Slave raiding and slave trading in early England

DAVID PELTERET Slaves were an integral and numerically important part of English society in the Anglo-Saxon period.1 They appear in the earliest English law code promulgated between 597 and 616 by iEthelberht of Kent;2 nearly half a millennium later at the beginning of the Norman age their continued widespread presence in English society is attested by Domesday Book.3 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.4 Stenton in his magisterial survey of Anglo-Saxon England made only four references to them.5 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.6 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.7 Both works mention the slave trade.8 This receives a more detailed discussion in H. R. Loyn's economic and social history.9 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
' The following abbreviations are used in this paper: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock = The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Revised Translation, ed. D. Whitelock et al. (London, 1961; rev. 1965); ASC = Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; EHD = English Historical Documents c. joo-1042, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 19 s 5; 2nd ed. 1979); Liebermann, Geset^e ~ Die Geset^e der Angelsachsen, ed. F. Liebermann, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903-16); MGH = Monumenta Germaniae Historica; RS = Rolls Series; Two Chronicles = Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. C. Plummer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892-9). 2 Liebermann, Geset^e 1, 3, 4 and 8, chs. 10, 11, 16, 89 and 90 (text); EHD no. 29. 3 Domesday Book, ed. A. Farley, Record Commission, 2 vols. (London, 1783); for maps showing the distribution of slaves in England according to Domesday Book, see the series The Domesday Geography of England, ed. H. C. Darby et al., 7 vols. (Cambridge, 1952-77). 4 J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England 1 (London, 1849; n e w * rev. W. de G. Birch, 1876), 185227.

F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 314, 476-7, 479 and 5MD. Whitelock, The Beginnings of English Society (Harmondsworth, 1952), esp. pp. 108-14. 7 'Anglo-Saxon England to 1042', The Agrarian History of England and Wales 1.2: AD 4)1042 (Cambridge, 1972), esp. chs. 3, 4 and 7. 8 Whitelock, Beginnings, pp. 111-12, 119-20 and 122; Finberg, Agrarian History, pp. 437, 442 and S7' H. R. Loyn, Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest (London, 1962), pp. 86-9 and 96.
6

99

David Pelteret for many years in his studies on slavery in continental Europe,10 can knowledge about this significant element in English society be advanced.11 The institution of slavery, which was such a distinctive feature of the social and economic life of the ancient world,12 remained one of the more durable legacies bestowed by Rome on the Middle Ages.13 There had been slaves in all parts of the Roman imperium, including Britain.14 But, since the Romans manumitted many of their slaves, numbers needed constantly to be replenished, a demand that was met not just by the conquest of foreign peoples but also through trade with areas well beyond the Roman frontiers. In contrast to the Roman world, slavery seems not to have been an integral element in the social structure of the Germanic peoples living outside the Empire at the time when Tacitus was writing about them. But, whereas some of these peoples simply slaughtered those conquered in war, others seem early to have taken to enslaving captives, presumably because of the demand generated from within the Empire.15 In the continental homelands of the Anglo-Saxons - the Danish peninsula and the coastlands of northern Germany and Holland16 - slaves were probably an important item in trade with the Romans by the first two centuries AD. 17 Thus by the time the Romans relinquished effective control over Britain by withdrawing their legions in 407,l8 the enslavement of captives may be presumed to have been commonly practised by those Germanic peoples that have come to be known as Anglo-Saxons. The Roman withdrawal gave them free rein to pillage and invade Britain just as they had done with such
10

C. Verlinden, UEsclavage dans f Europe midiivalt I: Peninsule lbe'rique-Franee; n : Ita/ie, Colonies italiennes

du Levant, Levant latin, Empire by^antin, Univcrsiteit tc Gent, Wcrken uitgegeven door de Faculteit van de Letteren en Wijsbegeerte 1192nd 162 (Bruges, 1955; Ghent, 1977), as well as numerous articles. " On slavery in England from the time of King Alfred onwards, see my 'Late Anglo-Saxon Slavery: an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Various Forms of Evidence' (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Toronto, 1976). 12 The bibliography on this subject is now voluminous. Two general surveys are R. H. Barrow's Slavery in the Roman Empire (London, 1928) and W. L. Westermann's, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity, Memoirs of the Amer. Philosophical Soc. 40 (Phalidelphia, 1955). 13 Indeed it survived throughout the Middle Ages in the Iberian peninsula and from there was introduced into the New World. See Verlinden, L'Esclavage 1 and D. B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (New York, 1966), pp. 41-6. 14 For references to slaves in Britain, see R. G. Collingwood and R. P. Wright, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain 1 (Oxford, 1965), nos. 21,44s, 7I2> 7<>(')> 9* and 1456. There are also numerous references in the same volume to freedmen, e.g. nos. 15, 74, 143 and 144. 15 E. A. Thompson,' Slavery in Early Germany', Hermatbena 89 (1957X >7~29> es P- 1719; repr. Slavery in Classical Antiquity, ed. M. I. Finley (Cambridge, i960; repr. 1968), pp. 191-203. 16 On the continental homelands of the Germanic invaders of England, see J. N. L. Myres,' The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes', PBA 56 (1970), 145-74. " M. Todd, The Northern Barbarians 100 B.C.-A.D. joo (London, 1975), pp. 37 and 41. 18 The chronology of events in Britain during this period is discussed by E. A. Thompson ('Britain, A.D. 406-410', Britannia 8 (1977), 303-18).

