That Most Precious Merchandise. Hannah Barker
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adolescent, or adult) rather than numerical age. Newly imported mamluks were often described as children (ṣaghīr, pl. ṣugharā’) below the age of maturity (bulūgh). The only evidence for numerical age at the time of sale is anecdotal. Jaqmaq al-Arghūnshāwī arrived in Egypt with his mother at age three, Sanqar al-Zaynī was imported around age six, Sultan Khushqadam at age ten, Sultan Shaykh at age twelve, and Sultan Baybars at age fourteen.52 Taghrī Barmish al-Jalālī and the eunuch Fayrūz al-Nawrūzī al-Rūmī also arrived in Egypt in their teens. The oldest reported were Qawṣūn al-Nāṣirī, who came to Egypt and became a mamluk voluntarily at age eighteen, and Sultan Qāytbāy, who was imported in his early twenties.53 The chronicler al-Maqrīzī claimed that the willingness of fifteenth-century sultans to accept older mamluks was a sign of decadence, but this may have been an element of his anti-Circassian rhetoric.54 Fifteenth-century European travelers reported that mamluks in training were between seven and eighteen or between ten and twenty years old.55
Figure 3. Median Age of Slaves Sold in Venice. Black points are based on more data (at least ten sales per year) than gray points.
(ASVe, Canc. inf., Misc., b.134 bis; ASVe, Canc. inf., Not., b.17; b.19, N.7; b.20, N.8–10; b.23, N.1; b.58–61; b.80, N.7; b.95; b.132, N.9; b.174, N.9; b.211; b.222; b.230, N.1–2; ASVe, PdSM, Misti, b.180; Tamba, Bernardo de Rodulfis; Braunstein, “Être esclave”; Cibrario, Della schiavitù; Colli, Moretto Bon; Dennis, “Un fondo”; Krekic, “Contributo”; Lazari, “Del traffico”; Lombardo, Nicola de Boateriis; Verlinden, “Le recrutement des esclaves à Venise”; Zamboni, “Gli Ezzelini.”)
As for gender balance, it has been argued that the Black Sea slave trade was divided so that boys were sent to Egypt and girls to Italy.56 Girls were supposed to be beautiful and docile, more suitable than boys for domestic and sexual service.57 Boys were supposed to be tough because of their steppe upbringing, al-ready skilled at archery and horsemanship, and therefore suitable for military service. The presence of slave women from the Black Sea in Mamluk society has been minimized, except as a “necessary complement” to satisfy the sexual needs of mamluks.58 Yet the majority of Mamluk as well as Italian slaves were women.59 During the 1419 plague outbreak in Cairo, the ratio of male to female deaths was 1,065:669 among free people but 544:1,369 among slaves.60 In Genoa, the half-florin tax records showed male to female ratios of 25:104 in 1413 and 9:100 in 1447.61 The female majority in the Mamluk slave population may have been missed through lack of attention to civilian households. While Mamluk military households owned both men and women in large numbers, civilian households owned more women than men. The female majority of Black Sea slaves across the Mediterranean is less surprising when considered in terms of supply. As discussed in Chapter 5, the raiders who captured most Black Sea slaves tended to take women and kill men.
Slaves as Social and Financial Assets
All slaves were assets of significant value. Their prices were comparable to those of a house, ten pieces of woolen cloth, 150 kg of wool, 160 kg of grain, 25 to 30 percent of a notary’s income, or three years of a sailor’s income.62 Purchasing slaves was an investment. Their value might increase as they learned the language, developed skills, and grew to maturity, but it might also decrease through illness, injury, and aging.
