slaves in cities were not only lazy but arrogant, using much
of their time to earn money of their own while having none
of the expenses of feeding, housing, or clothing themselves.
Even so, household slaves were oft en treated like part of their
owner’s family, and when they became too old to work, they
were cared for by their owners.EUROPE
BY AMY HACKNEY BLACKWELL
Slavery was a fact of life throughout the ancient world. Almost
every society had some form of servitude in which people ex-
ploited the labor of others. Among ancient Europeans slavery
existed but not nearly to the extent that it did in the Mediter-
ranean region. European society was not heavily agricultural
or urban, so there was not as much need for labor as there
was in the Greek and Roman economies. Many thousands of
Celts and Germans became the slaves of Greeks and Romans,
who used them in a variety of ways.
Th e Celts, like many ancient peoples, oft en enslaved the
people they conquered when they moved into a new terri-
tory. For example, this may have happened in ancient Ireland
when the Celts arrived; some historians believe that the Celts
enslaved the prehistoric people to build tombs such as New-
grange. Th e favored slaves were usually women and children,
who were more docile than men and better suited for the
domestic tasks the Celts needed performed. Celts would use
slaves to gather wood, carry water, cook, weave, and perform
sexual favors.
It appears that the Gauls, the Celts who lived in France,
were using slaves during the eighth and seventh centuries
b.c.e. Slaves came from conquered nations in the region. Well-
to-do Gauls used women and children as domestic slaves to
do basic household chores. Noble families would exchange
gift s of slaves as a way of solidifying friendships. Historians
believe that Gauls of this period engaged in trade of slaves
with the Etruscans in Italy, and some further contend that the
Gauls were still engaging in the slave trade with Italy during
later Roman times. During the late second and fi rst centu-
ries b.c.e. Gauls are said to have sold their brethren as slaves
in exchange for wine. Some 15,000 Gauls may have been en-
slaved in this way. It is not known whether these slaves were
family members of the traders or if they were already slaves
of the Gauls.
Th e Celtic peoples had clear laws about slavery. Th ey di-
vided themselves into several social classes, including nobles,
free property owners, and freemen who did not own prop-
erty. Th e bottom of the Celtic social ladder was occupied
by people who were not free. Some nonfree people were not
slaves at all; these individuals did not hold the full rights of
the group, but they were still allowed to support themselves
by farming on tribal lands. In Ireland, for example, there was
a class of nonfree farmers called fudirs. Th ese people were not
exactly slaves in the modern sense, in that their master could
not buy and sell them, but they had almost no legal rights.Th ey worked the land for their master and were forced to pay
rent or tribute every year. Th is rent supposedly obligated the
master to feed and house them. However, their master could
throw them off the land at any time and for any reason. When
a fudir died, the land he occupied did not pass to his children
unless the master chose to allow them to stay.
Other individuals were genuine slaves, that is, owned by
other people and forced to work without wages. Celtic law set
values for slaves; male slaves were considered more valuable
than female ones. Celtic slaves were usually Celtic peoples
who had lost their liberty through a variety of causes, such as
fi nancial misfortune or losing in battle. Sometimes Celts im-
ported slaves from other areas, but usually slaves were local.
Occasionally parents sold their children into slavery if they
felt they needed the money. Slave traders oft en raided farms
at night to steal children and sell them for slaves. Th ese raid-
ers typically attacked houses on the coast of Roman Britain
(modern-day Wales) and carried their slaves over to Ireland.
Th e Irish Saint Patrick (fi ft h century c.e.) was himself stolen
as a boy from his family’s estate in Britain and spent several
years working as a slave shepherd in Ireland before escaping
and taking on a religious vocation. Some sources say that it
was a law in Ireland that slaves were freed every seventh year
and suggest that Patrick may have been freed under this law
instead of escaping.
Both categories of slave were at a severe disadvantage
under the Celtic legal system. A person’s rank determined
the value of his evidence and whether he would be allowed
to testify at all. A freeman could testify against a fudir, but aA youth spent in slavery produced what many con-
sider to be Ireland’s greatest saint. Born in Roman
Britain (modern-day Wales), Saint Patrick was a
teenager when he was stolen from his home and sent
to Ireland to work as the slave of a pig farmer. He ate
the pigs’ food and dressed in whatever rags he could
scrounge up. He was always hungry and cold.
In his misery, Patrick prayed to God 100 times
a day and 100 times a night. After a few years he
began to see visions telling him that he should es-
cape. These visions instructed him to walk to the
sea, where he would fi nd a ship waiting to take him
away. The visions were persuasive and certainly more
attractive than his current life as a slave, so Patrick
walked away from his pigs and continued walking to
the ocean. Sure enough, there was a ship waiting to
take him to Europe. He sailed away and became a
priest, but Ireland was deeply ingrained in his soul.
He devoted the rest of his life to converting Ireland’s
people to Christianity.SLAVERY AND DIVINE VISIONS
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