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What is Slavery?

This chapter examines the concept of slavery. The first part of the chapter uses early medieval slavery as an illuminating test-case: the complexity and diversity of early medieval slavery makes it possible to challenge some implicit assumptions that have long dominated the study of ancient slavery; it also allows us to test the conceptual coherence of various key concepts in the study of slavery. The second part of the chapter builds on these insights to propose a new conceptualisation of slavery as an agglomerate of three conceptual systems: slavery as property, slave status, and the various modalities of slavery. By breaking up the unitary understanding of slavery as a single essence, it explores the varying content of each conceptual system and the diverse ways in which they fitted in together across space and time.