Spoils of War (Church and Slavery, part 3)

By the Middle Ages, the Church had gained more influence and power. The Church owned land throughout Europe, monasteries were the centers of learning, and bishops were nobles. So it’s not surprising that the Church reflected worldly views of the times, even though it’s disappointing. Some still believed in the commitments to care for the widows and orphans and ransom the captives. Others looked for loopholes and sought to maintain power at all costs.

A distinction between “just” and “unjust” slavery was established. A man could choose to sell himself (or his children) into slavery to pay for his debts. Non-Christians could be captured in war. But a Christian could not force another Christian into slavery or sell him to non-Christians.

But furthermore, the Church itself owned slaves. The Papal states, like every other kingdom, had slaves under its control, as did monasteries and individual bishops. Slaves could be excommunicated for trying to escape.

The main moral argument made seems to be that a Christian couldn’t be enslaved. But a slave could convert to Christianity, and that didn’t change his status. And non-Christians, especially if from a warring nation, could be enslaved. There were morals around who and how, but the morality around slavery itself seems mostly unquestioned. 

This is where my frustration grows. It’s one thing to only speak out moderately or only ransom Christians, but to actually own other people and to delineate who was worthy of being free or not based on their faith shows that the Church leaders at this time had strayed far from the early Church where no was “neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free person, not male and female.” Paul called us to be slaves to Christ, yet the Church wound up being masters to others.

Of course, Christians did fear being enslaved as well. The slave trade at the time flowed mostly south. Increasingly, conflicts between Muslims and Christians led to captives of both sides. Forced enslavement was mostly seen in the context of war between different religions. Christians would own Muslim or pagan slaves. Muslims would own Christian or Slavic slaves. (Slav is were the word slave originates, which gives an idea of how many were enslaved.) Jews would act as intermediaries, able to facilitate slave trade between Christian and Muslim lands.

Formal orders arose to ransom Christian slaves from Muslims. The Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives (called the Trinitarians) was founded near Paris in 1198. The Royal, Celestial and Military Order of Our Lady of Mercy and the Redemption of the Captives (called the Mercedarians) was founded in Barcelona in 1218. The Meredarians took a particular fourth vow: to die if necessary for another in danger of losing his faith (such as a slave they were trying to free). To this day, the Mercedarians continue that vow. A version from 1986 is worded: [We vow] “to give up our lives, as Christ gave his life for us, should it be necessary, in order to save those Christians who find themselves in extreme danger of losing their faith by new forms of captivity.”

While the laws permitted Christians to own non-Christian slaves, there were some rules acknowledging the slaves as people. During the time Christians held Jerusalem, laws forbade sexual relations between crusaders and their female Muslim slaves. If a man raped his slave, he would be castrated, and if he raped someone else's slave, he would be castrated and exiled. Slaves who converted to Christianity would be emancipated (though many believed Muslims would lie about converting in order to escape, and thus were not freed). Muslims pretty much held similar ideas about slavery as the Christians—an accepted institution but do not sell Muslims to non-Muslims and treat your slaves “well.” And while it’s certainly good to treat someone well and have laws against treating them otherwise, “well” is still very much in the context of owning another person as property.

Kings would ask for permission from the pope to attack, raid, and enslave non-Christian countries. Often, the lack of the faith among those people would be the “just” cause to attack the country and take slaves. Non-Christians were enemies of the faith, and it was justifiable to attack an enemy of God.

In 1452, Pope Nicholas V granted King Afonso V of Portugal the right “to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be …. and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude” in the papal bull Dum Diversas. This was a year before the Fall on Constantinople. The Moors would soon be pushed out of Spain. The age of the Crusades was ending and giving way to the Age of Exploration. And soon this idea of enslaving the “pagan” would mean more than just the Muslim war captives.