Luck and Contingency? Piracy, Human Booty and Human-Trafficking in the Late Medieval Western Mediterranean

Abstract

The link existing between piracy and the capture of human beings in the Western Mediterranean Sea during the mediaeval period is associated, almost exclusively, with piracy between Cristians and Muslims. Christian piracy against Christians was interested above all in seizing goods, while Christian piracy against Muslims or Islamic piracy against Christians was basically interested in capturing humans. With regard to piracy and captivity, and due to the bias shown by the mostly Christian sources at our disposal, lslamic piracy and its consequences, that is, the captivity of Christians in Islamic lands and their redemption, has traditionally been dealt with more than the situation of Islamic captives in Christian lands. But when we focus on the other side, Christian piracy against Muslims in the medieval Western Mediterranean, its consequences with regard to the captivity and enslavement of Saracens in Christian lands clearly emerge. The impact that the capture of Muslims by Christians in pirate raids had on the mediaeval slave trade, that is, the global importance of the seizure of Muslims on Mediterranean slave markets in the mediaeval period, is very relative.