In the last few years research on early medieval slavery has seen an ever-growing emphasis
placed on long-distance slave trading and on the raiding practices that fed this trade. There
has been relatively little link-up between this and older historiography looking at slavery in
terms of labour and social history: the slaves who moved and the slaves who stayed have largely
been kept in separate conversations. The increased profitability of slaving though should
lead us to expect a rise in the internal importance of slavery as well as in slave-raiding and
trading to external markets. This is what we find in many of the regions most intimately
associated with the trade. There were however profound regional differences in the profiles
and forms of engagement in slaving activities across Europe. I suggest that Joseph C. Miller's
idea of slaving as a political strategy adopted by marginal players seeking to bypass normal
forms of elite competition is helpful in thinking through the logic of these different
responses to the opportunities and challenges presented by the slave trade: what motivated and
constrained elite choices and possibilities? And what made slaving a more viable political
strategy in some regions than in others?
