A truly interesting and very well-written article has appeared in Early Medieval History this month. Fortunately it is open-access. The article is
T. Dailey & Justin Piggott, “Ascetics, slaves, and necessity in Late Antiquity: renouncing all wealth, but for a single slave”, Early Medieval Europe 34 (2026); https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70055
It can be found online here. Unfortunately the page numbers do not seem to be given on the website. Here’s the abstract:
Slave owners in Late Antiquity viewed the possession of at least one slave to be a necessity and a defining mark that distinguished the dignified social classes from the poor. Ascetics who shared this perspective faced a choice when renouncing all worldly possessions in pursuit of spiritual perfection, one not merely about luxury, but also about status and perhaps even survival. Hagiographic literature and monastic rules reveal that the embrace of the ascetic life, in eremitic and coenobitic contexts alike, was often assumed to accommodate the retention of a single slave as a personal attendant.
That is the argument: that asceticism did not exclude having a slave, and indeed for elite people, required it as a signifier of social status.
The article is very well written and compelling, and the illustrations are also interesting. Here is an excerpt.
High-status individuals of the late Roman world regarded the ownership of at least one slave as a necessity. Indeed, the ephemeral appearance of slaves in hagiographic narratives indicates that their literary function secured the high social status of their protagonist. By retaining one slave, an ascetic addressed the fear that total renunciation might destabilize their social status, in a manner distinct from other forms of wealth.8
Such sentiments appear in a story about the mistreatment of Fructuosus. According to his seventh-century Life,9 when he became separated from his entourage while praying in a secluded place in the woods, Fructuosus found himself confronted by a passing peasant. Alone, dressed in humble clothing, and with no other visible markers of his status, he was taken to be a runaway slave. The peasant shouted abuse and even struck the saint, who faced the risk of enslavement in a society that had particularly strong laws on the reclamation of runaway slaves.10
The Life, however, presented the peasant as behaving irrationally, under demonic influence, and the tension in the scene ended when the saint exorcized his assailant, who was miraculously restored to his senses. Divine intervention thus rescued Fructuosus from the unthinkable fate of equivalent treatment to a slave.
9. Life of St Fructuosus, c. 11, ed. M.C. Díaz y Díaz, La vida de San Frutuoso de Braga. Estudio y edición crítica (Braga, 1974).
St Fructuosus was previously unknown to me, but he is one of the Visigothic saints, belonging to the early 7th century. The critical edition referenced is not accessible to me, and indeed this article states that it is “quite difficult to access.”1
The “Life” itself is apparently BHL 3194; CPL 1293; old Latin text in PL 87, cols 459-70. Fortunately an English translation exists in the TTH series by A. T. Fear, Lives of the Visigothic Fathers, Liverpool (1997), p. 123-144. Chapter 11, p.133, with an interesting footnote:
…. But, as we have said, when he was on that part of his journey which passed through the lands of Idanha-a-Velha, it happened that all the companions of the blessed man went ahead of him a little way,47 while he stopped in a secluded place in the woods, hidden away in the thick forests, and prayed a short while. While he lay prostrate in prayer, the Ancient Enemy, ever envious of all good men, swiftly brought a boorish countryman possessed by madness to the place where the man of God was praying. When he had seen the man of God from afar, catching sight of him alone amongst the trees, dressed in poor clothes with unshod, naked feet, as he had a peasant’s mind he despised him for his poor clothing and because of his mad rashness drew closer. Thinking Fructuosus a runaway slave, the peasant abused him with shameless words and did not delay to insult him with all kinds of vile expressions.48 But when the man of God replied to him with a tranquil mind, ‘I am clearly not a runaway’, the peasant, thinking on the contrary that he certainly was one, goaded by the impulse of the devil, struck him a blow with the staff he was carrying in his hands. The man of God bore this patiently, but the other did not cease from striking him, so soon he made the sign of the cross to him. At once the demon left the woodsman and passed into the earth,49 dashing him prostrate before the feet of the holy man and wounding him to such a degree in its fury that after cruelly lacerating him it left him lying in a pool of his own blood. 50 However, the man of God at once prayed and restored him to his previous state of health without any difficulty.