IOO

Slave raiding and slave trading in early

19

"England

devastating effect some forty years earlier. One can draw only the sketchiest outline of the events that took place there over the next two centuries.20 The complete disappearance of Celtic culture from the east and south-east of Britain undoubtedly points to the assimilation or extermination of the Celts in these areas by the invading Germanic settlers, although some probably retreated to the north and west of the country.21 Many Celts in the south-west seem to have migrated to Brittany and even Spain, probably to evade the onslaughts of the Irish.22 But there are traces of the survival of Roman culture23 and both archaeological and literary evidence suggest that Celt and Saxon coexisted in some areas.24 One cannot, therefore, accept without reservation Gildas's description of what happened to the indigenous population in the years preceding 500: 'nonnulli miserarum reliquiarum in montibus deprehensi acervatim iugulabantur: alii fame confecti accedentes manus hostibus dabant in aevum servituri'.25 Nevertheless Gildas was probably not exaggerating when he asserted that
" O n t h e attacks o f 565-7 a n d their c o n s e q u e n c e s , see R. G . C o l l i n g w o o d a n d J . N . L. Myres, Roman Britain and the English Settlements, 2nd ed. ( O x f o r d , 1937), p p . 2 8 4 - 6 , a n d S. Frere, Britannia ( L o n d o n , 1967), p p . 3 5 0 - 9 . The question of the degree of continuity between the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods remains an open one. Archaeology is providing information that shows that the picture is more complex than has hitherto been believed. It is also now realized that the term 'continuity' must be more closely defined, as is stressed by W. Janssen, 'Some Major Aspects of Frankish and Medieval Settlement in the Rhineland', Medieval Settlement: Continuity and Change, ed. P. H. Sawyer (London, 1976), p. 41. For some of the recent findings, see Medieval Settlement and Anglo-Saxon Settlement and Landscape, ed. T. Rowley, BAR 6 (Oxford, 1974). L. Alcockin Arthur''sBritain: History and Archaeology, AD )6j-6)4 (London, 1971) presents a thorough conspectus with an emphasis on archaeological material. But see also D. N. Dumville, 'Sub-Roman Britain: History and Legend', History 62 (1977), 173-92. For the survival of Celts in England, see N. K. Chadwick,' The British or Celtic Part in the Population of England', Angles and Britons: O'Donnell Lectures (Cardiff, 1963), pp. 111-47, a n d 'The Celtic Background of Early Anglo-Saxon England', Celt and Saxon: Studies in the Early British Border, ed. N. K. Chadwick (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 323-52. For the rest of Britain, see M. Faull,' British Survival in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria' and L. Laing,' Segontium and the Post-Roman Occupation of Wales', Studies in Celtic Survival, BAR 37 (Oxford, 1977), 1-55 and 57-60. O n t h e i m m i g r a t i o n o f Celts i n t o Brittany, see N . K . C h a d w i c k , Early Brittany (Cardiff, 1969), p p . 162-237. F r t n e Celtic settlement in Spain, see E . A . T h o m p s o n , ' B r i t o n i a ' , Christianity in Britain, }00-yoo, ed. M . W . Barley a n d R. P. C. H a n s o n (Leicester, 1968), p p . 2 0 1 - 5 . T h e Anonymous Life of St Cuthbert iv.8 (Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert, ed. a n d trans. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1940), p p . 1223), which was written c. 700, mentions h o w the saint was s h o w n the city walls of Carlisle and a well, which were of R o m a n construction. F o r ecclesiastical survivals, see P. A. Wilson, ' T h e Cult of St Martin in t h e British Isles, with Particular Reference t o Canterbury and Candida Casa', lanes Review 19 (1968), 129-43. F o r the likely contemporaneity of late R o m a n and early Anglo-Saxon occupation of A b i n g d o n , see M. Biddle, H . T . Lambrick a n d J. N . L. Myres, ' T h e Early History of A b i n g d o n , Berkshire, and its A b b e y ' , MA 12 (1968), 27 a n d 4 1 . Ine's laws of the late seventh century legislate for b o t h Saxons and Celts. ' A number of the wretched survivors were caught in the mountains and butchered wholesale. Others, their spirit broken by hunger, went to surrender to the enemy; they were fated to be slaves for ever.' Text and translation in Gildas. The Ruin of Britain and other Works, ed. and trans. Michael Winterbottom, Arthurian Period Sources 7 (Chichester, 1978), at pp. 27 and 98.

20

21

22

23

24

25

IOI

David Pelteret enslavement was the lot of many in the fifth century since the non-Germanic peoples that pressed down upon England were also familiar with the institution of slavery.26 The experience of the young St Patrick may be taken as exemplifying what must have been the fate of numerous Romano-Britons. The son of a municipal official, the sixteen-year-old Patrick was seized with many others at his father's country villa somewhere in the south-west of England by raiders.27 Transported to Ireland, he spent the next six years as a slave tending his owner's flocks before managing to escape back to Britain.28 In the following century St Germanus of Paris {ob. 575 x 577) was seeking the redemption of Scottish slaves in France, which suggests that the turbulence caused by the invasions engulfed the whole island.29 There is no firm information on the fate of the indigenous inhabitants of England itself in the sixth century,30 but, since much of the country (except for the south-west and the far north) came totally under Anglo-Saxon control during that period, it is likely that many were enslaved. Nor did the practice cease once the native peoples had been conquered, for war was endemic in Anglo-Saxon England and the various immigrant groups were not averse to preying on each other. An example of the fate of those subjugated through inter-tribal conflicts is given in Bede's account of the Mercian thegn Imma, who was found by the Northumbrians lying on the battlefield after a fight between them and the Mercians in 679.3I Imma pretended to be a poor peasant who was bringing supplies for the soldiery. He later admitted his thegnly status. His captor, who had lost relatives in the battle, felt he deserved to be killed, but nevertheless spared him and instead sold him to a Frisian in London, from whom he was able to redeem himself. The story suggests that among the Anglo-Saxons the fighting men on the losing side were likely to be killed but that those who were not
26

27

28

29

30

31

F o r the early Scots as slave owners, see Adoration's Life ofColumba 79b-8oa, ed. and trans. A. O . and M. O . Anderson ( L o n d o n , 1961), p p . 3 9 8 - 4 0 ; , a n d for the Irish, ibid. 87b-9oa, p p . 4 2 2 - 8 , as well as the n u m e r o u s references to captives in the Annals of Ulster, ed. and trans. W . M. Hennessy iv (Dublin, 1901), Index, s.v. captives. T h e precise dating of Patrick's life is still a vexed question. As L. Bieler points out, St Patrick and the Coming of Christianity, A Hist, of Irish Catholicism 1 (Dublin, 1967), J2, the raid was a major o n e . This suggests that it may have taken place some time after the R o m a n forces left Britain. Bieler suggests (p. 47, n. 5) that Patrick's father was a decurio of G l e v u m (Gloucester) and argues (p. 52, n. 35) that the villa was on the Severn estuary. Bieler, ibid, and R. P. C. Hanson, Saint Patrick: his Origins and Career (Oxford, 1968) list the m o s t important recent studies on Patrick. Confessions 1 and 16, Libri Epistolarum Sancti Patricii Episcopi, ed. L. Bieler, Irish Manuscripts Commission (Dublin, 1952) 1, 56-7 and 65. Venantius Fortunatus, Vita Sancti Germani LXXII (193), M G H , Auct. Antiq. 4.2, ed. B. Krusch (Berlin, 1885), 26. Venantius Fortunatus mentions {ibid.) that in addition to Scotti, other 'contiguae g e n t e s ' besought the saint for freedom from bondage. These included ' B r i t t o ' and ' S a x o ' , w h o may have been the Celts of England and the invading Saxons, b u t the reference might equally be to the Celts of Brittany and to the continental Saxons. Historia Ecclesiastica iv.22, Bedt's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and

R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), pp. 400-5. IO?

