Renouncing all wealth but for one slave... or two! Find out more from our latest blog post, which is a companion piece to Erin and Justin's article: www.dosseproject.com/renouncing-a...

The DoSSE project is sponsoring four panels on late antique & medieval slavery at the #IMC2026 in Leeds next week (Tues 7 July, Newlyn Building GR.01). Full line-up below. See you there!

NEW on the blog: Renato da Silva, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leicester, talks about his interest in early medieval England and enslavement. He also reflects on teaching medieval history in Brazil, and how this has shaped his approach: www.dosseproject.com/researcher-s...

"The Mute Servants" Two statues of adolescent youths, whose hands would have held lamps or dishes or jugs, embodying in bronze the function of male domestic slaves at a Roman villa banquet. (1st-2nd centuries AD, now in the archaeological museum in Cordoba)

The DoSSE project will be hosting John Latham-Sprinkle (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) for a hybrid talk on 'What Can Medieval Georgia Teach Us About Child Labour?' next Monday, 12.00-13.15. Details for online and in-person attendance below:

Another example of a version of this clause - this time from a late antique Bactrian contract (669 CE) where a boy is sold by his relatives into slavery: [from Said Reza Huseini @bactria.bsky.social, 'Slavery Represented in Bactrian Documents', Slavery & Abolition 44.4 (2023), 682-96]

We organised this conference with Dr Haroon Bashir, head of research at the Markfield Institute, whose important book on abolitionism and Islam was published last year by Oxford University Press: "Slavery, Abolition, and Islam: Debating Freedom in the Islamic Tradition" academic.oup.com/book/59288

We would like to share that one of our speakers at this conference, Dr F. Redhwan Karim (Markfield Institute), has a book out next month on "Gender Relations in the Qur’an: Conceptualising Space and Male–Female Interaction" (Edinburgh University Press) edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-gender-...

Finally, we discussed similarities between the slaveholding practices of churches with those of Zoroastrian fire temples, drawing on Nazanin Tamari's article

For this week on 'Slavery in Late Antiquity', students looked at the relationship of slavery with the Church, beginning with three excellent articles: -@lisakaarenbailey.bsky.social on 'servi servorum Dei' -Cassandra Casias on Augustine's sermons to slaveholders -Justin Pigott on slave ordination

We are delighted to announce a one day conference on Manumission in the Medieval Islamicate World – happening on 22 April, at the University of Leicester – which the DoSSE project has co-organised with the Markfield Institute. Email Erin etd4@leicester.ac.uk to register your free attendance.

Students researching enslaved labour at the vineyard commented upon an article I'm preparing... 'Faithful slaves preserve our vintage in huge jugs & rejoice in the press with pounding feet, & the red blood of Bacchus colours their soles' (Ennodius of Pavia)

Students researching weaving & slavery read ‘Identity and forced labour in the imperial textile workshops’ by Anna Kelley tinyurl.com/4wsw7yzn 'The son of Licinianus... shall be bound in fetters & consigned to service in the imperial weaving establishment in Carthage.' (Constantine)

Students researching slaves who cooked and served food used Katherine M. Dunbabin's article on ‘The waiting servant in later Roman art’ www.jstor.org/stable/1562138 'Sosias, I must have lunch... taste and make sure—for they often play you false—that the seasoned dishes are well soused' (Ausonius)

Students researching scribes read ‘“Etched into the soul”: the education of shorthand-writers in Late Antiquity’ by Ella Kirsch @ellakirsh.bsky.social tinyurl.com/mrxtbr6p 'You have felt letters branded, Pergamus, on your face, & those which your right hand neglected your brow endures' (Ausonius)

For Week 5 of Slavery in Late Antiquity, students researched and presented on different servile occupations: scribal and secretarial work; cooking and serving food; weaving and textile work; and viticultural labour.

For Week 4 of 'Slavery in Late Antiquity', students read April Pudsey and Ville Vuolanto's chapter on 'Enslaved Children in Roman Egypt: Experiences from the Papyri'. They then searched for further evidence for the lives of child slaves on the papyri.info database.

This follows on from Sofia's recent book, 'Re-envisioning Theodore: Theodore of Mopsuestia's Biblical Exegesis in his Catechetical Homilies'

One highlight of the seminar for me was getting students to flick through the Vatican Terence (an illustrated Carolingian manuscript of Terence's comedies, likely copied from a late antique exemplar). We discussed how the slave characters could be identified. digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat...

I also asked students to upload an image related to slavery to Padlet (thanks @kcross.bsky.social!) - either from the late antique period, or a representation from modern media (film, TV, etc) that shows how people have tried to recreate the visual and material world of Roman slavery.

Week 3 of Slavery in Late Antiquity focused on material & visual culture. Students read articles about three different sources: Jennifer Trimble on slave collars; Marice Rose on slaves & mistresses in art; Avigail Manekin-Bamberger on the incantation bowls of Jewish households in the Sasanian Empire

For Week 2 of 'Slavery in Late Antiquity', on the origins of the enslaved, students read and discussed Kyle Harper's chapter on the Roman slave supply, St Patrick's Confessio & Epistula, a slave sale contract, and Augustine's letter (10) on slavers kidnapping children.

I had a great time starting teaching a third-year undergrad module on 'Slavery in Late Antiquity' today. We talked about the controversy over Sarah Ruden's translation of servus as 'slave' not 'servant' and dominus as 'master' not 'lord' in her translation of Augustine's Confessions

The IMC programme out - the DoSSE project is sponsoring four sessions on slavery (in Merovingian, Visigothic, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, and Venetian sources) on Tuesday 7th July. Details attached.

Not forgetting, of course:

Very happy to have received these three super books for Christmas! ~James

Read the full review here muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl... And learn more about Seth's new book here: brill.com/display/titl...

"Whatever you want to do with me, may you have the power of doing..." So reads a Merovingian contract for selling oneself into slavery. But where might this concept of slave ownership have come from? Find out more from our new blog post: www.dosseproject.com/from-francia...

"Let no one dare to kill another’s female slave or half-slave as if she were a witch..." So ordered the Lombard king Rothari. Our new blog post examines his edict as well as an extract from Gregory of Tours about an enslaved woman burned at the stake. Read more here: tinyurl.com/y7976pjs