Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Introduction: Looking across the Baltic Sea and over Linguistic Fences
- Section 1 Mental Maps
- 1 The Northern Part of the Ocean in the Eyes of Ancient Geographers
- 2 Austmarr on the Mental Map of Medieval Scandinavians
- 3 The Connection Between Geographical Space and Collective Memory in Jómsvíkinga saga
- Section 2 Mobility
- 4 Rune Carvers Traversing Austmarr?
- 5 Polish Noble Families and Noblemen of Scandinavian Origin in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: The Case of the Awdańcy Family: By Which Route did they come to Poland and why?
- 6 A Medieval Trade in Female Slaves from the North along the Volga
- Section 3 Language
- 7 Ahti on the Nydam Strap-ring: On the Possibility of Finnic Elements in Runic Inscriptions
- 8 Low German and Finnish Revisited
- Section 4 Myth and Religion Formation
- 9 Mythic Logic and Meta-discursive Practices in the Scandinavian and Baltic Regions
- 10 The Artificial Bride on Both Sides of the Gulf of Finland: The Golden Maiden in Finno-Karelian and Estonian Folk Poetry
- 11 Local Sámi Bear Ceremonialism in a Circum-Baltic Perspective
- 12 Mythologies in Transformation: Symbolic Transfer, Hybridisation, and Creolisation in the Circum-Baltic Arena (Illustrated Through the Changing Roles of *Tīwaz, *Ilma, and Óðinn, the Fishing Adventure of the Thunder God, and a Finno-Karelian Creolisation of North Germanic Religion)
- Contributors
- Indices
6 - A Medieval Trade in Female Slaves from the North along the Volga
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Introduction: Looking across the Baltic Sea and over Linguistic Fences
- Section 1 Mental Maps
- 1 The Northern Part of the Ocean in the Eyes of Ancient Geographers
- 2 Austmarr on the Mental Map of Medieval Scandinavians
- 3 The Connection Between Geographical Space and Collective Memory in Jómsvíkinga saga
- Section 2 Mobility
- 4 Rune Carvers Traversing Austmarr?
- 5 Polish Noble Families and Noblemen of Scandinavian Origin in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: The Case of the Awdańcy Family: By Which Route did they come to Poland and why?
- 6 A Medieval Trade in Female Slaves from the North along the Volga
- Section 3 Language
- 7 Ahti on the Nydam Strap-ring: On the Possibility of Finnic Elements in Runic Inscriptions
- 8 Low German and Finnish Revisited
- Section 4 Myth and Religion Formation
- 9 Mythic Logic and Meta-discursive Practices in the Scandinavian and Baltic Regions
- 10 The Artificial Bride on Both Sides of the Gulf of Finland: The Golden Maiden in Finno-Karelian and Estonian Folk Poetry
- 11 Local Sámi Bear Ceremonialism in a Circum-Baltic Perspective
- 12 Mythologies in Transformation: Symbolic Transfer, Hybridisation, and Creolisation in the Circum-Baltic Arena (Illustrated Through the Changing Roles of *Tīwaz, *Ilma, and Óðinn, the Fishing Adventure of the Thunder God, and a Finno-Karelian Creolisation of North Germanic Religion)
- Contributors
- Indices
Summary
Abstract
This article explores evidence of the medieval slave trade in the trade networks that had evolved from the Viking Age ‘Eastern Route’, linking the Baltic Sea to the Middle East. These trade networks were fundamental to the development of later Slavic states in Russia and also to the spread of Christianity. The focus is on the type of slaves referred to as nemci, which in some languages became specifically used for white, blonde slaves of northern or Scandinavian type, who were sold at remarkably high cost as luxury items in the south. This study contextualises trade in ‘nemci’ slaves within the context of the spread of Christianity through the north and the extending power of Christian states.
Keywords: Russian slave trade, child slaves, Russia
Introduction
The trade in non-baptised nemci (‘German’ or ‘foreign’, understood as ‘northern European’) formed a luxury business and was profitable even over long distances. This kind of slave trade did not start only in the sixteenth century along Russian rivers, as appears in written sources, but is continuous from the age of the Vikings. The reason for the expansion in the written records is merely state formation and the growth of administration, which produced new kinds of written material. In fact, this process led to prohibition of the old business. The prominent role of nemci in the slave trade did not mean that Germans or Swedes had some special qualifications that were especially in demand in the Middle East. The concept only distinguished blonde slaves from others in the trade on the Volga. ‘White’ (i.e. fair-coloured) slaves were especially expensive in the southern markets. Baptism formed one restriction in the business from the perspective of a rising state power. The concern was not religious, but baptised people were the ruler's taxpayers and so part of his wealth, according to the thinking of mercantilist economists.
Nemci girls for sale
When the Nogai ruler Izmail-bek sent a delegation headed by the high-ranking diplomats Temer and Bek-Cüra to Moscow in the late summer of 1561, one of the things he ordered Bek-Cüra to buy for him was two nemci girls (Gramoty: 174).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea RegionAustmarr as a Northern Mare Nostrum, ca. 500–1500 AD, pp. 129 - 144Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019