Slave raiding and slave trading in early England

warriors would simply have been enslaved,32 a modification of the custom of killing all adult male captives that was practised by some other early Germanic peoples.33 Other sources suggest, however, that captives were held as hostages for ransom (though presumably enslavement was their fate if no one paid for their release). Earlier in the seventh century Filibert, abbot of Jumieges and Noirmoutier, had sent his monks to England to redeem captives,34 and St Richarius also undertook this task when he was in England.35 The sources do not record, however, the status of these captives. Conquest by more powerful neighbours probably accounts for the disappearance from the historical record of many of the minor tribes that appear in the Tribal Hidage26 and in scattered place-names.37 From at least the late sixth century this internecine strife among the Germanic settlers may be said to have been the most productive source of slaves. Many of these would have been captives, but under such unsettled conditions this was by no means the only way in which a man could become a slave. The Poenitentiale Theodori, which, whatever its ultimate date of compilation, drew on sources dating back to the late seventh century, records a variety of grounds for enslavement.38 The fact that it devotesfiveclauses to the marital complications that could ensue from a spouse's being led into captivity shows the impact which this practice had on society at this time. The Poenitentiale also mentions that a father ' necessitate coactus' could sell a son under seven years of age into slavery; after that he had to have the son's permission, presumably up to the age of fourteen, when he could voluntarily enter servitude.39 Certain
32

33 34

35

36

37

38

I suspect that E. John is right in his suggestion that the fighting was usually done by a warrior elite in the early Anglo-Saxon period rather than by all freemen of the tribe including the ceorlas. See 'English Feudalism and the Structure of Anglo-Saxon Society', Orbis Britanniae, Stud, in Early Eng. Hist. 4 (Leicester, 1966), 128-53. Thompson, 'Slavery in Early Germany', p. 21 and n. 14. Vita Filiberti Abbatis Gemeticensis et Heriensis 2 3 , e d . W . L e v i s o n , M G H , Script. R e r . M e r o v . 5 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1910), 596. Levison discusses some of the references to the slave trade in the Vitae of the Merovingian saints, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), pp. ) and 8-9. See also A. Lohaus, Die Merowinger und England, Miinchener Beitrage zur Mediavistik und Renaissance-Forschung 19 (Munich, 1974), 39-42. Vita Richarii Sacerdotis Centulensis Primigenia 7, e d . B . K r u s c h , M G H , Script. R e r . M e r o v . 7 ( H a n o v e r and Leipzig, 1920), 4 4 8 . For a study of the tribal groups mentioned in this document, see W. Davies and H. Vierck, 'The Contexts of Tribal Hidage: Social Aggregates and Settlement Patterns', FS 8 (1974), 223-93. Miss Davies (p. 227) assigns it a date of 670 x 690, though it should be noted that others consider it to be a product of the second half of the eighth century; see, e.g., C. Hart, 'The Tribal Hidage', TRHS 5th ser. 21 (1971), 133 J7, and 'The Kingdom of Mercia', Mercian Studies, ed. A. Dornier (Leicester, 977), PP- 43-6i. Some of these are discussed by E. Ekwall (' Tribal Names in English Place-Names', Namn och Bygd 4i (i95 3). 29-77)T h e m o s t c o n v e n i e n t l y accessible text is Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs m (Oxford, 1871), 176-203 and trans. J. T. McNeill and H. M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance, Columbia Univ. Records of Civilization, Sources and Stud. 29 (New York, 1938), 182-215, with a review of the scholarship on the text and its dating at pp. 179-82. si Poenitentiale Theodori 11.12.20-4 and 11.13.1-2. 103

David Pelteret crimes are also mentioned as cause for enslavement: removal of a monk from his monastery, theft and fornication.40 Two of the late-seventh-century law codes confirm this. According to the legal code promulgated by Wihtred of Kent in 695, freemen caught in the act of stealing could be sold ' ofer sx' if the king so decided.41 And penal servitude is implied in Ine's laws, which had been issued in Wessex a few years earlier, where, however, the sale of a fellow countryman across the sea ']?eah he scyldig sie' ('even though he be guilty') was proscribed.42 Slaves were potentially troublesome possessions, whether penally enslaved or captives. If they could not be redeemed, it could be more profitable to dispose of them abroad, where they could be exchanged for goods not otherwise available. Just as the continental Germans had exported their slaves to the Roman Empire, so the Anglo-Saxons exported their slaves across the seas. Perhaps the best-known evidence of this trade lies in Bede's account of the meeting Gregory the Great had with some Anglian slave boys in a market in Rome, an event that is alleged to have prompted his missionary interest in England.43 The story may, in fact, be no more than a pious fiction composed by some Northumbrian monk,44 but a letter of Gregory's, which possibly suggested the story to someone, proves that the pope was aware of the existence of such Anglo-Saxon slaves on the continent. In September 595 he gave instructions to his priest, Candidus, to buy 'pueri Angli' who were for sale in southern Gaul.45 This was probably at Marseilles, a major centre for the trade.46 It was there, according to the Vita Eligii, that St Eligius (Eloi), who was to become bishop of Noyon in 641, freed many persons of diverse nationality, including Saxons.47 It may be assumed, however, that such slaves could be found in other major towns in Merovingian Gaul in the seventh century. For instance, the most famous of all Anglo-Saxon slaves, Balthild, wife of Clovis II (63957) and patroness of monasteries, is unlikely to have been purchased in the south.48 She was bought for a very small sum as a
40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47

48

Ibid. 1.5.1 a n d 11.12.8. W i h t r e d 26, L i e b e r m a n n , Gcset^e 1, 14 (text); EHD n o . 31 (translation). Ine 11, Liebermann, Geset^e 1, 94-5 (text); EHD n o . 32 (translation). Historia Ecclesiastica 11.1. T h e story is told also by the a n o n y m o u s biographer of Gregory, w h o , h o w e v e r , does n o t describe them as slaves. See The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Lawrence, K a n . , 1968), p p . 9 0 - 1 . Colgrave makes this conjecture in Tbe Earliest Life, at p . 145, n. 43. Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents ill, 5. O n Marseilles, see Verlinden, L'Esclapage 1, 670. Vita Eligii Episcopi Noviomagtnsis 1.10, ed. B. Krusch, M G H , Script. Rer. Merov. 4 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1902), 677. Krusch (ibid. n. 3), considers the Saxons referred to as being of English rather than of continental origin. Vita Sanctae Baltbildis, ed. B. Krusch, M G H , Script. Rer. Merov. 2 (Hanover, 1888), 482-508. On Balthild, see 1. L. Nelson, ' Q u e e n s as Jezebels: the Careers of Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History', Medieval Women, ed. Derek Baker, Stud, in Church Hist., Subsidia 1 (Oxford, 1978), 3'"77104

