Of their own free will, early medieval people crossed the Mediterranean in order to trade or to raid as well as to negotiate or pray. Some sought careers in the ancient capital on the Bosporus; others immigrated to Europe. Others still traveled under dire compulsion, as exiles, refugees, hostages, or as slaves. In most cases, their numbers probably were much greater than the high, mighty, and holy who dominate surviving sources. But people of low, suspect, or ambiguous social status appear more rarely and less completely in the early medieval written record. A fair number are of uncertain geographic origin – shippers and traders, for instance, attract only passing mention in sources treating the more important people who traveled aboard their vessels. Where was the home berth of the six slavers that Bernard the Frank saw anchored in the harbor of Taranto in 867? We may surmise, but we do not really know; nor can we do more than speculate on the ethnicity of the merchant skipper with whom St. Blaise sailed from Rome to Greece. The smaller numbers of these kinds of travelers make it more practical to treat together easterners and westerners. We will begin, again, with a few thumbnail sketches and meet some merchants, a slave, and a refugee. We will also test the anecdotes against the broader group of like travelers, combining this time the scarcer data of east and west.