48. Part of the problem might have been Fructuosus’ unkempt appearance. This probably involved growing his hair long, which was the sign of a slave – see LV 9.1.5 where it is made an offence to cut a fugitive slave’s hair. There would have been a potential reward of at least a tremiss for the countryman had Fructuosus been an escaped slave, LV9.l.l4. The problem of runaways seems to have been a persistent teature of the Visigothic kingdom. Leovigild legislated on this matter (LV 9 .1.3) as did many of his successors. See King [1972] 162 ff.
50. Demons characteristically injure their victims when forced from their bodies.
The article is online, 22 pages of it, and so I won’t try to summarise it. As we all knew from our student days, the summary is at the end anyway:
Slave owners in Late Antiquity viewed the possession of at least one slave to be a necessity and a defining mark that distinguished the dignified social classes from the poor. Ascetics drawn from this background shared the same perspective, and their renunciation of all worldly possessions often stopped short of releasing every slave. In many situations, whether within a hermitage or a monastery, one personal attendant remained, perhaps under legal slavery or perhaps under a freed status that left the same asymmetrical architecture of their relationship in place while maintaining a nominal distinction. …
Slave ownership, especially in the form of personal attendance, functioned as more than an economically oriented relationship. It also marked the high status of the slave owner and defined the identity of the elite. The slave who ran away from Monegund, and the faithful Galienus who remained with Merovech to the bitter end, might have been opposites in terms of their loyalty to their owners, but they shared one essential quality: for their owners, their presence was a matter of life and death.
When late antique authors claimed, consistently and repeatedly, that one slave was a necessity for their own existence as a social elite, they revealed a rare glimpse into the ideological and practical limits of asceticism and renunciation.
So what do we make of this argument? Argument from scattered examples always carries the risk of generalising as a universal rule what is instead a series of unrepresentative local examples. But the claim does have the ring of truth.
In all times, members of the elite have always found ways to communicate their status, and always will. In England social status is conveyed by accent and language rather than dress, a means of communication that can pass unobserved to those unaware of it. For instance readers of John Wesley’s Diary will remember the scene where he is grabbed by a local landowner and marched off, “to serve his majesty” as a conscript.2 It is only when his captor draws breath that Wesley calmly points out, in elite language, and no doubt in an Oxford accent, that such conduct is illegal. Whereupon his captor suddenly realises that his victim is not a labourer as he had thought, but a gentleman. Consternation! –
Upon this Mr. B. lost all patience, and cried out with all his might, “Seize him, seize him! I say, seize the Preacher for His Majesty’s service.” But no one stirring, he rode up and struck several of his attendants, cursing them bitterly for not doing as they were bid.
Perceiving still that they would not move, he leaped off his horse, swore he would do it himself, and caught hold of my cassock, crying, ” I take you to serve His Majesty.” A servant taking his horse, he took me by the arm, and we walked arm in arm for about three quarters of a mile. He entertained me all the time, with the “wickedness of the fellows belonging to the society.”
When he was taking breath, I said, “ Sir, be they what they will, I apprehend it will not justify you, in seizing me in this manner, and violently carrying me away, as you said, to serve His Majesty.” He replied, “I seize you! And violently carry you away! No, Sir; no. Nothing like it. I asked you to go with me to my house, and you said you was willing; and if so, you are welcome; and if not, you are welcome to go where you please.”
I answered, “ Sir, I know not if it would be safe for me to go back through this rabble.” “ Sir,” said he, “ I will go with you myself.” He then called for his horse, and anotherfor me,and rode back with me to the place from whence he tookme.
The slave as a marker of status is quite an argument, and rather compelling. It will be interesting to see the responses.
What struck me here was that I had never imagined that this might be the case. It is salutary to be reminded that a few minutes time-travel to late antiquity would most certainly up-end our mental picture of that period in all sorts of ways.
I had a similar experience a few years ago reading a book of saints’ lives which Dumbarton Oaks had put out, called Holy Women of Byzantium. Most of the woman had expressed their sanctity by disguising themselves as eunuchs and entering a monastery—which of course presupposes an environment in which eunuchs are common enough not to cause much comment or inquiry.
The past, as they say, is a foreign country.
Definitely.