Enslaved and trafficked people are often overlooked in the medieval historiography for any number of reasons. Looking directly at the very real and very human experience of those who were violently removed from their families and moved across the continent is uncomfortable. This is especially true given that the women and children trafficked were often destined for a life of sexual exploitation. These uncomfortable truths are often swept aside in order to concentrate on the trade networks that moved them, or the economies they served. Christopher Paolella works to unveil the circumstances of human trafficking across the medieval period and argues persuasively that the phenomenon changes constantly to circumvent opposition. Further, he contends that a concentrated effort to eradicate the practice from a centralized authority is the best means of response to the phenomenon, rather than simply awaiting economic changes that make it untenable.
Paolella begins his study in the late antique period. Here we encounter the entrenched practices of enslavement that kept the late Roman Empire supplied with agrarian workers. The discussion then moves to discuss how early medieval trafficking gradually shifted from large scale ventures across the Mediterranean to a more localized one as the chapter draws to a close in the eighth century. This is born out particularly well due to a focus on the experiences of the enslaved north of the Alps. The second chapter then moves readers through the ninth to the eleventh centuries, looking at varying regional differences in the human trade, and how assorted rulers either relied on or sought to curtail the practice. The third chapter is thematic in nature, focusing on the gendered implications of trafficking and the high number of women or younger children trafficked as the period wore on. Here Paloella argues that sexual violence was an assumed part of the experience of trafficking and enslavement. This is asserted through a discussion focused on the women trafficked from late antiquity to the thirteenth century, and the varying networks that allowed the trade. The fourth chapter returns to the high medieval period to discuss the change from agriculturally focused slavery to explicitly sexual labor. At the same time Paolella shows a shift in preference of who was trafficked. Rather than seeing any foreign woman as a potential target, the consolidation of Christendom meant a shift toward finding women from outside of the Latin sphere of influence. At the same time Paolella underlines that, especially in Northern Europe, such shifts were accommodated by the shift to a monetary economy. The fifth and final body chapter looks specifically at the late medieval sex trade, addressing how women were treated in municipal brothels and how the practice fell out of favor as the medieval period came to a close. The conclusion reasserts the overall argument of the book: “Even as the roles of slaves mutated to conform to the patterns of exchange in the moment, traffickers themselves also adapted to suit their immediate circumstances” (247).
This work is ambitious. Attempting to track the history of trafficking over the medieval period is a daunting task but is handled with a noteworthy deftness and clarity of focus by Paolella. In his hands it does become clear that “slavery as a means of compelling agricultural production had declined across much of Western Europe by the end of the twelfth century, [and that] commercial sex grew into an industry that grew in tandem with the urbanization of medieval Europe” (13). As a result of this focus, Human Trafficking works particularly well in tandem with earlier works on enslavement, such as Alice Rio's Slavery After Rome 500–1100 (2017). For those working on gendered notions of society, it is Paolella's choice to dedicate a chapter specifically to the gendered aspects of enslavement which makes this work of particular use. This chapter is written carefully enough that it could serve as a stand-alone introduction to the intricacies of the topic.
Human Trafficking is overall important, and its deficiencies few. Ideally it would have been useful to see Paolella's regional discussions include more from the central European Slavic perspective. Given the emphasis on the Reformation's influence on the institutional brother (242–45), it would have been interesting to see what Paolella makes of the work of Hussite reformers regarding sex work, especially given a growing bibliography on the subject in English. However, such a complaint simply underlines the fact that the argument is persuasive enough that it could apply in instances that the author had not managed to address.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this work is that Paolella interweaves his historical discussion with interviews from present day trafficking survivors. The lives of these women underline the continuity of trafficking operations. These stories help to underline the fact that, although institutional early modern trafficking has been abolished, the practice continues in small-scale, usually private modes. In doing so he shows that even now in the modern world societies that wish to intercede and stop slavery often ignore it in order to uphold patriarchal narratives about worthy versus expendable women. Unfreedom isn't, and never has been, necessarily tied to international large-scale operations. All that is necessary for it to continue is a societal disinterest in the lives of disempowered, dispensable women. This work is thus both a useful historical intervention, and a vital social one. It is welcome.