Slave raiding and slave trading in early England

household slave for Herchinoald, a mayor of the palace.49 After her elevation in status she in turn purchased the release of captives, particularly men and women of her own nation, whom she then introduced to the monastic life.50 It is probable that she bought these persons in northern and central France, especially since the monasteries that she established were near Paris and in Picardy. Other English captives were to be found yet further north in the still pagan Low Countries. St Amandus, the Angevin missionary bishop, is reported to have ransomed 'captivi vel pueri transmarini' in the course of his work around Ghent; these presumably were of English origin.51 The cumulative effect of this evidence is to suggest that slaves from England were to be found on the continent in large numbers and, as the Poenitentiale Theodori and the codes of Wihtred and Ine show, this trade continued throughout the seventh century. These slaves are likely to have entered servitude for diverse reasons. The largest number were probably captives, though the evidence may have been in some measure distorted because the freeing of captives seems to have been a literary motif in the Merovingian saints' lives, which provide so much of the information on slaves in this period.52 It should be remembered, therefore, that debt and penal slaves also ran the risk of being exported abroad. Though captor may often have turned trader, the sources hint that at this early period there were two groups of people who primarily filled this latter role. First, there were the Frisians. The Frisian trader who bought Imma is unlikely to have been exceptional. The Frisians are known to have been middle-men in trade and there is no reason to believe that they would have avoided trafficking in men.53 There was a Frisian colony in York in the middle of the eighth century54 and other trading links existed between England and Frisia.55 Another group of traders were the Jews. In some of his letters Gregory the Great mentions Jewish slavers operating in northern Gaul.56
4

Vita Sanclae Ba/thildis, p. 483. Ibid. p. 494. St Ansgar, bishop of Bremen and Hamburg, is reported later to have done the same in northern Europe; see Vita Sane/:Ansharii 15 (cf. 56 and 38), ed. C. F. Dahlmann, MGH, Scriptores 2 (Hanover, 1829), 700, 720 and 721 (text); Anskar, the Apostle of the North, S01-S6;, trans. C. H. Robinson, Lives of Early and Mediaeval Missionaries [1] (London, 1921), 56, 116 and 118-19. sl Vita Amandi Episcopi 1.9, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, Script. Rer. Merov. 5, 43). " Cf. Levison, England and the Continent, p. 9. See also Vita Sancti Germani LXXII (192-6), which is not mentioned by Levison. 13 Wandalbert in his Miracula Sancti Goaris 28 mentions a Frisian trader whose boat was pulled upstream along the Rhine by slaves with ropes from the bank, which shows that the Frisians themselves at least possessed slaves: MGH, Scriptores 15.1, ed. O. Holder-Egger (Hanover, 1888), 370. 54 D. Jellema, 'Frisian Trade in the Dark Ages', Speculum 30 C1955)> M~}6> at 31. 55 Ibid.pp. ij~36;G. C. Homans, 'The Frisians in East Anglia', EconHR, 2nd ser. 10(1957-8), 189-206; P. V. Hill, 'Anglo-Frisian Trade in the Light of Eighth-Century Coins', Trans, of the London and Middlesex Archaeol. Soc. 14 (1958), 1 3 8 - 5 6 . 56 The matter comes up in two identical letters of July 599, one sent to Queen Brunichild and the other to Theodoric and Theodebert, kings of the Franks; text in MGH, Epistolae 2, ed. L. M. Hartmann (Berlin, 1899), at 199-200 (ix.203) and 203 (ix.21)).
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David Pelteret They were well known as slave traders in the western Mediterranean and it would have been natural for them to have extended their operations to Britain, particularly as there was a ready market for slaves in Gaul.57 The hegemony of the Mercians under Offa in the late eighth century might have been expected to have inhibited inter-tribal raiding, thereby reducing the number of persons from this source traded abroad. But the closing decades of the century witnessed a new source of social upheaval: the appearance of Viking raiders on English shores.58 The Vikings are well attested as slavers in Europe. Their raids took them all over the continent, including its eastern and southern extremities. Slaves of Slavonic origin, for instance, were regularly used by them as a major trading item with Islamic merchants in eastern Europe. 59 As for the south, one record tells of them even going as far as Makhor in Mauretania, where they took captives,60 and they captured men in raids on Spain in 844 and in 859 x 861. Although some of the latter were ransomed, not all were so fortunate: a number of Moors taken during the second attack on Spain ended up in Ireland.61 According to the sagas, Ireland itself was a source of slaves for the Vikings, as was Scotland.62 And once the Vikings settled in Ireland they used it as a base to make further raids on Britain.63 Thus in 871 Olafr the White and Ivarr the Boneless returned to Dublin 'et preda maxima hominum Anglorum et Britonum et Pictorum deducta est secum ad Hiberniam in captivitate'.64 The nature of the sources is such that there is not much hard information on the situation in England, but it can be assumed that many of the conquered were enslaved. There is, for instance, a report that Guthfrith, king of Northumbria, was originally
57

Cf. a b o v e , n n . 46 a n d 47. O n the J e w s as traders, see Verlinden. L'Esdavage 1, 6 7 2 - 7 . ASC 787 A E F ( = 789): Two Chronicles 1, 54-5; The Chronicle of JEtbelveard, ed. A. Campbell (London, 1962), pp. 26-7. 5 ' S. Bolin, 'Mohammed, Charlemagne and Ruric', Scandinavian Economic Hist. Rev. 1 (1953), 30, and references there cited; P. H. Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings, 2nd ed. (London, 1971), pp. 193-4. 60 The Arabic source for this reports that the attack took place in 761, which would seem to be a century too early, though the data has been defended by A. Melvinger (Lts Premieres Incursions des Vikings en Occident d'apres les sources arabes (Uppsala, 1955), pp. 12964). 61 For the texts and a discussion of the attacks on Spain, see R. Dozy, Recherches sur t"bistoire et la litterature de I'Espagnependant le moyenage, 3rd ed. (Paris and Leiden, 1881) 11, 250-86, and Jon Stefansson, 'The Vikings in Spain. From Arabic (Moorish) and Spanish Sources ',SBVS 6 (1909-10), 31-46. For Moors in Ireland, see Annals of Ireland: Three Fragments copied from Ancient Sources by Dubbaltach Mac Firbisigb, ed. and trans. J. O'Donovan (Dublin, i860), pp. 15863. 62 For some convenient translations from saga sources of references to the capture of slaves in Ireland and Scotland, see Early Sources of Scottish History A.D. joo to 12S6, trans. A. O. Anderson 1 ( E d i n b u r g h , 1922), 3 3 5 , 345, 3 6 1 , n . 3, a n d 384. 63 B. G. Charles, Old Norse Relations with Wales (Cardiff, 1934), pp. 34-7; E. I. Bromberg, 'Wales and the Mediaeval Slave Trade', Speculum 17 (1942), 265. On the Vikings of Ireland as slavers, see A . P . S m y t h , Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles S;o-SSo ( O x f o r d , 1977), p p . 1 5 4 - 6 8 . 64 'and a great multitude of men, English, Britons and Picts, were brought by them to Ireland, in captivity', Annals of Ulster 1, 384-5, s.a. 870; Smyth, Scandinavian Kings, p. 154.
58

