Chapter 10 - Slavery and Agency in the Middle Ages

Summary

This chapter analyzes scholarly approaches to the study of slave agency and resistance. It focuses on medieval contexts including Spain, Italy and Venetian Crete, and the Islamic Middle East. Even though legal, economic, and social structures were unfavorable for enslaved people, individuals were able to use law and limited social capital to advance their own interests. At times this allowed enslaved people to resist slavery and to challenge their legal status. In other instances, enslaved people used their rights as slaves (and, for example, sometimes as mothers or members of a confessional group) to seek certain benefits. In the Islamic world, enslaved and freed people could gain high status by virtue of their marriages and roles as mothers (in the case of women) and as a result of their military and political skills (mainly men and eunuchs). Women who were highly skilled musicians and courtesans could also use their talents to achieve reknown and, in exceptional cases, great wealth. Acts of everyday and extreme resistance are also documented for the medieval period, though these activities never resulted in a successful slave revolt despite what some historians have written about the ninth-century Zanj rebellion in Iraq.