This thesis examines the phenomenon of Mediterranean slavery from the Black Death to the early sixteenth century. It is based upon a close and contextual analysis of notarial contracts for enslaved men and women. This study has two parts: the socioeconomic networks of slaveholding and the socioeconomic networks of the enslaved. The socioeconomic networks of slaveholding encompassed a diverse range of individuals, from elites to itinerant merchants to artisans. The intersections between slavery and gender are illustrated through an analysis of women slaveholders, the use of enslaved women as wet nurses, and the development of life insurance for enslaved pregnant women. These analyses demonstrate how the market economy of slavery provided an effective means for slaveholders to instantiate crucial social ties and expand their social networks.
The second part provides glimpses into the everyday life of the enslaved. They faced particular health problems and were held under strict social control that regulated their movement and behaviour. The contracts reveal that enslaved women were subject to sexual exploitation from their holders, but they also illustrate how some entered into relationships on their own accord. It has been well established that enslaved persons were exploited for household service by elites, but they were also separated from their children, leased to other families to serve as wet nurses, exploited as servants in monasteries, and toiled in the industrial workshops of the Genoese Mediterranean.
The possibility of freedom was real: it could be granted by the slaveholder or taken by enslaved persons. But the attempts by enslaved persons to obtain freedom by legal means faced a system that was stacked against them. This led some to consider extralegal means, waiting for the opportune moment to escape their holders. Slavery in the late medieval Genoese Mediterranean was not just a system of household service: it was an entangled network of financial interests, forms of exploitation, and modes of action. This study of the legal and financial tools used in organizing it contributes a critical context for understanding early developments in the Atlantic Slave Trade, in which Genoese financiers were deeply involved.Ph.D.2025-06-26 00:00:0
