Abstract
The medieval and early modern Mediterranean world was characterized by various forms of violence. To investigate the connections among three of these—war, piracy, and privateering—we focus on the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302): two decades of conflict between the Angevins and the Aragonese over control of the centrally located island of Sicily. Six major naval battles punctuated these decades under—arguably—the greatest of medieval admirals, Roger de Lauria. We find that there is much ambiguity in the actions of Roger de Lauria, and that in some cases, rather than naval raiding or privateering, he seems to engage in piracy. Problematizing violence will reveal the ambiguities in the diverse and contested space that was the late medieval Mediterranean world.
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Notes
- 1.
Charles Stanton catalogues multiple incidents of violence, including the Vespers, in his chapter in this volume.
- 2.
See John Manke’s chapter in this volume.
- 3.
The most useful study of these six battles is that of John H. Pryor, “The Naval Battles of Roger of Lauria,” Journal of Medieval History 9 (1989): 179–216. We mapped the first four battles. For the last two battles, Roger switched sides and the political situation became more complicated; we did not map those.
- 4.
The remaining legal texts contribute to the ambiguity. The Rhodian Sea-Law, ed. Walter Ashburner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), cxliii, speaks of piracy on the open sea in regard to one of the maritime dangers it highlights, the others being land-robbers, who attack ships in ports, and wreckers, who lure ships to shipwreck. The Digest of Justinian, ed. Alan Watson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), does not contain a separate section on piracy, which is basically banditry on the boat. The Llibre del Consolat de Mar of Barcelona provides instances where there could be slippage into activities de more piratico. See Stanley S. Jados, Consulate of the Sea and Related Documents (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1975), passim.
- 5.
Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers. A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), has written the most prominent modern survey of this event.
- 6.
Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, 32.
- 7.
Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, 68–9. The fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople to Michael VIII Paleologus and the Genoese in 1261 further complicated matters.
- 8.
Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, 72.
- 9.
Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, 115.
- 10.
Jean Dunbabin, Charles I of Anjou. Power, Kingship and State-Making in Thirteenth-Century Europe (London and New York: Longman, 1998).
- 11.
Dunbabin, Charles I of Anjou, “The Sicilian Vespers,” 99–113.
- 12.
Lawrence V. Mott, Sea Power in the Medieval Mediterranean. The Catalan-Aragonese Fleet in the War of the Sicilian Vespers (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2003), 125–6.
- 13.
Mott, Sea Power, 124.
- 14.
Mott, Sea Power, 125.
- 15.
Mott, Sea Power, 257. Roger is again raiding in the Adriatic and Aegean in the early 1290s. As Mott commented, “Every act the admiral carried out against the Angevins, Genoese, Byzantines, and Venetians was in itself grounds for war.”
- 16.
Mott, Sea Power, 126.
- 17.
Clifford R. Backman, “Piracy,” Chapter Eleven of Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita, eds. A Companion to Mediterranean History (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2014), 178.
- 18.
“Free-wheeling piracy” (to use the term of Emily Tai) and authorized piracy or privateering were both private enterprises of war, according to Michel Mollat, “Essai d’orientation pour l’étude de la guerre de course et la piraterie (XIIIe-XIVe siècles),” Anuario de Estudios Medievales 10 (1980): 743.
- 19.
Bartolomeo da Neocastro, Historia Sicula, ed. Giuseppe Paladino (Bologna: N. Zanichelli, 1922). https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008922131.
- 20.
Nicolai Specialis, “Liber Sicularum,” in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores 10, ed. Ludovico Muratori (Milan: Typographia Societatis Palatinae in Regia Curia, 1727): 917–1092. https://archive.org/stream/RerumItalicarumScriptores10/Rerum_Italicarum_Scriptores_10#page/n675/mode/2up.
- 21.
Saba Malaspina, “Istoria delle Cose di Sicilia,” in Cronisti e Scrittori Sincroni Napoletani, ed. Giuseppi da Re (Napoli: Stamperia dell’Iride, 1868): 205–408. https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_Kb4JTfqYIgkC#page/n211/mode/2up.
- 22.
John of Procida, Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia, ed. Filippo Evola (Palermo: Stabilimento Top. Lao, 1882). https://archive.org/details/Lu_rebellamentu_di_Sichilia_Palermo_1882/page/n9.
- 23.
Jacopo d’Auria, Annali Genovesi di Caffaro e de’ Suoi Continuatori dal MCCLXXX al MCCLXXXXIII, ed. Cesare Imperiale, Fonti per la Storia d’Italia 14 (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano, 1929). https://archive.org/details/p5fontiperlastor14istiuoft/page/n9.
- 24.
