was shocked to encounter a group of Berbers who did not recognize him as a Muslim even though he was “addressing them in Arabic speech and confessing the two shahāda.”15 In fact, the Berbers “didn’t know Arabic at all: their language is Berber, and they don’t distinguish between the language of the Arabs and that of the Franks. They astonished me greatly.”
The assumption that all Muslims could speak Arabic was also the basis of a slave market scam practiced in al-Andalus during the thirteenth century.16 A female slave was offered for sale at a very high price with the claim that she was a fresh captive from Christian territory. After the sale had been concluded and the seller had gone away, the woman addressed the unwary buyer in perfect Arabic. She threatened to complain to the local judge that she was a free Muslim who had been unjustly enslaved, tarnishing the buyer’s reputation as well as costing him the purchase price. Then she would suggest that he resell her to another dupe and split the proceeds with her, perpetuating the scam but reducing his own losses.
In contrast, Christians interpreted linguistic diversity as a sign of religious diversity within the Christian community.17 Latin and Greek were used as shorthand to represent Catholic and Orthodox Christians. A crusade proposal of 1332 asserted the correctness of Catholicism against the “many Christian peoples of diverse languages who do not walk with us in faith or in doctrine.”18 Pilgrims and travelers used linguistic diversity to express their amazement at the variety of people they encountered. At Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem, the fourteenth-century pilgrim Niccolò of Poggibonsi explained that “each generation (generazione) celebrates in its own rite, in its own tongue, so that it is a marvel to see so many people thus disguised in tongue and attire (in lingua e in vestimenta).”19 He mentioned both spoken and written language in his description of the diversity of Cairo, where “one generation is distinguished from another in language and letters and dress.”20 According to Alberto Alfieri, fifteenth-century Caffa was “ornamented by the tongues of its diverse peoples.”21 Arnold von Harff used linguistic diversity to indicate the sheer length of his physical journey: “I will, with God’s help and according to my small understanding, now describe [my journey] from country to country, from town to town, from village to village, from mile to mile, from one day’s journey to another, from language to language, from faith to faith, together with all that I have seen and experienced.”22
What may appear to be a loose association between language and religion was nevertheless used to distinguish groups of people in law and in the courts. In 1224, a plaintiff speaking through an interpreter appeared before the archbishop of Genoa to challenge the status of a slave woman named Maimona. The archbishop ruled that Maimona’s enslavement was legitimate because “she did not seem to him to be from the land of Egypt, rather she seemed to be from the Maghrib on account of her language.”23 Venice offered to confer citizenship on fifty people in the Black Sea region to boost its presence there, but the offer was open only to those who were “Latin by origin and language.”24 In 1368, Venice forbade its merchants from importing slaves “of the Tatar language.”25 As for Circassians, the Venetian humanist Giorgio Interiano claimed that they were so uncivilized that they did not even have a written form for their language.26 A man named Johan won freedom in Valencia by proving that he was a Hungarian Christian and not a Muslim Turk. His case rested upon the testimony of four Germans who conversed with him in the German and Hungarian languages as well as a doctor who verified that he was not circumcised.27
In Italian documents, the connection between language and religion appeared most often in relation to names. Masters frequently renamed their slaves. Roughly 80 percent of slave women in Genoa were given one of six names (Caterina, Lucia, Maddalena, Margherita, Maria, or Marta).28 These names were also given to freewomen, but the pool of names for freewomen was much larger. Giorgio was a common name among male slaves, far more common than among freemen. Certain names were given only to slaves: Cita (quick), Bona (good), Picenina (little), Benvenuta (welcome), Pucella (handmaiden), Divizia (riches), Melica (musical), and Aspertus or Expertus (experienced).29
Legal documents included both old and new names, often presenting the distinction between them in terms of language and religion. Sometimes language was emphasized: “Caron in Tatar, Paul in our language” or “Chotlu by name, and thereafter called Christina in Latin.”30 Other times religion was emphasized: “called Stoilana in her language, by the grace of baptism Marta” or “not baptized, and is called Achzoach in her language, and in baptism ought to be named Bona.”31 Sometimes language and religion were explicitly connected, such as the woman “called Margarita at baptism and in Latin.”32 A Venetian correspondent writing to the Pratese merchant Francesco Datini notified him of the purchase of a new slave and advised him to “have her baptized and give her a name in your own way.”33
Because the imposition of a Latin name was sometimes linked with baptism, scholars have tended to assume that all slaves with recognizably Latin names had been baptized.34 That is not necessarily true. Some masters gave their slaves Latin names without the sacrament of baptism.35 Also, there were numerous slaves whose old and new names were both associated with Christianity. An Abkhaz girl named Maria was renamed Barbara; a Russian Maria was renamed Marta.36 In such cases, did the conferral of a new name imply a second baptism, or were these slaves renamed without baptism? A woman “called Caterina in her language and Antonia in baptism” was certainly baptized once and may have been baptized twice.37 A Circassian girl “called Serafina in her language but in our idiom Magdalena” seems to have been renamed without a sacrament.38 Baptizing the same individual twice was theologically unsound, even if the two baptisms were performed in different rites. Nevertheless, some Catholic priests seem to have performed rebaptisms, since Pope Martin V threatened to excommunicate anyone who rebaptized Greek slaves.39
Adding race to the set of connections between names, languages, and religions can be misleading too. The name Caracossa might derive from Saragossa in Spain, from Circassia in the Black Sea, from the Greek name Karakouttis, or from a Tatar name.40 Each onomastic possibility carries a different set of linguistic, religious, and racial associations. Some slaves had names that reinforced their linguistic or racial categorization, such as Jarcaxa or Jarcaxius for a Circassian.41 Others had ethnonyms that did not match their linguistic or racial categorization, such as a Tatar woman named Cataio (Chinese), a Circassian woman named Gota (Goth), and a Laz woman named Comana (Cuman).42 Nasta, usually considered a Greek name, belonged to a girl categorized as Tatar.43 The name Chotlu or Cotlu was attributed to Alan, Mongol, Russian, and Tatar women.44 The result is that names cannot be relied upon to categorize a slave by language, religion, or race.
In contrast, Mamluk slaves were usually given non-Islamic names. Domestic slaves and eunuchs were given the names of desirable objects or qualities like Amber or Nightingale.45 Young mamluks, as well as some of their slave concubines, were given distinctive names composed of Turkic and Persian elements like Aqbirdī or Qarābughā.46 Names constructed in that way signaled a slave’s membership in the elite military class, not his or her original language. Of the distinctive mamluk names, some were invented in Egypt, but others had roots in the Black Sea.47 Comparing mamluk names with the original names of male slaves in Italian documents can reveal which names were used in the Black Sea. The name Jaqmaq, common among mamluks, also appeared as Zachmach or Iacomacius in seventeen Italian documents from Tana, Venice, Genoa, and Pera.48 Thirteen were categorized as Tatar and one as Circassian. Only two mamluks named Jaqmaq were assigned a racial category in the Mamluk sources: one was a Circassian and the other a Circassian or Turkman.49 Other male slave names that appeared in both Italian and Mamluk sources were Quṭlūbughā/Cotluboga, Qarābughā/Charaboga, Jarkis/Charcaxius, Kitbughā/Katboga, and Tangrī birdī/Tangriberdi. Female slave names that appeared in both sets of sources were Mughāl/Mogal, Ṭughay/Tochay, and Tulū/Tholu.
Mamluk slave names were marked by another distinctive
