TIM RAYBORN wrote:
> Does anyone have sources or info on the subject of monastic slave
> holding and trading, specifically, the holding of Muslim slaves by
> Cistercian houses in the 12th century? Any other info would also be
> helpful, but that area in particular is what I'm looking at.
> Verlinden has very little to say about it, and Kedar mentions it a
> bit, but I'd like to find out more.
Perhaps only tangental to your inquiry, but...
Thirteen Templar commanderies in Aragon had an average of 20 slaves
each in 1289; the house of Monzon (acute accent over the 2nd "o") had
nearly 50.
Neither Templar nor Teutonic Order clerics who were being punished
were to work alongside the slaves (lay brothers, however, did);
likewise Teutonic knights who had committed "very serious" (gravior,
as opposed to "most serious" [gravissima] or "serious" [gravis]
offenses were to perform a year's penance -- during this time he had
to live with the slaves, "if there were any."
The closest thing I could find to Cistercian slave-holding were
monastic serfs. Furness purchased serfs for 20 shillings each;
Villers was donated a family of serfs in 1160 and in 1122 was given
a whole village and all its serfs; Rievaulx, Stanley, and Kirkstall
all had serfs before 1180; by the mid-13th century, unfree workers
became quite common throughout the order; and in Austria, the
Cistercian Stams abbey received serfs attached to donated land until
the early 15th century.
See Alan Forey, THE MILITARY ORDERS FROM THE 12th TO THE EARLY 14th
CENTURIES (London: Maacmillan, 1992) 151-2, 177, 195; and Louis J.
Lekai, THE CISTERCIANS: IDEALS AND REALITY (Kent, Ohio: Kent State U.
P., 1977) 309-310.
What does Kedar have to say about it, and where?
~jon
J. M. B. PORTER
Department of History : University of Nottingham
University Park : Nottingham : NG7 2RD : England
t: + 115 951 3639 f: + 115 951 5948
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