Slavery in Feudal England
England in the Anglo- Saxon Era (476- 1066AD):
England was still half forest when the Anglo- Saxon invaders came and enslaved the native born Britons after conquering them. The conquered Britons were a factor in the development of England’s rural economy because they were used as herdsmen, dairymaids, blacksmiths, cooks, weavers, bakers, carpenters, overseers, tailors, and tillers of the farmlands. The Saxons brought with them the feudal system to England, but this was no comfort to the conquered Britons. The majority of peasants lived like the slaves, in extreme poverty and squalor.
Foreign trade was a small part of this largely self- sufficient economy. Wool, cheeses, cloth and slaves were the main export. English slaves were being sold on the Roman market in the 6th century AD and 100 years later, during Britain internal wars, prisoners were sold in London. The slavers trafficked captured Celts off the coasts of Ireland, but they also sold and bought children of all nationalities, usually from parents who had no other way to survive. Most of these enslaved children were sold to Islamic Spain (the Moors).
The treatment of slaves under the Anglo- Saxons was terrible. They were flogged for minor offences, and mutilated or executed for major crimes, unless their owner paid the fines involved. The penalties for thieving by male slaves was execution by stoning, and for female slaves, it was burning at the stake. The Church, not the civil law, punished masters for killing or injuring a slave. Some laws were set up to protect the slaves somewhat but nobody respected them. Archbishop Wulfstan of York (1003- 1023AD) said that Viking invasions of Britain were God’s punishment for the disregard of the slaves’ rights.
Viking invasions on the British Isles began around 800AD. These Norsemen were pirates and brigands, but as soon as the fighting stopped, they turned into merchants. The natives that they captured were of little use to them, so they traded most of them to Constantinople (Istanbul) in Byzantium or to Islamic Spain. In those markets, the human loot was converted into gold, silver, silks, wine and weapons.
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