Captifs et rachat de captifs. Du miracle à l'institution

Abstract

From Tenth to Thirteenth century, the relations between Christians and Muslims around the Mediterranean Sea multiplied, competition was on the increase and confrontations became more and more regular and violent. This growing militarization of the contact included the beginnings of professionalisation and, on the Christian side, formalisation and institutionalisation. The capture of the enemy and the System of ransom were included in this process : at the beginning of the 13th century, the first specialised instances of redemption appeared in the Iberian Peninsula (Trinitarian and Mercederian). These did not appear like a boit from the blue : it had been in the Iberian background, in the dividing line between Christendom and Islam. These specialised institutions took root at the crossroad of the municipal law (conceived to ensure the extension and the survey of the frontier concejos), and at the crossroad of the economie, commercial and religious preoccupations of the different protagonists of this frontier : the Church, military orders (secular or eccle- siastical), the monarchy and the inhabitants of the towns themselves.

In enemy hands: the Byzantine experience of captivity between the seventh and tenth centuries

“…50 Since courage plays a crucial role in warfare, humiliating the enemy by maltreating his captured soldiers who served as a symbolic representation for a greater whole was considered an effective means of lowering the morale of the rival and a manifesting a conquering power. 51 Thus medieval sources did not lack stories of the display of imperial military misfortune via the mutilation of Byzantine prisoners of war. After his victory over the troops of Leo VI (r. 886-912) in 894, the Bulgarian ruler ordered the imperial Khazar guardsmen to be sent back to their master, their noses cut off.…”

Violence and warfare in Medieval Western Islam

“…The aim was to take enemy captives to boost the supply of slave labour for the armies, agriculture and domestic work or for ransom. The ransom and redemption of captives was institutionalised during this period and, at the end of the twelfth century, professional Latin institutions appeared, such as the Order of Santiago, founded in 1171, the Mercedarians and the Trinitarians, who devoted a large part of their activity to supplement the efforts of officials specialised in ransoming (in Spanish alfaqueque, from the Arabic fakkāk; see Buresi 2007).…”