2023/2024 Lecture in the History of Slavery - Professor Daniel Smail
Schedule
Wed Oct 11 2023 at 05:00 pm to 07:00 pm
Location
Appleton Tower, The University of Edinburgh, Lecture Theatre 1, 11 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9LE | Edinburgh, SC
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'Slavery and the pursuit of freedom in later medieval Mediterranean Europe'The 2024 Lecture in the History of Slavery considers the passage from slavery to freedom in Mediterranean Europe between 1280 and 1450, during the height of the Mediterranean slave system. One of the distinctive features of Mediterranean slavery is that a considerable proportion of enslaved people were manumitted after a decade or two of servitude. Scholarship, to date, has emphasized the formal legal mechanisms that enabled the passage from slavery to freedom, including acts of manumission and freedom lawsuits. In this talk Professor Smail will argue that a successful passage, for those who sought it, also depended on informal processes that are much less visible in the record but no less important, notably acculturation and embodiment. The gradual acquisition of the traits of a free person allowed at least some formerly enslaved individuals to pass from a state of perceived unbelonging to one of belonging in the eyes of the community. The premise is that acculturation and embodiment preceded and therefore made thinkable the ensuing process of formal legal manumission. The talk engages in close readings of two cases from the city of Marseille: an unusual contract of manumission from 1376 and a series of court cases from 1406–1408. Both cases feature formerly enslaved women who gained their freedom despite the active opposition of their former masters. The analysis allows us to piece together the suite of traits and resources each had acquired while in servitude.
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Where is it happening?
Appleton Tower, The University of Edinburgh, Lecture Theatre 1, 11 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9LE, Edinburgh, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