Selling slaves for cash was not the only way to utilize them financially. Slaves could be rented to others, especially craftsmen who could teach them new skills and thereby raise their value.63 Lactating slaves could be rented as wet nurses for twice as much money as domestic slaves, and their contracts included provisions regarding the quantity and quality of their milk.64 Because wet nurses were entrusted with the health of babies, they tended to be older than the average slave woman. Slaves could also be bartered in lieu of monetary payment;65 pledged as collateral against debts;66 granted to a daughter as part of her dowry;67 stolen;68 confiscated by the state;69 appraised in estate inventories;70 and inherited in wills.71 As a result of these activities, it was not unusual for slaves to be jointly owned. For example, one slave in fourteenth-century Jerusalem was inherited collectively by six women (two wives, two sisters, and two young daughters of the deceased).72 Another slave was jointly purchased by an Egyptian couple and given to their two sons as co-owners.73 Two Venetian brothers, Petrus and Georgius de Manfredis, had joint ownership of a single slave woman, as did a Genoese couple, Petrus and Isolta de Vignolo, and two Genoese dyers, Damiano of Castagna and Antonius of Rapallo.74 The fourteen joint owners of one slave sold in Genoa in 1274 were probably the pirate crew who had captured him.75
In addition to their monetary value, slaves had social value. A Mamluk saying held that “slaves, even if they consume your wealth, increase your prestige.”76 Slave ownership was a way to display power and wealth. A slave attendant or retinue might accompany their master in public. Italian elites liked to include their slaves in portraits.77 Slave dancers, singers, lute players, and other musicians entertained guests in elite Mamluk homes.78 Fourteenth-century amirs had slave orchestras with up to fifty musicians. Slave women also participated in public mourning for Mamluk elites. Civilians who owned mamluks signaled their pretensions to equality with the military ruling class. For example, the treasury clerk ‘Abd al-Bāsiṭ ibn Khalīl was criticized for aspiring beyond his station when he flaunted a retinue of “mamluks of the widely-available kinds.”79 The civilian supervisor of the two shrines in Jerusalem brought his mamluks on hunting excursions and to audiences with the military governor.80
When slaves were given as gifts, their value was both monetary and social.81 Rulers exchanged slaves through diplomatic channels alongside gold, silver, jewels, luxury textiles, and horses. Among the gifts that Sultan Baybars gave Berke, the khan of the Golden Horde, upon the occasion of his conversion to Islam were black male slaves and slave cooks.82 Tokhta Khan gave Sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad eighty male and twenty female slaves, and Janibak Khan made a similar gift to Sultan al-Nāṣir Ḥasan.83 Mamluk sultans also exchanged slaves with the sultan of Baghdad, the Ottoman sultan, the Ilkhan, and the king of Nubia.84 One mamluk, Arghūnshāh al-Nāṣiri, was first sent as a gift from China to Persia, then regifted to the Mamluks.85
Within the Mamluk kingdom, the sultan and high-ranking amirs exchanged slaves as signs of respect and favor. It was common for the governor of Syria to send large groups of slaves, including mamluks and eunuchs, to the sultan.86 The amir of Ṣafad also sent a eunuch to Sultan Barqūq, whom Barqūq regifted to his secretary.87 A more subtle aspect of gifting slaves involved plays on their personal ties. Al-Nāṣir Muḥammad reinforced his relationship with the amir Yalbughā al-Yaḥyāwī by giving him one of a pair of slave sisters and keeping the other for himself.88 When the amir Tanibak al-Yaḥyāwī discovered that his brother Taybars had been purchased by the governor of Malaṭya, the governor obligingly sent Taybars and a group of other mamluks to Cairo as a gift for the sultan.89 Refusing to give a slave requested by the sultan could be interpreted as an act of rebellion. When the sultan of Mārdīn substituted two mamluks and a slave woman for a beautiful harpist requested by al-Nāṣir Muḥammad, al-Nāṣir Muḥammad threatened to sack the city.90
Finally, in both Mamluk and Italian households, slaves were given as gifts to family members and close friends.91 Family gifts were often implemented through wills. Lionello Cattaneo gave his slave to a priest before departing on a journey, while Regina Morosini, a Venetian widow, gave a slave to her parish priest because “you have conferred so many services and indulgences on me [that] it would be unfitting if I were ungrateful to you.”92 Doctors also received slaves as gifts from their patients.93
Slaves as Domestic and Manual Labor
Most slaves in the late medieval Mediterranean were purchased for domestic service. Their tasks included cooking, cleaning,