The Novice
Holy Island, Northumbria, 793 A.D.
The monks of Lindisfarne Monastery on Holy Island were taken by surprise.
A fleet of pagan Northmen made an early morning raid on their monastery indiscriminately killing and looting. Holy relics were desecrated and trampled underfoot and the priceless treasures of England's centre of early Christianity were loaded aboard the boats ready to taken back to Scandinavia.
The older monks were mercilessly slaughtered and it was said the head of the community suffered the slow and agonising death of the "blood angel".
However, the younger monks and novices were spared. Like the looted treasures, they were valuable commodities as slaves.
They too would be loaded aboard the longships and taken to a Viking stronghold in Sweden from where they would be transported down through Rus, along the river Dnieper to the Black Sea, to the slave markets of Constantinople and Baghdad where young, Christian, male slaves were in constant demand.
However, as we can see from the picture of the young novice, who had committed his life in service to his God, his body was also desecrated. He lost count of the number of times he was brutally raped by his captors after his capture at Lindisfarne until his arrival in Constantinople.
Still, by the time he stood naked and in chains on the auction-block, he would be well skilled in his new duties as a slave.
Pictures sourced from the internet some years ago. The text is mine.
Gorgeous “novice” that I really would like to see standing naked and chained on the auction block ……. and FABULOUS FANTASY, Chris, one of your best ones ……. also because very HISTORICALLY CORRECT & REALISTIC. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteActually Vikings were very active slave-hunters and slave traders ……. even if probably not at the same level of their “colleagues”, the Northern-African Barbary pirates, both as duration of their activity (the Saracens, then called Barbary pirates, began their raiding activity on the coast of Europe in the 8th century and they continued at least up to the middle 19th century …. so more than 11 centuries of slave-hunting and trading !) and as number of captured and sold people (that for Barbary pirates needs to be counted in the order of the millions !).
As Chris correctly says in his short story, from their Scandinavian strongholds, the Viking slavers “exported” the valuable human merchandise through the Russian plains and immense rivers to the ports on the Black Sea that was the “door” towards the very rich Slave Markets not only of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire (until it existed, and then was substituted by the Turkish Ottoman Empire) …….. but even more also to the very rich Slave Markets of the whole Middle East ! …….. from the Caliphate of Baghdad to the Syrian Caliphate of Damascus …….. from the Arab Governorate of Egypt to the wealthy sheikdoms of Aden and Oman and all the Arabic peninsula, where especially very exotic Nordic slaves, with pale rosy skin, blond hair and blue or green eyes were extremely valued and very highly paid.
Knowing this very well, the wily Scandinavian pirates and slave traders not only captured and traded slaves from the coasts of Europe, but even more, during their travels through Russia, towards the Black Sea and the Middle East, raided and captured many and many other Slavic slaves.
According to some historians, Russians have been actually for many and many centuries the most abundant ethnic group in the herds of European slaves that were exported from the ports of the Black Sea towards the rich Slave Markets of the Middle East and of the Arabic world.
Not yet satisfied of capturing and selling Russians together with their other Anglian, Irish, Scottish, Frankish, Germanic etc.etc. slaves …… it is historically documented that not rarely Vikings sold into slavery, both to Byzantines and to Arabs, also OTHER VIKINGS ! ……. i.e. warriors of other Viking tribes that had been captured as prisoners of war during the bloody and never-ending “internecine” wars that divided the various Viking tribes one against the other.
The very high value, on the auction-blocks of a Slave Market under the scorching sun of Damascus or of Baghdad, of Aden or of Muscat ……. of a rare blond and blue-eyed herculean Nordic young giant, made the Viking slave-traders to suppress their conscience, and forget that those young men, captured in tribal wars, were valiant and strong warriors of their same blood and of their same people.
But the power of gold is invincible !
Karel
Hi Karel,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your contribution and continuing support of my posts. Both are greatly appreciated.
I agree with you. Over many centuries, millions of white slaves found themselves transported to the slave-markets of Rome, Byzantium and the Islamic world. Those people known as Slavs were highly prized and their racial origins gave our language the word "slave".
Without wishing to be controversial, today, we tend to see chattel slavery in terms of black and white and view it as a white man's crime. Certainly, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was an abomination and a horrendous crime against humanity and we should never forget that or try to justify it in any way.
However, slavery has existed since the beginning of recorded history - and most likely before then - and it was practised in all societies. No racial group was exempted because of the colour of their skin.
All men could become slaves if the circumstances were right!
How many of us alive today could include slaves among our ancestors, I wonder.
H
Slave Toby,
DeleteI totally agree with you.
Very opportune and fully historically correct remarks and clarifications.
Thanks.
Karel