Medieval slavery in the Mediterranean ran in many directions, not just one.

Evidence

In the early centuries central and eastern Europe was a fruitful source and the trade in these so-called ‘Slavs’ (Saqaliba) was in the hands of Christians and Jews until they were sold into the hands of Muslim merchants on the shores of the Mediterranean or the Caspian Sea. From the eleventh century, when more powerful polities began to emerge in Europe, this source began to dry up, but slaves of European origin were still obtained by raiding and piracy within the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic Coast. European Christian powers of the area had no scruples about paying the Muslims back in their own coin. Another major source of slaves was Central Asia, the home of diverse nomadic tribes speaking Turkic languages. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1765

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the book’s argument that slavery and racial hierarchy preceded and underlay Atlantic slave capitalism; Robinson’s chapter on the Black radical tradition’s prehistory.