What Did Medieval Slavery Look Like? Color, Race, and Unfreedom in Later Medieval Iberia

Visual representations of dromedaries in Greco‐Roman antiquity and the middle ages: Imagining the other before orientalism

“…This artistic combination of kings and attendants replicates the kind of social hierarchy that is invoked by depicting the former as white and the latter as black. Darker skin color was indeed a recurring visual trope to represent subordinate status in Medieval art (Patton, 2022). The motif of the camel, when associated with people of color, and especially when juxtaposed with the horse-a powerful symbol of nobility, knighthood, and overall, power in the Christian West-contributes to this ideological dichotomy.…”

“…I would also like to point out the existence of the specific iconography of camel fights, see Adamova (2004). 19 Associating skin color and subordinate status in this way marks a shift from premodern Europe, "where perceived relationships between color and race remained flexible and the question of who could be enslaved turned on a mix of variables-from social and economic disadvantage to military defeat to religious difference-that often had little to do with color or geographical origin," see Patton (2022). 20 Orientalist art is known for its stereotypical and/or essentializing representations of non-White European peoples and their cultures, implicitly conveying their inferiority to White Europeans and thus justifying imperial and colonial agendas.…”

“… 19 19 Associating skin color and subordinate status in this way marks a shift from premodern Europe, “where perceived relationships between color and race remained flexible and the question of who could be enslaved turned on a mix of variables—from social and economic disadvantage to military defeat to religious difference—that often had little to do with color or geographical origin,” see Patton (2022). …”

Slave voices and experiences in the later medieval Europe

“…5-6). Iconographies of skin colour were increasingly mapped onto free and unfree status (Patton, 2022).…”

“…Slavery in this period was defined through law, not through race. However, late medieval slavery played a key role in processes of race‐making (Heng, 2018; Strickland, 2012), and was itself increasingly inflected by ideas about race over the course of the period (Epstein, 2001; Patton, 2022). We can trace a trajectory from judgements earlier in the period about religious and geographical origins of slaves, to a growing tendency to conceive of provenance and identity in explicitly racialised terms: slave‐owners became increasingly selective in commissioning traders to bring them slaves from a particular area and with a particular appearance.…”