106

Slave raiding and slave trading in early England

the slave of a widow to whom he had been sold by the Danes,65 though the legends that gathered round this man make it next to impossible to separate fact from fiction.66 The Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, drawn up c. 886, records that both West Saxons and Danes agreed not to harbour the other's runaway slaves, which shows the social instability that existed.67 The attacks of the Vikings shattered the power of the non-West Saxon peoples of England. As for Wessex, it had already started its gradual rise to ascendancy under Egbert (802-39). Among his conquests was the subjugation of Cornwall.68 There is linguistic evidence that suggests that this conquest, and possibly also the further integration of the area into the West Saxon kingdom that took place nearly a century later under Athelstan, led to the enslavement of many of the indigenous Celts. From the tenth century West Saxon texts unambiguously use the world wealb in the sense ' a slave', whereas formerly it had denoted 'a Celt'.69 This shift in meaning from a term denoting national origin to one indicating legal status shows the same semantic shift that is represented in the Modern English words ' Slav' and 'slave'. 70 Large-scale enslavement resulting from the conquest of the last remaining major pocket of Celts in southern England seems to be the only reasonable explanation for this change. Alfred the Great's successors in the tenth century further enhanced the power of Wessex. During this period men were seized by Scandinavian and Saxon alike. The A.nglo-Saxon Chronicle records that captives were taken by Vikings in 917 and 940.7I On the other hand, Edward the Elder led a combined West Saxon and Mercian force against the Danes in the north in 909 and 'heo gehergade swiSe micel on ]?aem norS here, aegSer ge on mannum ge on
65 66 67 68

70 71

Simeon o f D u r h a m , Historia Dumlmensis Ecclesiae, Sjmeonis Monacbi Opera Omnia, ed. T . A r n o l d , R S 75.1 ( L o n d o n , 1882), 6 8 ; Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, ibid. p . 203. T h e s e a r e reviewed by J . C. H . R. Steenstrup (Normanmrne 11 ( C o p e n h a g e n , 1878), 93-103). Liebermann, Geset^e 1, 128, ch. 5 (text); EHD n o . 34 (translation). O n relations b e t w e e n Cornwall a n d Wessex, see W . G . H o s k i n s , Tie Westward Expansion of Wessex, Univ. o f Leicester, D e p t o f E n g . Local Hist., Occasional Papers 13 (Leicester, i960), a n d H . P . R. F i n b e r g , ' S h e r b o r n e , G l a s t o n b u r y , a n d the E x p a n s i o n o f W e s s e x ' , Lucerna ( L o n d o n , 1964), pp. 95-115. M . L. Faull, ' T h e Semantic D e v e l o p m e n t of O l d English Wealb', Leeds Stud, in Eng. 8 (1976 for 1975), 2 0 - 4 4 , provides a valuable study o f t h e evidence, t h o u g h I a m n o t in agreement with all h e r conclusions. It is questionable, for example, w h e t h e r t h e wealb o f I n e 23.3 should be regarded as a slave: t h o u g h beating w a s a p u n i s h m e n t usually imposed only o n slaves, it is conceivable that it m i g h t in Wessex have b e e n extended t o t h e subjugated Celtic p o p u l a t i o n . I t s h o u l d b e noted that wealb in the sense ' s l a v e ' appears only o n c e in a n o n - W e s t Saxon text, t h e C a m b r i d g e guild regulations {Diplomatarium Anglicum fcvi Saxonici, ed. a n d trans. B . T h o r p e ( L o n d o n , 186)), p p . 6 1 1 - 1 2 ; translation also, EHD no. 136). This does not date from before the second half of the tenth century ( N . R. K e r , Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon ( O x f o r d , 1957), p . 36). C. V e r l i n d e n , ' L ' O r i g i n e d e sclavus = e s c l a v e ' , Arch'wum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 17 (1942), 9 7 - 1 2 8 . ASC 920 A ( = 917) and 943 D ( = 940): Two Chronicles 1, 101-2 and 111. On the dating, see ibid. 11, 116 and EHD no. 1, n. to years 940-3, respectively.

107

David Pelteret gehwelces cynnes yrfe'. Though the Viking threat abated for a while in the middle of the century, the internal slave trade evidently did not cease. Possibly because the normal sources of slaves had temporarily dried up, the two references to the sale of slaves during the reign of Edgar both concern persons already of servile status who had been stolen and then sold. In the one instance, recorded in Lantfred of Winchester's Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni, a slave-woman stolen in the north was subsequently sold in Winchester.73 In the second instance the stealing of a slave in Ieceslea (perhaps Yaxley, Huntingdonshire) led to a court case in which the thief eventually lost his lands.74 With the renewed Viking incursions in the reign of ^Ethelred slave raiding and the sale of men abroad once more became a prominent feature of the times so much so, in fact, that it even provided a handy literary theme for a continental poet, Warner of Rouen.75 In a verse satire written perhaps 1015 x 1024 Warner tells of the peregrinations and misadventures of one Moriuht, a Celtic poet probably of Irish origin, who together with his wife was captured by some Danes.76 He was then sold at a market called by the poet Corbric, which presumably was Corbridge, once the site of a Northumbrian royal residence and in the tenth century a contact-point between the Northern Scots, the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians of the kingdom of York.77 At Corbridge he was purchased by a monastery of women.78 Here he had an outlet for his carnal proclivities but when his behaviour became known he was forced to flee. Once more he was captured by Danes, who sold him to a widow in an unnamed continental Saxon market.79 After seducing her he left Germania and eventually found his wife enslaved to a poor man in a town near Rouen. He redeemed her and took her to Rouen, where he claimed to be a grammarian and wrote poor verse in honour of the archbishop, Hugo. 80 Warner's Latin style reveals affinities with contemporary Anglo-Saxon Latin
72 73 74

72

75

76

77 78 70 80

'it ravaged very severely the territory of the northern army, both men and all kinds of cattle', ASC 909 AB, 91 o CD: Two Chroniclts I, 94-6 (text); Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, p. 61 (translation). Miracula Sancti Swithuni 11.23-8, Ada Sanctorum, Julii I, 297. Anglo-Saxon Charters, e d . A . J. R o b e r t s o n , 2 n d e d . ( C a m b r i d g e , 1956), n o . 4 4 , p p . 9 0 - 3 . O n Ieceslea, see ibid. p . 336. O n Warner^see L. M u s s e t , ' Le Satiriste G a m i e r de Rouen et son milieu (debut de X I e siecle)', Revue du Moytn Age Latin 10 (1954), 237-58. H . O m o n t , 'Satire de G a m i e r de R o u e n contre le poete Moriuht. ( X e - X I e siecle)', Annuaire-Bulletin de la Socie'te de /'Histoirc de France 31 (1894), 193210. Musset, ' Le Satiriste Gamier', pp. 250-1. For references to a monasterium at Corbridge in primary sources, see ibid. p. 251, n. 41. Musset {ibid. p. 251) mentions Hamburg, Bremen or Hedeby as possible places. Musset {ibid. p. 252, n. 43, and p. 253) feels that it is probable that the poetry was written after Hugo's death in 989 and that Moriuht did not arrive in Normandy before the end of the century.

