The Arab world was suddenly desperate for people to work. Plague had wasted the population, and labour was in short supply. A time of peace didn’t help; war had been the usual way to bring in prisoners. Their slave labourers from Africa were alarmingly restive and then rebellious. They were forced to go to the slave markets – as far north and west as Utrecht as well as busy Venice – and they were ready to pay very well; so a slave was worth two or three times the Northern price when she or he had crossed the Mediterranean going east.22 The numbers were enough for the church council at Meaux in
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