In this remarkable debut monograph, Janel Fontaine undertakes the ambitious task of developing a comparative framework in which to analyse slave trading, from the seventh to eleventh centuries, in two discrete yet interconnected zones: the British Isles and the Czech lands. These case studies are well chosen: two politically fragmented regions with distinct and uneven bodies of evidence that are nevertheless sufficiently aligned to enable comparisons in terms of both similarity and difference. Fontaine deploys a wide field of vision that expands each region to include, on the one hand, the whole of a North Atlantic world (Scandinavia, Iceland, Ireland, the Low Countries), and, on the other hand, the regions centred on the Morava and Vltava Rivers, framed by the Upper Elbe and the Danube, and linked to southern markets in the Adriatic and the Levant. Fontaine also enriches her analysis by approaching the slave trade as a process that defies conflation with the more abstract and institutional notion of slavery. The result is a tightly argued monograph that provides a fresh perspective and a welcome reassessment of existing scholarship. Fontaine has thus positioned herself at the forefront of a field that has seen rapidly increasing interest in recent years, and she has successfully changed the way in which researchers think about slavery and its position in early medieval Europe.

One insight convincingly established in the book is the importance of East-Central Europe in discussions of slave trading that might otherwise focus on the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean regions alone. It is only by treating the heartlands of Greater Moravia as a fully integral aspect of Europe and European trade networks that Fontaine demonstrates the importance of slave acquisition, exchange, and transport as a series of interlinked, local processes – a major contribution of the book. In such a model, no space can be fairly reduced to intermediary status, least of all the Czech lands and the individuals who operated the slave trade across the region. Fontaine rightly breaks with older models that drew upon the discredited idea of a Jewish monopoly in the trade of slaves across Europe. Instead, the role of Christian actors in the slave trade must be reassessed without undue emphasis given to sources that exaggerate the presence and impact of moralizing sentiments. While it remains important to track Christianisation and its relationship to the slave trade, such dynamics alone cannot bear the weight of explaining shifts in slaveholding practices or reductions in the exchange of human merchandise. Fontaine is especially sharp in precisely dissecting and delimiting the statements of figures like Wulfstan or Adalbert, whose rhetoric has often been misunderstood as applying more broadly than intended: these figures might have objected to specific aspects of slave trading, but their words should not be framed straightforwardly as expressions of antislavery ideas, nor should their impact be overestimated.

Fontaine considers the scale of slave trading to be highly variable, with a continuous process of opportunistic acquisition and exchange adjusting responsively to meet spiking demand where possible. The role of the Abbasid world in this process certainly merits detailed attention, as Fontaine readily acknowledges. But she also calls attention to other developments, such as the settlement of Iceland, which seems to have increased slaving activity in the North Atlantic as settlers looked to establish and staff households. Political developments also seem to have factored into the dynamics of this variable trade, with areas of consolidation pushing raiding activities into areas with greater fragmentation, a point that becomes especially clear by comparing the two zones under investigation. Indeed, increased demand might have a destabilising effect, creating both supply and the conditions that made supply possible, by fuelling conflict and warfare through a need for captives and the formation of warrior bands. While Fontaine fully acknowledges the sexual exploitation of slaves, and by implication the role of sexual desire in slave acquisition and exchange, she prefers to situate those motives within the broader context of household operations and slave labour. Sensible as that approach might be, it is difficult to escape the sense that an opportunity might have been missed to account for the enduring presence of slavery in domestic contexts even where the economics of slaveholding alone appear to be an insufficient explanation, if considered purely on their own terms.

By identifying domestic spaces as the primary context for enslavement in the Early Middle Ages, Fontaine offers a means to reconcile the persistent presence of references to slaves within the source material, and the enduring inclination of authors to think with slavery in mind, with the fluctuations in the slave trade and the generally reduced number of slaves owned and traded, when compared to the Roman period or to certain regions within the Abbasid world. Fontaine demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the primary sources and a sophisticated methodological approach that effortlessly compares textual and material evidence while balancing caution with insight. In what represents a methodological tour de force, she confronts the challenges presented by this material directly, in a manner that neither ignores ambiguity nor concedes to it. Fontaine spends rather less time situating her study within the historiography of slavery in general, though the relevant secondary studies have clearly been given due consideration and referenced within the bibliography. As a result, the reader carries most of the burden for appreciating how the insights of the book advance, and occasionally upend, previous scholarship, though Fontaine does signpost certain major points of difference. One such example concerns the complexity of the process of slave trading, which has been obscured by outdated notions of large cargos transported over vast distances by singular groups of merchants. Instead, Fontaine shows how the dynamics of the slave trade were defined by local networks of exchange and small-scale operations that can be glimpsed only fragmentarily in the primary sources.

Overall, Slave Trading in the Early Middle Ages represents a major contribution to scholarship on slavery in the early medieval period. Ambitious, innovative, methodologically sophisticated, the book opens up new lines of inquiry for researchers investigating the seventh to eleventh centuries and models a comparative approach that places East-Central Europe at the heart of the discussion.