The manumission of slaves in fourteenth and fifteenth century Famagusta

Abstract

This paper is based on the records of manumissions of slaves found in the extant notarial deeds of Genoese and Venetian notaries working in Famagusta during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Subjects to be analysed and discussed are the following: the ethnic origins of the slaves, mainly Greeks but also Saracens, Slavonians, Bulgarians, Circassians and one Turkish female slave, the owners liberating them, chiefly Venetians and Genoese, but including some Eastern Christians, Cypriots and one Majorcan, as well as the reasons, if any, cited for freeing them, these usually being faithful service and the good of the owner’s soul. The last reason was cited more frequently during times of plague when mortality increased. The female to male ratio of the slaves freed, which fluctuated over time, will also be discussed. During the late thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries more female than male slaves were freed, but this proportion was reversed in the second half of the fourteenth century. Regarding the ages of slaves freed, they were unusually young in the recorded manumissions of the late thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries, and even those freed in the fifteenth century were in their mid-to late twenties in the cases where their ages are recorded. What preconditions if any were attached to their liberation from servitude, will be examined, since these usually involved serving their former masters or their heirs for a fixed number of years. In addition, the reasons why there are only four extant acts of manumission from fifteenth century Famagusta will be discussed. The limitations of the sources at our disposal and the imbalances they present in terms of space, quantity and time will also be dealt with, for the picture they present regarding manumissions of slaves is an incomplete one. The subject will also be placed in a wider Mediterranean context. Comparisons with other areas of the Mediterranean will be made and I will discuss how political, military, economic and religious developments taking place in the Mediterranean influenced the manumission of slaves on Cyprus. The closure of the Black Sea in the mid-fifteenth century as a result of the Ottoman conquests for example drove up the price of slaves and helps explain the relatively few manumissions recorded on fifteenth century Cyprus.