- Department of History
Miami University
200 Upham Hall
Oxford, OH 45056 - (513) 529-5128
Matthew Gordon
Miami University, History, Faculty Member
900 that presents a bold thesis on the role of long-distance slave-trading in the formation of the medieval economy. McCormick argued that something significant happened in the middle of the eighth century as Italian merchants began... more
900 that presents a bold thesis on the role of long-distance slave-trading in the formation of the medieval economy. McCormick argued that something significant happened in the middle of the eighth century as Italian merchants began exporting other Europeans south and eastward to the 'Abbasid Caliphate. Each of the four papers presents a very different reaction to the ideas that McCormick pioneered. The first two papers look at aspects of slavery and the slave trade before the proposed shift; Noel Lenski examines the importance of slavery in seventh-century Spain while Thomas MacMaster looks at the evidence for the exportation of slaves from Italy itself in the centuries before McCormick's proposed shift. If these first two papers examine the evidence for a shift in the slave trade, the second half of the session will look at some of the results of that shift. In the third paper, Matthew Gordon looks at Islamic evidence (such as it is) for the 'voracious appetite' for slaves within the Abbasid Caliphate asserted by McCormick while, in the fourth paper, Matthew Delvaux will discuss evidence for the 'return' on the slave trade with the Islamic world seen in the archaeology of Northern Europe. These four papers will present a series of responses to one of the more important recent ideas in early medieval social and economic history and each approaches the question from a very different angle. It is hoped that these papers will both expand knowledge and suggest some of the directions that McCormick's work has suggested. McCormick argues that the Mediterranean economy emerged from a period of relative fallow in the post-Roman period to rebuild itself through commercial exchange focused in no small part on the slave trade in the Carolingian period. The hunger for slaves in the eastern Mediterranean drove a burgeoning market in long-distance trade that McCormick has shown to be well documented in hagiographic and documentary sources. This picture has won a degree of confirmation from numismatic evidence from eastern Europe which confirms the importance of the long-distance trade in slaves via the Vistula/Dniester/Black Sea nexus as well. This paper proposes to provide further context to this picture by emphasizing the ongoing importance of slavery in the post Roman period in the western Mediterranean, and particularly in Visigothic territories in southern Gaul and Spain (fifth through eighth centuries CE). The scanty source record for the period has been greatly enhanced by
Research Interests:
History, Economic History, Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Medieval History, Women's History, and 31 moreMedieval Studies, Slavery, History of Slavery, Medieval Islam, Early Medieval Archaeology, Medieval Church History, Early Medieval History, Medieval Archaeology, Byzantine Studies, Late Antiquity, Viking Studies, Violence Against Women, Medieval Europe, Slave Trade, Abbasid History, Viking Age Archaeology, Social History, Medieval Islamic History, Medieval Slavery, Abbasids (Islamic History), Visigothic Spain, Viking Age Scandinavia, Atlantic Slave Trade, Byzantine Italy, Material Culture of the Viking age, Umayyad and Abbasid History, Ancient Slavery, Byzantine art, History of Venice, Barbarians and Romans in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, and Roman Slavery
Program information (including abstracts) for sessions on slavery organized for the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2016
Research Interests:
History, Economic History, Gender Studies, Social Sciences, Medieval History, and 21 moreGender History, Medieval Studies, Legal History, Slavery, History of Slavery, Medieval Islam, History of slavery and migration movements, Abolition of Slavery, Medieval Archaeology, Islamic Studies, Medieval Europe, Slave Trade, Social History, Islamic History, Medieval Islamic History, Medieval Slavery, Islamic Law and Slavery, Middle Ages, Ancient Slavery, History of slavery in the Mediterrenean, and Roman Slavery
Sessions and abstracts for papers on slavery to be presented at the Leeds IMC 2016
Research Interests:
The course will introduce students to the political history of the early Abbasid caliphate. The Abbasids – monarchs of the Arab/Islamic Empire – reigned for five hundred years, mostly from Baghdad, though many historians hold that their... more
The course will introduce students to the political history of the early Abbasid caliphate. The Abbasids – monarchs of the Arab/Islamic Empire – reigned for five hundred years, mostly from Baghdad, though many historians hold that their decision-making authority largely collapsed by the mid-tenth century. We will consider the major actors and events in this first period, as well as the wider framework that surrounded these developments. The course will also introduce students to the study of early Arabic/Islamic historiography through the close study of primary texts.
To survey the history of Baghdad and the early Abbasid Empire. The course will focus on the first period of Abbasid history: 750-950 CE. We will consider, among other topics, the Abbasid Revolution and the caliphate of al-Mansur; the... more
To survey the history of Baghdad and the early Abbasid Empire. The course will focus on the first period of Abbasid history: 750-950 CE. We will consider, among other topics, the Abbasid Revolution and the caliphate of al-Mansur; the early Abbasid state; the reign of Harun al-Rashid and the civil war of 809-813 CE; the foundation of Samarra and the chaos of the mid-ninth century; and the shift in standing of the caliphate by the mid-tenth century. We will first consider Abbasid politics then turn our attention to social, religious, cultural and intellectual trends.