IO8

Slave raiding and slave trading in early England literature81 and it is not unlikely that he was reasonably well informed on English affairs, particularly as he lived in an important trading town situated close to the English coastline.82 Though one can dismiss as vulgar nights of fancy the imbroglios arising out of Moriuht's personality, there is nothing improbable about some elements in Warner's account. Both the historical importance of Corbridge and its strategic geographical setting would have made it a suitable market town in the late tenth century. And, as has already been seen from Bede and the Miracula of St Swithun, captives could be traded far from their place of origin. What is perhaps more important is Warner's emphasis on the Danes as the source of Moriuht's misfortunes. It is also informative that he does not regard it as unusual for Moriuht's wife to have been a slave in Normandy. As Musset points out, domestic slavery in Normandy had been suspected from a number of allusions in literary sources; mention of it by Warner proves that it was known in this area as in some other parts of France.83 This is hardly surprising since in the tenth century Rouen was a major trading-point for goods including slaves seized by the Vikings.84 Musset, in fact, considers it to have been one of the principal markets for slaves in the west.85 It was certainly a very convenient location for pirates to offload captives taken in raids along the English coastline. From an Anglo-Saxon perspective the disruptions of the period round the turn of the millennium receive their most vivid expression in Wulfstan's Sermo ad Anglos, composed c. 1014:86 And oft \>rx\ pasne )>egen )>e aer wjes his hlaford cnyt swype fseste 7 wyrcS him to )raele J>urh Godes yrre...Oft twegen saemen o88e fry hwilum drifaS ]?a drafe cristenra manna fram sae to sae ut purh pas peode gewelede togasdere, us eallum to woroldscame, gif we on eornost asnige cupon ariht understandan. Ac ealne J?aene bysmor \>e. we oft ]?olia6 we gyldaS mid weorSscipe }?am ]?e us scendaS. We him
81 82

83 84

85

86

M. Lapidge, ' T h r e e Latin P o e m s from /Hthelwold's School at Winchester', ASE i (1972), 1 0 1 - 2 . O n the possible literary links b e t w e e n the t w o areas, see L. Musset, ' Rouen et PAngleterre vers l'an mil', Annales de Normandie 24 (1974), 2 8 7 - 9 0 . Musset, ' L e Satiriste G a m i e r ' , p. 253 and n. 47. O n the importance o f R o u e n during this period, see L. W. B r e e s e , ' T h e Persistence o f Scandinavian Connections in N o r m a n d y in the T e n t h and Early E l e v e n t h Centuries', Viator 8 (1977), 5 j6. L. Musset, ' L a Seine normande et le c o m m e r c e maritime d u I I I e au X I e siecle', Revue des Socie'te's Lettres et Sciences Humaines 53 (1969), 9, where other references t o this Savantes de Haute-Normandie, trade at Rouen in the tenth century are given. Musset implies that the slave trade died out in this area in the first half of the eleventh century. But William of Poitiers mentions that after Earl Harold had been captured in France c. 1064 he could have been sold, which suggests that the trade persisted well into the middle of the century; see Histoire de Guillaume le Conquirant, 41, ed. R. Foreville (Paris, 1952), 102, and cf. H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Governance 0} Mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 121, n. 5. On the date of the first composition of the homily, see Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, ed. D . Whitelock, 3rd cd. (London, 1963), p. 6.

109

David Pelteret gyldaS singallice, 7 hy us hynaS dseghwamlice. Hy hergiaS 7 hy bxrna6, rypa)? 7 reafiaS 7 to scipe laedaS; 7 la, hwaet is asnig ooer on eallum J'am gelimpum butan Godes yrre ofer )?as )?eode, swutol 7 gesaene?87 The rhetoric is that of the Old Testament and Gildas,88 but it expresses a genuine concern for all that. Above all, Wulfstan opposed the sale of men outside the country, as can be seen by its frequent proscription in the law codes promulgated under his influence during the reigns of ifLthelred and Cnut.89 In the reign of Cnut many of these slaves were, as might be expected, destined for Denmark, as William of Malmesbury reports (indeed he asserts that Cnut's sister was behind the trade).90 How long into the eleventh century this particular slave market was catered for is unknown, but Scandinavian attacks continued into the Norman period.91 The biography of Gruffudd ap Cynan tells how Hugh, earl of Chester, outwitted a band of Danes seeking slaves: Eno hagen, ydd oeddynt y bratwyr anudonol o'r Daenysseit a vredychessynt Ruffudd yn aros yr eddiweideon a addawsei Hu uddunt, a cheith o wyr a gwragedd, o weisseon a morynnyon. Ag ynteu a'e talws uddunt hwy megisffyddlawny anffyddlawn, yn y kadarnhaei dwywawl lunyeth; kanys neu ry ddaroedd iddaw ar ehang kynullaw holl wrachiot mantach, krwm, kloff, unllygeityawg, gormessawl, diallu, ag eu kynnig uddunt ym pwyth eu bradwryaeth. A phan welsant wynteu hynny, gillwng eu llynghes a wnaethant a chyrchu y dyfynfor parth ag Ywerddon.92
87

' A n d often a slave b i n d s very fast t h e thegn w h o previously was his master and makes him into a

88

slave through God's anger.. .Often two seamen, or maybe three, drive the droves of Christian men from sea to sea, out through this people, huddled together, as a public shame to us all, if we could seriously and rightly feel any shame. But all the insult which we often suffer we repay with honouring those who insult us; we pay them continually and they humiliate us daily; they ravage and they burn, plunder and rob and carry on board; and lo, what else is there in all these events except God's anger clear and visible over this people?' The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. D. Bethurum (Oxford, 1957). PP271-2, lines 117-28 (text); EHD no. 240 (translation). The driving from sea to sea looks as if it has been borrowed from Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae 24: 'Confovebatur namque ultionis iustae praecedentium scelerum causa de mari usque ad mare ignis orientali sacrilegorum manu exaggeratus' ('In just punishment for the crimes that had gone before, a fire heaped up and nurtured by the hand of the impious easterners spread from sea to sea'). Text and translation in Gildas. The Ruin of Britain, pp. 27 and 97. The theme of the enslavement of the inhabitants caused by God's wrath toward them is probably derived from the same source; cf. above,
n. 2 5 .

