Christian Views On Slavery - History of Institutional Slavery

History of Institutional Slavery

The Church initially accepted slavery as a social institution in antiquity and even into the Early Medieval period. Some Catholics such as Saint Bathilde, Saint Anskar, Saint Wulfstan and Saint Anselm campaigned against slavery and the slave trade. By the end of the Medieval period, enslavement of Christians had been largely abolished throughout Europe, although enslavement of non-Christians remained an open question. Although Catholic clergy, religious orders and even popes owned slaves, Catholic teaching began to turn towards the abolition of slavery beginning in 1435 and culminating in three major pronouncements against slavery by Pope Paul III in 1537. A number of Popes issued papal bulls condemning enslavement and mistreatment of Native Americans by Spanish and Portuguese colonials; however, these were largely ignored despite the threat of excommunication. In spite of a resounding condemnation of slavery by Pope Gregory XVI in his bull In Supremo Apostolatus issued in 1839, the American Catholic Church continued to support slaveholding interests until the abolition of slavery. The Church has maintained its teaching against slavery and continues to campaign against it in whatever form it takes around the world.

Avery Cardinal Dulles makes the following observations about the Catholic Church and the institution of slavery

1. For many centuries the Church was part of a slave-holding society.
2. The popes themselves held slaves, including at times hundreds of Muslim captives to man their galleys.
3. Throughout Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages, theologians generally followed St. Augustine in holding that although slavery was not written into the natural moral law it was not absolutely forbidden by that law.
4. St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin were all Augustinian on this point. Although the subjection of one person to another was not part of the primary intention of the natural law, St. Thomas taught, it was appropriate and socially useful in a world impaired by original sin.
5. No Father or Doctor of the Church was an unqualified abolitionist.
6. No pope or council ever made a sweeping condemnation of slavery as such.
7. But they constantly sought to alleviate the evils of slavery and repeatedly denounced the mass enslavement of conquered populations and the infamous slave trade, thereby undermining slavery at its sources.

Slavery and Middle Ages serfdom were not synonymous, nor was serfdom the evolution of slavery. Serfs chose whom they married, they did not have their families broken up, they paid rent for their land and worked the land at their own pace. Under the agreement that serfs owed their lord a set amount of labor per year, it was agreed upon beforehand and looked similar to hired labor. Serfs rented land from lords, but feudalism was a mutual obligation, not brutal ownership. Lords also upheld their end of a contract to those renting their land.