Slavery in Great Levantia: Difference between revisions

Multiple factors lead to the functional end of slavery in [[Levantia]]. Primarily, the slow collapse of [[Great Levantia]] lead to severe reductions in trade and advanced economic activity, making large-scale state sponsored mines no longer viable to operate. Slaves were also increasingly hard to find and the institution of slavery largely lost its raison d'etre as slave labor became nearly as expensive as labor among freemen and urban citizens. The number of slaves further declined with the collapse of centralized state authority and law and order, as incidents of runaway slaves never being recovered became ubiquitous in the fifth century historical record. [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] morality, which was becoming the primary social mores of Levantine society by the fifth century, increasingly looked down upon the institution as theologians and practitioners alike questioned fellow children of God being held in bondage. The Levantine urban collapse also lead to the end of the institution of household slaves during the fifth century, as most major urban palaces were abandoned or turned into fortified manors with an emphasis on food self-sufficiency, and many remaining household slaves were transitioned into freemen tenants on these estates. With social attitudes turning against it, slaves becoming rare commodities, and the end of field, mine,  and domestic slaves as well as temple prostitutes, the institution faded into obscurity with the end of Great Levantia in the beginning of the sixth century. Some forms of slavery continued to exist under powerful or wealthy local rulers who could subjugate neighboring villages in the post-Levantine era, but by the turn of the seventh century slaves were vanishingly rare in Levantia. The rare exception were galley slaves, which continued in relatively robust form for centuries to come. New laws implemented by both late Great Levantia and the [[Catholic Church]], however, limited the term of service of galley slaves, and most galley slaves - either captured or sentenced to the status due to indebtedness - could expect to spend a majority of their lives as free persons.