80

V /Ethelred z, VI yEthelred 9, VII jEthelred ; and II Cnut 3. The first two clauses perhaps imply that it was still permissible to sell persons guilty of crime out of the country, but no exceptions are made in the later codes. On Wulfstan's role in these codes, see D. Whitelock, 'Wulfstan and the Laws of Cnut', EHR 63 (1948), 444-52, and 'Wulfstan's Authorship of Cnut's Laws', EHR 70 (195 5), 7285; K. Sisam, Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), pp. 278-87; and

A Wulfstan Manuscript, containing Institutes, Laws and Homilies: British Museum Cotton Nero A. 1, ed.
00

"
92

H. R. Loyn, EEMF 17 (Copenhagen, 1971), 48-9. De Gestis Regum Anglorum 11.200, ed. W. Stubbs, RS 90.1 (London, 1887), 245. ASC 1069 DE and 1076 D ( = 1075), 1075 E. There was also a late pre-Conquest raid on Sandwich and Essex in 1048 in which men were seized {ASC 1046 E ( = 1048)). Historia Gruffudvab Kenan, ed. D. Simon Evans (Cardiff, 1977), p. 27. 'Then, moreover, the perjured traitors of Danes who betrayed G ruffyd were expecting the promises which Hugo had promised them, IIO

Slave raiding and slave trading in early England The passage provides an interesting insight into the human values of the time. The political disruptions in late Anglo-Saxon England also led some into captivity, from which enslavement was a possible consequence. After the unfortunate iEtheling Alfred had been taken captive in 1036 some of his companions were sold by Earl Godwine.93 When Earl Harold landed in the West Country from Ireland in 1052, the Chronicle states, 'nam him on orfe 7 on mannum 7 on aehtum swa him gewearS',94 and, though he and his father were subsequently reconciled with the king, it cannot be assumed that the captured men regained their freedom. And in 1065, when a force of Northumbrians travelled south to Northampton in order to seek recognition from King Edward of Morcar as their earl, it is reported 'fela hund manna hi namon 7 laeddon norS mid heom swa ]?et seo scyre 7 )?a oSra scyre ]?e pasr neh sindon wurdon fela wintra pe wyrsan'.95 From the middle of the eleventh century the 'Celtic fringe' began making predatory raids on England. In 1055 King Griffith ap Llewelyn of Wales joined the outlawed Earl JEKgat in a raid on Hereford and carried off some of the inhabitants.96 Incursions from Wales must have continued, for in 1081 an army under William's leadership liberated 'fela hund manna' there.97 And in the north-east Malcolm took many captives back to Scotland after a raid in 1079.98 The institution of slavery did not end in England with the coming of the Normans but their growing power over the country did provide the means necessary to bring the trading in slaves to an eventual halt.99 Leading churchmen appear to have been instrumental in exerting the pressure necessary to cause the demise of the trade. It is useful, therefore, at this point briefly to survey the attitudes held by the church towards slavery during this period. Thoughout the Anglo-Saxon era churchmen were ambivalent in their views on slavery. This is highlighted by a letter written sometime before 712
and captives of men, women, youths and maidens; and he paid them like a faithful man to the unfaithful, confirming the divine ordinance, for he had succeeded in collecting all the toothless, deformed, lame, one-eyed, troublesome, feeble hags and offered them in return for their treachery. When they saw this they loosened their fleet, and made for the deep towards Ireland' (The History of Gruffyd ap Cynan, ed. and trans. Arthur Jones, Publ. of the Univ. of Manchester, Hist. Ser. 9 (Manchester, 1910), 149). ASC 1036 C. 54 'he seized for himself what came his way in cattle, men, and property', ASC 1052 E: Two Chronicles 1, 178 (text); Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, p. 124 (translation). 95 ' [they] captured many hundreds of people and took them north with them, so that that shire and other neighbouring shires were the worse for it for many years', ASC 1064 E ( = IO6J): Two Chronicles 1, 192 (text); Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, p. 138 (translation). 6 ASC ioji C. ' ASC 1081 E. ASC 1079 E. " The disappearance of slavery from England was a complex process. For a discussion, see Loyn, Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest, pp. 350-1, and Pelteret, 'Late Anglo-Saxon Slavery', pp. 384-90. 100 Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lul/us no. 7, ed. M. Tangl, MGH, Epist. Sel. 1 (Berlin, 1916), 2 (text); EHD no. 166 (translation). 111

David Pelteret by Berhtwald, archbishop of Canterbury, to Forthhere, bishop of Sherborne, in which the latter was asked to seek the release of a Kentish girl, Eppa.100 She was a captive of apparently aristocratic rank101 belonging to the abbot of Glastonbury, who was loath to release her. Over three and a half centuries later the abbot's successor continued to own slaves, possessing in Somerset alone some 108 in 1086 according to Domesday Book.102 On the other hand, there was a long tradition of opposition to the sale of slaves abroad because, no doubt, there was the strong risk that such persons would be sold to pagans and thus lost to Christ's flock.103 As has been seen, the practice had already been proscribed by Ine's legislation and the church similarly showed its opposition by imposing penances on those guilty of the crime.104 It was in all probability these precedents that prompted Wulfstan to employ legislation and penitential discipline as a means of opposing the practice in the early eleventh century.105 Though the church had from the time of the Roman Empire encouraged the freeing of men by the laity as an act of piety, there is no evidence that ecclesiastics opposed the institution of slavery as such at any point during the Middle Ages.106 The opposition to slavery by churchmen after the coming of the Normans was clearly based on the traditional opposition to the sending of slaves abroad. A vigorous crusader against this trade was the Anglo-Saxon bishop of Worcester, Wulfstan, who focused his attention on the Bristol market, which proved particularly hard to close. The Vita Wulfstani mentions that it had been a long-standing custom for persons brought from all over England to be transported to Bristol for eventual sale to Ireland: 'Videres et gemeres concathenatos funibus miserorum ordines, et utriusque sexus
101

As D. Whitelock points out (EHD no. 166), her ransom money was equivalent to the wergeld of a person of the highest status in Kent. 102 E x o n D o m e s d a y I 7 3 t ; t h e figure in t h e E x c h e q u e r version is slightly lower. 103 See the letters cited above, n. ;6. 104 E.g. Pope Gregory III, in a letter written in 732, condemned the practice and prescribed a penance equivalent to that for homicide: Die Brie/e des Heiligtn Bonifatius und Lul/us no. 28, lines 18-23. 105 v i l ^Ethelred 5 in particular implies that penitential discipline should be imposed. The sale of men abroad is condemned also in a handbook for the use of a confessor which its editor considers Wulfstan might have had compiled. SeeR. Fowler, 'A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor', Anglia 83(i96j),i2and26. On the general relationship between penitential discipline and Anglo-Saxon law, see T. P . Oakley, English Penitential Discipline and Anglo-Saxon Lav in their joint Influence, Stud, in Hist., E c o n o m i c s and Public L a w edited by t h e Faculty of Political Science of Columbia Univ. 107.2 ( N e w Y o r k , 1933). 106 Cf. G . E . M . de Ste Croix's observation, ' I k n o w of n o general, outright condemnation of slavery inspired by a Christian outlook, before the petition of the mennonites of G e r m a n t o w n in Pennsylvania in 1688', ' E a r l y Christian Attitudes to P r o p e r t y and Slavery', Church Society and Politics, ed. Derek Baker, Stud, in Church Hist. 12 (Oxford, 1975), 24. E v e n A . W . Rupprecht, an evangelical Christian apologist, does n o t claim that t h e early Fathers ever sought the abolition of slavery (' Attitudes o n Slavery a m o n g t h e Church Fathers', New Dimensions in New Testament Study, ed. R. N . Longenecker and M . C. T e n n e y ( G r a n d Rapids, Mich., 1974), p p . 261-77). F r t r i e views of the early and medieval c h u r c h , see also R. W . L o g a n , ' T h e Attitude of the Church toward Slavery prior t o 1500', Jnl of Negro Hist. 17 (1932), 46680, and Davis, The Problem of Slavery, p p . 83-106. 112

