I think that I am proving a point here, whether or not anyone else agrees with it, that the actions and adventures of Poul Anderson's historical novels occur in a solid world that remains invisible to the readers if they just read past all the place names and other local details as I used to do. All of the background information in these fictional narratives imparts a strong sense of place and time, including both physical and political geography.
To continue:
"'The quarrel took place beyond the Bailo's jurisdiction...'" (p. 45)
"'I suppose you know that Holy Church has forbidden Christians to sell their fellow...'" (p. 46)
- human beings? -
"'...believers. Therefore slavers are at pains to withhold the Word of God from their poor pagan victims.'" (ibid.)
That makes sense, doesn't it?
Lucas has traveled:
by sea "...to the Crimean port, Soldaia, which Venice maintained." (p. 47);
by caravan to Bokhara and Samarkand.
Soldaia has fought the Genoese colony, Kaffa.
Lucas has served a Tartar merchant and visited:
Sarai;
Karakorum;
Khan Baligh;
Cathay;
Sinope;
Anatolian emirates;
Trebizond. (Scroll down.)
He has been with many women including a Kazakh and Mei-Mei in "...the Heavenly City." (p. 48)
However, most of the women that he has known are:
"...nearly forgotten, lost in a waste of years and miles." (ibid.)
The phrase, "...a waste of years...," could be applied to Anderson's time travel saga, "Flight to Forever," but also fits as a description of a man's life.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But what I noticed was how Brother Hugh was NOT happy to see fellow Christians trafficking in slave trading, however common that was. And the influence of the Church did lead to the decline and then extinction of chattel slavery in Europe at least. That was still something. It needed more centuries before stubborn human beings willing to agree no one should be a slave, regardless of whether or not such a person was a Christian.
Ad astra! Sean
By the 14th century chattel slavery was extinct in western and northern Europe, except for a few out-of-the-way places like parts of Ireland.
It still existed in the Mediterranean parts of Latin Christendom but was slowly declining; by the Renaissance it was an exoticism there, except in Portugal and some Spanish cities involved in the African trade.
Slavery remained common in the eastern Mediterranean, and of course throughout the Islamic world -- the Barbary states were major slave-raiders and so were the Ottomans -- the Khanate of Crim (Crimea) exported something like 10,000 slaves a year to the rest of the Ottoman realms throughout the 1500's and 1600's, until the Russians overran it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, except I'm a bit surprised chattel slavery lingered so long in Ireland. I had thought it was in Scandinavia that slavered endured longest in northern Europe.
I did think of how slavery lasted most stubbornly in the Muslim world. And of course we must have seen reports of slavery being revived in some Muslim countries like Sudan and Mauritania. And a British ex RAF officer who was an online friend told me Libyans used to tell him that blacks would again be someday their slaves (while he was posted in Libya).
Yes, I have read of how the Muslim Crimean Tartars would go on annual slave raids into the Russian states (and then Muscovy after they were unified) to kidnap people to be sold into slavery. Islam has nothing like St. Paul's Letter to Philemon, which enunciated principles which did its bit to help undermine slavery at least in Christian countries.
Ad astra!
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