In the late Middle Ages, labor relations in Ragusa changed
In semantics, we can find some grammatical features of forced labor. The main difference is that some servants and maids will directly ** or rent themselves (direct form), while most will be ** by others**, donate or rent (indirect form).
In the direct form of a service agreement, the giver and receiver are the same. In the indirect form, however, the act of giving, promising and receiving is the responsibility of three different people, who may be a slave hunter, a trader, a master, or a relative.
Similarly, the document of disengagement from military service, known as the Covenant of Freedom, follows the same basic structure.
Whether the servant is released for ransom, long-term loyalty, and saving the master's soul, or an attendant or maid is released unconditionally or conditionally, or even another servant takes their place, they will be restructured and restructured by the "giver", "middleman" and "receiver".
It is worth mentioning that the form of direct dismissal of a person is different from that of indirect dismissal. In the direct version, if the person offers coins, finds a replacement, or promises to provide compensatory services after giving, the ruler releases his servus or ancilla.
In the indirect version, the host releases their service staff in exchange for compensation from a third party.
How are the complex issues of social reality reflected in the semantics and notarial deeds of forced labor? In the economic realm, what is the intrinsic relationship between a lifetime purchase agreement and a fixed-term service agreement?
Of the five standard semantics of "giving", "having", "committing", and "receiving", two short prepositions may be hiding the key to more information. Each agreement contains a commitment or final commitment with a description of the quantity or timing.
These prepositions seem to reveal the value of an agreement, where the different participants agree on a certain amount of coins, non-monetary services, and a certain amount of time. By quantitatively evaluating the valuations of these quantities and times, we can draw striking conclusions.
In the early 1280s, the value of the sale or employment of Slavic immigrants seemed interchangeable in absolute terms, whether they were forcibly captured, voluntarily**, or provided by relatives.
In the purchase agreement, the ** of the squire and the maid fluctuated between 4-12 solidi and paid an average of 78 Soridi to 104 Soridi, you can get the servant you want.
However, from long-term data analysis, purchase agreements are often a life-cycle phenomenon that most people are released or resold a few years after being serviced for life. People who are lent for a fixed period of time serve in a family for an average of seven years, ranging from 2 to 12 years.
Both parties will agree on a certain amount of coins as remuneration for the beginning or end of the service period, and the amount of service per year is 04 to 8Between 0 solidi and 1 solidi on average.
In training agreements with cloth makers, goldsmiths or glass makers, the training period is usually between 4 and 10 years, and when the training period is shorter, the trainee usually does not leave the hospital with any equipment, but usually after a longer training period.
To be exempt from service obligations, one is required to pay 10 soridi, the exact amount will vary from 6 soridi to 16 sorids, which is equivalent to the average purchase of a squire or maid**.
If a person can be found to replace him or her, that person will be accepted instead of paying the usual amount of coins. In short, no matter how the Balkan Slavs entered the Ragusa family, whether their service contract was permanent or temporary, their service in that family was usually only a few years, and the agreements regarding services, goods, and coins were all within a similar range.
At the end of the 13th century, the people of Ragusa apparently had a very clear and stable idea of the value of unskilled workers from the Balkans and the services they performed.
So, the key question is, why do some people successfully climb the social ladder while others are treated and sold as commodities? What are the relevant factors that form the social classification of Ragusa?
In order to better understand forced labor in society, we need to shift from the macro level to the micro level, and specifically analyze the service workers, their family networks, and their kinship status.
By comparing the value and kinship of different service arrangements, we can see a clear difference: while service arrangements are interchangeable in value, they are not interchangeable in the relationship between service personnel and relatives.
Those who did not have a family network in Ragusa, whose slave deeds did not indicate the names of their relatives, could only be done by a general geography **—all for life** (absolute death), although in reality almost all of them changed homes after a few years.
However, those who have parents or siblings in town are usually able to obtain fixed-term arrangements, and the number of coins circulating between them, as well as between kinship networks and the host family, is agreed.
Here's a concrete example:
In October 1281, two brothers, Carlos and Predrago, of the ragusa cloth family, traveled to Madrague with a Bosnian boy named Dragoa to sign a six-year service agreement.
