, rejected slavery, stating ‘And indeed it is repugnant to reason, and the principles of natural law, that such a state should subsist anywhere.’25 Blackstone, Commentaries, p. 411. Yet, interestingly, he admitted the existence of something that we cannot define as other than slavery in an ambiguous passage where he spoke of people bound to perpetual service ‘by contract or the like’. Blackstone reconciled the rejection of slavery with the legitimation of uninterrupted perpetual service by presuming that a valid contract or something similar to a contract existed between a (former?) slave and his master, stressing the similarities between such contract and that of an apprentice:

Again, on the one hand there was a general discourse rejecting slavery, while on the other the rejection was not really effective: discourses on slavery show the gap between early modern Europeans’ representation of their civilisation and their practices, even though their notions of freedom might be rather different from ours27 Steinfeld, The Invention, p. 4; Douglas Hay and Paul Craven, Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562–1955 (Chapel Hill, 2004), p. 5. and the distinction between free and unfree people far from clear-cut.