Greek Captives and Mediterranean Slavery, 1260-1460

Captivity and enslavement were common experiences for Greek Christians in the late medieval Mediterranean, as the Byzantine Empire shrank. This book explores the origins of this crisis in thirteenth-century Asia Minor and its spread to the Mediterranean, examining the social, cultural, and political ramifications of this trade in Greeks. It uses previously unpublished sources and offers new perspectives on the history of slavery and the medieval Mediterranean.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2024
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Captivity and enslavement were common experiences for Greek Christians in the late medieval Mediterranean. During this period, Muslim Turks and Christian Western Europeans conquered and traded at the expense of the shrinking Byzantine Empire. By bringing together literary and documentary sources from across a vast geographical range, from the Aegean to Egypt and from Cyprus to Catalonia, this book tells the full story of this crisis of captivity for the first time. It traces the origins of this captivity in thirteenth-century Asia Minor to its explosion into a Mediterranean-wide phenomenon, examining different forms of unfreedom and forced movement and assessing their significance for Greeks' religious and diplomatic relationships with their neighbors, both Christian and Muslim. This book tells the story of thousands of ordinary people who were caught up in conflict and dispersed across the Mediterranean against their will. It is the first study to examine the social, cultural, and political ramifications of this late medieval trade in Greeks. With its broad geographical scope and accessible style, the book appeals to anyone interested in the medieval Mediterranean or the history of slavery. Its use of previously unpublished or little-known textual sources, extensive synthesis of Byzantine, Latin European, and Islamic sources and scholarship, and its ability to offer new perspectives and revelations for the specialist make it a valuable contribution to the field.

Weight: 540g
Dimension: 161 x 241 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399523837