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Religious music served a political function in the southern United States during the antebellum period. This article examines catechisms and hymnbooks used by white evangelical missionaries and slaveowners in the antebellum South, arguing that the planter elite deployed hymns as a medium to assert white supremacy. The term sonic domination identifies processes whereby sound functioned as a social tool to maintain discipline and order among the enslaved population. Black and white people sang hymns in church, at interracial revivals, and during civic services; they were also heard on bells and cited in poetry. English texts and tunes included in slave catechisms and white portrayals of Black singing highlight the role of evangelical hymns in maintaining plantation order in the Old South. At the same time, enslaved Black Christians found creative ways to circumvent the oppressive power of the white elite through song. African Americans employed English hymns in their own religious rituals and used them to convey hidden meanings on the plantation. Both genres, which interacted and ultimately influenced each other, contributed to an eventual codification of American evangelical hymnody. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early medieval west, patronate, as adapted from Roman law, was a fundamental category in determining the legal status of freedmen. In many cases it entailed a basic set of obligations. In an increasing number of situations, however, the patron became an ecclesiastical institution, since slaves and freed persons were often given to churches and monasteries. As ecclesiastical institutions regarded their patronal rights over freed persons as part of inalienable church property, the patronal relationship became permanent and inheritable. In Eastern Francia (the Rhineland and beyond) this transformed ecclesiastical freedmen into religiously defined social groups with potentially distinct aims, religious tasks, and organizational structures, and a shared notion of freedom. From the Carolingian period onward, it even became attractive to enter voluntarily into this status. It is argued here that with its underlying network of socio‐religious relations, patronate over ecclesiastical freedmen and censuales can be better understood when considered as an element of a 'temple society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In research into the history of the Jews in the Merovingian kingdom, relevant Council decrees have so far played a very subsidiary role compared to information gleaned from narrative sources. Yet besides facilitating discoveries of importance not only for the Merovingian period, and scarcely to be found in other sources, a number of these decrees also found their way into the canon law of the High Middle Ages and acquired long-term significance as a result. The compilation presented here systematically investigates this source material according to perspectives important for the synods: Christian-Jewish intermarriages; Christian slaves owned by Jews, and the danger, as the Church saw it, of proselytism; Jews as holders of public offices; Judaizing tendencies amongst Christians; attempts to limit contact between Christians and Jews. From this it becomes apparent that the position of the Jews in the Merovingian kingdom was not as perilous as is often assumed based on the narrative sources. On the contrary, during this era the foundations were laid for a later autonomous Jewry in Europe. The essay also elaborates on the importance of the synodal decrees as source material for investigating the history of Jewry in the early medieval period. The concluding tables provide a systematic overview and also demonstrate which of the decrees were incorporated again into the medieval canonical collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the attempts of Abraham Ehrenfried Richter and Carl Nottbeck between 1738 and 1748 to undertake missionary work among the Christian slaves of Algiers. Their aim was pastoral and social work among seafarers who had been enslaved. From 1745 Nottbeck held services in his accommodation in Algiers and looked after some citizens of Hamburg, most probably Lutherans, who had been enslaved, but also quite a few Roman Catholics. The author examines the relationship between Europe and North Africa in the early modern period, considers the problem of piracy by the socalled ‘Barbary states’, and illustrates the fate of such slaves with the example of Hark Olufs. Der Autor draws a fascinating picture, characterized by both cultural conflict and cultural contact in North Africa, which lay beyond the reach of European law, and where the total of about one million Christian slaves became a not insignificant economic factor. He argues for greater use of the as yet unevaluated Moravian sources, but also describes the problem posed by their perspective being limited to missionary and diaconal concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the functions and perceptions of slavery in late medieval Cyprus, paying particular attention to attitudes towards Christian, and especially, Greek slaves. The island had a predominantly Orthodox population, and received a substantial influx of Greek slaves in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Evidence from notarial accounts, estate surveys and chronicles is utilized to examine the ways in which 'Greek' slaves were defined and identified. The article investigates whether belonging to this perceived group played a part in shaping the slaves' paths towards manumission. The context (urban or rural) in which Christian slaves served also influenced attitudes towards labour use in various ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article offers the author's insights on the influence of classicist scholar Keith Bradley on her writings about slavery among early Christians and Roman slavery. She says that she had relied on Bradley's assessments of evidence and adopted his reading habits. She adds that noticing references to slavery in text of genres from literary sources to documentary papyri is one of Bradley's contributions to her writing. She mentions that she also adopted the habit of creative skepticism.

This essay explores the significance for Defoe and his contemporaries of a brief episode near the beginning of Robinson Crusoe (1719) where Crusoe's ship is captured by pirates and he is held as a slave in Morocco for two years before escaping with a Morisco boy named Xury. At the time the novel was published, thousands of Christian slaves were being held in Muslim North Africa, and public campaigns to ransom them were organized on a large scale. Defoe's readers would have had access to many accounts describing how the ‘Barbary pirates’ operated, and the conditions in which their captives were held. Defoe himself regarded the activities of the pirates as a serious threat to the development of international trade and commerce, and frequently called for the creation of a pan-European military force to suppress them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Missionary activities were regarded with suspicion by colonial authorities and planters. When slave rebellions occurred, missionaries were often blamed for having supported rebellious attempts of slaves. In case of the Moravian mission, mission historiography and contemporary historians have pointed out that missionary teaching successfully disciplined the slaves and made them obedient. This article reevaluates this assumption by analyzing and comparing two insurrections in the British and Danish Caribbean, the labor revolt in St. Kitts in 1834 and the slave rebellion in St. Croix in 1848. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a report sent in 1654 by Jean Le Vacher, member of the Congregation of the Mission, vicar apostolic of the Holy See and acting French consul in Tunis, to the cardinals of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, in Rome. It describe his missionary work in and around Tunis. Le Vacher's letter focuses on the life and conditions of the Christian slaves (mostly Catholic, but Protestant too) in the region and on his efforts to provide spiritual and material assistance to them. It offers insights into early modern slavery in North Africa, the efforts of the Catholic Church to strengthen its presence in the area, and the culture and organisation of societies on the border between Islam and Christianity. This presentation includes the full text of Le Vacher's report in the original Italian and in English translation, together with an introduction, commentary, and editorial notes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Canon law related to slave marriage in colonial Brazil, with information on a petition sent by African slaves in Bahia, Brazil to the Catholic Church in Rome, Italy in 1708 on the subject of the legal marriage of slaves. Topics include Portugese and canonical law related to marriage in 18th century Brazil; the study of slave societies and the selective application of law due to their status as res humana; a 1585 Papal bull in defense of slave marriage in colonial Brazil; and the idea of the freedom of sacrament among Christian slaves navigating domestic sovereignty and individual rights.