Slavery in medieval Europe was widespread. Europe and North Africa were part of an interconnected trade network across the Mediterranean Sea , and this included slave trading. During the medieval period — , wartime captives were commonly forced into slavery. As European kingdoms transitioned to feudal societies , a different legal category of unfree persons — serfdom — began to replace slavery as the main economic and agricultural engine.
Throughout medieval Europe, the perspectives and societal roles of enslaved peoples differed greatly, from some being restricted to agricultural labor to others being positioned as trusted political advisors. Slavery in the Early Middle Ages — was initially a continuation of earlier Roman practices from late antiquity , and was continued by an influx of captives in the wake of the social chaos caused by the barbarian invasions of the Western Roman Empire. As these peoples Christianized , the church worked more actively to reduce the practice of holding coreligionists in bondage.
Patrick , who himself was captured and enslaved at one time, protested an attack that enslaved newly baptized Christians in his letter to the soldiers of Coroticus. Another major factor was the rise of Bathilde — , queen of the Franks , who had been enslaved before marrying Clovis II.
When she became regent, her government outlawed slave-trading of Christians throughout the Merovingian empire. It is difficult to be certain about slave numbers, however, since the old Roman word for slave servus continued to be applied to unfree people whose status later was reflected by the term serf.
Demand from the Islamic world , which arose in the seventh century, dominated the slave trade in Europe during the medieval period — As a result, most Christian slave merchants focused on moving slaves from non-Christian areas to Muslim Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East; and most non-Christian merchants, although not bound by the Church's rules, focused on Muslim markets as well. By the reign of Pope Zachary — , Venice had established a thriving slave trade, enslaving people in Italy, among other places, and selling them to the Moors in North Africa Zacharias himself reportedly forbade such traffic out of Rome.
