Approaching Byzantine Slavery, lecture by Marek Jankowiak (University of Oxford), King's College London, February 26, 2019, 5:30–7:00 pm

What were slaves needed for in Byzantium between the ninth and the eleventh centuries? Were they numerous? How were they recruited? Did they live good lives? In this paper I will review legal, historiographical and hagiographical texts in an attempt to situate slavery within the broader social and economic context of the Macedonian period. Given that the dichotomy between slavery and freedom, often taken as a defining feature of slavery, often appears blurred in the sources, I will speculate on how to define Byzantine slavery and what were its prominent features.

Marek Jankowiak is University Lecturer in Byzantine History at the University of Oxford. His main research interests are monotheletism, slavery and slave trade.

This lecture is part of the Late Antique and Byzantine Studies seminar series.