The agreement stipulates that Carlosi will not only provide food, clothing and shoes for Dragoya, but will also be responsible for his training. If Dragoya escapes, Carlosi must bring him back; If Dragoya steals or lies, Kalosi needs to pay for it.
Considering that Dragoya was still a minor, Carlosi placed him in Predrago's house. About 9 months later, the clothier hired another boy: Smoletta.
Smoletta had no relatives, and Predrago bought him from one of his relatives for five soridi's **. Although squires purchased in other cases may be more "expensive" in absolute value than the daughters or sisters of temporarily rented Slavic immigrants, this deal suggests that Slavs can put their labor into at least two socio-economic communities, one of their kinship and the other of their parents' families.
Dragoya served the Predrago brothers selflessly, without any pay. At the same time, his brother no longer has to pay his child support. After six years of professional training, he could have started working as a cloth to earn an income and use the economic, social and cultural capital he had accumulated in the Predrago family to support other relatives.
In December 1282, Matthias, another member of the Predrago family, released his Bosnian squire Dobraka for giving his sister Tsvetana ten soridi to Dobraka in order to redeem her sister.
Apparently, Dobraka was immediately handed over to another person - Vita Gataldi, with the consent of her former owner and sister, while the witnesses and judges of the ransom agreement promised Dobraka food, clothes and shoes, and gave him two suridis in advance as a condition of service for four years.
While the number of repayments Soridi is below average twice in four years, it could be a good opportunity for Dobraka to repay at least part of the ransom her sister Zueti gave her.
How did Tsvetana get ten times Soridi to free her sister? Another case may provide the answer. Bratusi, the daughter of the deceased, Radosi, dedicated herself to Johannus de Crosio, a member of the esteemed Ragusa family, not only for food, clothing and shoes, but also for the impressive 16 Soliti.
Perhaps her deceased father or herself had such authority in the city, and Johannus was willing to give Bratusi a considerable amount of coins. As the analysis of other notarial deeds shows, she may have used the money to redeem her children or (as in the case of Zueti) another relative, or to arrange for another assistant to replace her.
When a servant or helper has certain social, economic, or cultural capital, such as money, skills, or connections, they can reinvest that capital to help other family members or relatives.
Thus, even though the relatives do not live together, they seem to practice a way of common housekeeping. They distribute the material and non-material resources they have acquired or earned through the service as needed, under the influence of debtors and creditors, as well as by the interests of family members or female relatives.
This social interdependence existed not only between the relatives of the Slavic migrant workers, but also between the families of the hosts and the populations they served. Hussein, for example, released his Bosnian attendant Dobrosti in February 1281 without demanding compensation from her.
Hussein agreed to his former assistant to work for him during the grape harvest and wine sales each autumn, and in return he promised to feed her in Dobrosti.
In Hussein's view, Dobrosti was not a substitute for other maids, because she not only gained work skills, but also gained personal reputation. This conditional release may have been intended to permanently bind Dobrosti to the family of her former master, while also thanking her for her service and expressing personal gratitude.
From a gender perspective, these cases are of particular significance. Only male Slavs wrote down instruction in skills or crafts, but no one made a written commitment to such training.
However, release arrangements such as those of the Pesegner family make it clear that the handmaidens need to be trained as the squires in many of the skills required in their master's household.
Whatever their wording, the attendants and maids became experts in grape picking, livestock raising, cloth making, gold jewellery and personal care. Thus, family-based analyses show that in Ragusa in the 1280s, a Slavic servant with relatives did not necessarily live better than a kidnapped without relatives.
The socio-economic capital (or potential) of a related Slav depends not only on her negotiations with her future master or family, but also on profitable investments in the family economy of the servants.
In Slavic immigrant families, the hierarchy clearly defined the social relations between relatives and family members. Parents and older siblings hold power over unmarried women and minor family members.
Maids and butlers decide most of the domestic services. However, studies of social dynamics within the family have shown that domestic servants and settling-in families play an intermediary role between two different economic groups.
Their socioeconomic status is determined by their status or potential within the economic community in which they live and work.