Because much of the existing wealth had already been plundered in the previous centuries, these raids on coastal Europe thrived on capturing and selling “white slaves [who] were a particularly desirable commodity.”73 Indeed, the “House of Islam in the tenth century had little use for any of the produce and natural resources of Europe, except one; the bodies of the Europeans themselves. Young women and boys were preferred, but during the tenth century Europeans of almost any age or class, and in almost any part of the continent, could find themselves in chains and on a ship bound for North
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