SLAVERY IN MEDIEVAL GERMANY

Slavery was practiced throughout Germany in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. In those territories, west of the Rhine and south of the Danube, that were accustomed to the Roman system, there were large numbers of slaves who worked the fields of big plantations. Slavery was also common to the north and east, among the Saxons, Bavarians, and Franks, and among the Lombards after they moved into Noricum and northern Italy. Significant portions of the Lombard law codes of the seventh and eighth centuries concern either unfree Germans or household slaves of Roman descent.

Although it is often presumed that slavery disappeared outside the former territories of the Roman Empire, in fact it continued in German lands throughout the ninth and tenth centuries. Most slaves came from the eastern borders—Slavs captured in raids and sold at markets in Prague and throughout Bohemia. There was an important slave trade in southern Germany as well, especially among Jewish merchants. Trade routes ran through Alpine passes to the Mediterranean, from the Elbe toward the valley of the Rhine, and along the Meuse and Moselle Rivers toward Verdun, where captives were castrated and sold as eunuchs.

But by the late twelfth century slavery had for all intents and purposes come to an end in Germany. As the wars against the Slavs slowed and the number of Christian converts rose, slavery ceased to fulfill the function it did in the ancient world. The word servus took on a new meaning and a new legal definition as slaves were gradually transformed into serfs, an arrangement much better suited to the seigniorial system.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Bloch, Marc. Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages, trans. William R.Beer. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. 
Bosl, Karl. "Freiheit und Unfreiheit. Zur Entwicklung der Unterschichten in Deutschland und Frankreich," in Frühformen der Gesellschaften im mittelalterlichen Europa. Ausgewählte Beiträge zu einer Strukturanalyse der mittelalterlichen Welt. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1964, pp. 180–203. 
Nehlsen, Hermann. Sklavenrecht zwischen Antike und Mittelalter: Germanisches und römisches Recht in den germanischen Rechtsaufzeichnungen. Göttingen: Muterschmidt, 1972. 
Verlinden, Charles. L'Esclavage dans l'Europe médiévale. 2 vols. Bruges: Rijksuniversiteit te Gent, 1955, 1977. 

By David R.Blanks in "Medieval Germany - An Encyclopedia",John M. Jeep (editor), Garland Publishing, New York,2001. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.