Slave raiding and slave trading in early England

adolescentes; qui liberali forma, etate integra, barbaris miserationi essent, cotidie prostitui, cotidie venditari'.107 These were, presumably, not just those captured in raids, but slaves of all origins. Young people would be the most suitable because they would command the best prices. With assiduous preaching St Wulfstan managed to stop the practice. Either he or Lanfranc brought pressure to bear on the somewhat reluctant Conqueror to outlaw the whole Anglo-Irish slave trade.108 Presumably William was loath to lose the profitable tolls that he gained from the sale of these unfortunates: fourpence was paid him as toll on every slave sold.109 The proscription against the trade recorded in the Willelmi articuli presumably reflects William's legislative action." 0 The slave trade itself was finally completely outlawed in England at the Westminster Council of 1102, which in its twenty-eighth canon ruled:' Nequis illud nefarium negotium quo hactenus homines in Anglia solebant velut bruta animalia venundari deinceps ullatenus facere praesumat.' 1 " It should be noted that this does not prohibit slavery per se, but it nevertheless marks a significant shift in moral attitudes in that it proscribes all trading in men without qualification. The political disorders during Stephen's reign, however, permitted renewed slave raids from outside the country to take place. Richard of Hexham records that after a battle between the English and the Scots at Clitheroe in 113 8 captives were taken back to Scotland to serve there as slaves or to be traded for cattle.112 The A.nnals of Loch Ce record that in the same year an Irish raiding party went into ' the north of Saxan' (presumably Westmorland) and took countless persons captive.113 Ireland, in fact, continued to supply
107

'You might well groan to see the long rows of young men and maidens whose beauty and youth might move the pity of the savage, bound together with cords, and brought to market to be sold.' The Vita Wulfstani of William ofMalmesbury 11.20, ed. R. R. Darlington, Camden Soc. 3rd ser. 40 (London, 1928), 43-4 (text); Life of St Wulstan, Bishop fijWorcester, trans. J. H. F. Peile (Oxford, 1934), pp. 64-5 (translation).
De Cestis Kegum Anglorum i n . 2 6 9 , p. 329.

108

I0

* This was the amount paid at Lewes according to Domesday Book 26r. The same amount was paid on a woman bought and subsequently released at Bodmin: text, M. Forster,' Die Freilassungsurkunden des Bodmin-Evangeliars', A Grammatical Miscellany offered to Otto Jespersen, ed. N. Bogholm, A. Brussendorff and C. A. Bodelsen (Copenhagen, 1930), p. 91, no. xxx. 110 Willelmi I articuli X. 9, Liebermann, Geset^e 1, 488 (text); English Historical Documents II: 1042-118$, ed. D. C. Douglas and G. W. Greenaway (London, 1953). n o ' '8, p. 400 (translation). 111 * That no one is henceforth to presume to carry on that shameful trading whereby heretofore men used in England to be sold like brute beasts.' Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. M. Rule, RS 81 (London, 1884), 143 (text); Eadmer's History of Recent Events in England, trans. G. Bosanquet (London, 1964), p. 152 (translation). The paragraph division is that given Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ed. D. Wilkins (London, 1737) 1, 383. 112 De Gestis Regis Stepbani, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. R. Howlett, RS 82.3 (London, 1884), 156. 113 The Annals of Loch Ce, s.a. 1138, ed. and trans. W. M. Hennessy, RS 541 (London, 1871), 139. Hennessy's interpretation (p. 138, n. 3) of the Irish phrase as referring to 'the north of England, or Northumberland' seems a little imprecise.

"3

David Pelteret a ready market for men well into the twelfth century and illicit trade, piratical incursions and even kidnapping sought to satisfy this demand. Hermann the Monk mentions that when he and his party visited Bristol in the early twelfth century he was warned that it was a practice of Irish traders suddenly to up anchor and depart with any incautious men that had boarded; these were then sold abroad.114 It was as late as 1170, when Dermot McMurrough was seeking to establish himself as high-king of Ireland with Norman help," 5 that the Synod of Armagh decreed that any Englishman enslaved in Ireland was to receive his freedom. According to Giraldus Cambrensis, the synod regarded Ireland's subservience to England as a punishment for the enslavement of men by her own merchants and freebooters, although it was noted that the English themselves had been as much at fault because they used to sell their children and relatives into slavery when they were suffering from penury and hunger.116 In the following year Henry II led an expedition into Ireland that resulted in the submission of much of the country to England.117 Thereafter reports of the menace of enslavement from this quarter finally cease. Thus the risk of enslavement through captivity and of sale into foreign hands, which had for so many centuries been a constant hazard of English life, was finally removed only when the Normans had brought the neighbouring Scots, Welsh and Irish under their hegemony and had gained control of the seas round the coast.
" 4 Hermannus Monachus, De Miraculis Sanctae Mariae Laudunensis xxi, Migne, Patrilogia Latina 156 (Paris, 1880), cols. 9856. Cf. also the opening words of the Liber Landavensis, compiled in the first third of the twelfth century: ' Fuit vir, Aggligena natione, Elgarus, natus regione Devunsira, et captus in infantia a piratarum classe, ut solito more, ductus in captivitatem in Hiberniam, et ibi ducens servilem vitam per tempora...' ('There was a man named Elgar, a native of England, and born in Devonshire, who, in his infancy, was taken prisoner by a set of pirates, and as was usual, conveyed to Ireland, where for some time he led a servile life'). The Text of the hook of L/an Dav reproduced from the Cwysaney Manuscript, ed. I. G. Evans, Ser. of Old Welsh Texts 4 (Oxford, 1893), 1 (text); The Liber Landavensis, ed. and trans. W. J. Rees (Llandovery, 1840), p. 3 (translation). Unfortunately it is not clear whether 'ut solito more' refers to the time of the writer or to the unspecified time in the past when Elgar lived. On slavery in Ireland in the twelfth century, see Smyth, Scandinavian Kings, p. 156. 115 See G. H. Orpen, Ireland under the Normans 1 (Oxford, 1911), 141 ff. 116 Expugnatio Hibernica 1.18, Opera, ed. J. F. Dimock, RS 21.5 (London, 1867), 258. 117 On Henry II and Ireland, see W. L. Warren, Henry II (London, 1973), pp. 194-206.

114