Giovanni Villani, Cronica di Giovanni Villani, ed. Pietro Massai and Ignazio Moutier (Florence: Il Magheri, 1823). https://archive.org/details/cronicadigiovan00unkngoog/page/n6.
- 25.
Bernat Desclot, Crònica del rey En Pere e dels seus antecessors passats, ed. Joseph Coroleu (Barcelona: La Renaixensa, 1885). https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100533892.
- 26.
Ramon Muntaner, Chronicle, trans. Lady Goodenough (Cambridge, Ontario: In Parentheses Publications, 2000). http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/muntaner_goodenough.pdf.
- 27.
On the Aragonese side we have Guiseppe La Mantia ed., Documenti su le relazione del re Alfonso III di Aragon con la Sicilia (1285–1291) (Barcelona: Anuari de l’Institute d’Etudis Catalans, 1908), and on the Angevin side we have Alain de Boüard ed., Actes et Lettres de Charles Ier Roi de Sicile Concernant la France (1257–1284) Extraits des Registres Angevins de Naples (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1926). http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/MMLF?dd=0&af=RN&locID=mnauomll&srchtp=a&d1=LP3Y0300900&c=1&an=LP3Y0300900&ste=11&d4=0.33&stp=Author&dc=flc&docNum=HT100243568&ae=HT100243568&tiPG=1
- 28.
Antoine Thomas ed., Les Registres de Boniface VIII (Paris: Antoine Thomas, 1884). https://archive.org/details/lesregistresdebo01boni/page/n5.
- 29.
The documents for these grants can be found Ibid.
- 30.
The Story Maps cite the specific source we used for a particular event in the pop-ups relating to the battles and other hostilities. See John Manke’s chapter in this volume for images of the maps.
- 31.
Emily Sohmer Tai, “The Legal Status of Piracy in Medieval Europe,” History Compass 10/11 (2012): 839–40. See also Alberto Tenenti, “Venezia e la pirateria nel Levante: 1300c.–1460c.” in Agostino Pertusi, ed. Venezia e il Levante fino al secolo XI, 2 vols. (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1973), I: 705–71, and Ferruccio Sassi, “La guerra in corsa e il diritto di preda secondo il diritto veneziano,” Rivista di storia del diritto italiano 2 (1929): 99–128; 261–96.
- 32.
Kathryn Reyerson, “Pirates as marginals in the medieval Mediterranean world,” in Rethinking Medieval Margins and Marginality, coedited by Ann Zimo, Tiffany Vann Sprecher, Kathryn Reyerson, and Debra Blumenthal (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 186–203. For general treatment, see Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
- 33.
Emily Sohmer Tai, “Honor among Thieves: Piracy, Restitution and Reprisal in Genoa, Venice and the Crown of Catalonia-Aragon 1339–1417,” (Diss. Harvard University, 1996), 37.
- 34.
Charles D. Stanton, Roger of Lauria (c. 1250–1305) “Admiral of Admirals” (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2019), 116. See also Giuseppe La Mantia, Codice Diplomatico edi Re Aragonesi de Sicilia (1282–1353) (Palermo: Scuola TIP. Boccone del Povero, 1917), act CCXXII, 543 ff. where the initial appointment as admiral ran from April to September 1283.
- 35.
The legal document legitimizing this office can be found in the Codice diplomatico de re aragonesi di Sicilia, 541–2.
- 36.
Tai, “The Legal Status of Piracy,” 839–40.
- 37.
Muntaner’s Crónica also describes how the corsair Roger of Flor outfitted a galley with the financial backing of the Genoese Ticino Doria before receiving a baton as an independent captain from Frederick III of Sicily, the second monarch de Flor approached as a potential employer, in 1291. Flor’s later service to the Byzantine Empire would be undertaken on similar terms. Byzantine Emperors and kings of France, Naples, and Sicily would also engage members of the Genoese Doria and Grimaldi clans as “mercenary” corsairs in this manner during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
- 38.
As an example, see William Caferro, John Hawkwood. An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-Century Italy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).
- 39.
Mott, Sea Power, passim, includes a detailed treatment of Roger de Lauria.
- 40.
Pryor, “The naval battles of Roger of Lauria.”
- 41.
Mott, Sea Power, 124–32.
- 42.
Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, 247–8.
- 43.
Mott, Sea Power, 39.
- 44.
Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, 258; Neocastro, Historia Sicula, 94; Specialis, “Liber Sicularum,” 949.
- 45.
Mott, Sea Power, 126.
- 46.
Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, 264.
- 47.
Mott, Sea Power, 126–32. Overall, Mott argues that the years 1287–1289 were occupied more with diplomacy than raiding.
- 48.
Mott, Sea Power, 254.
- 49.
See the Mott chapter in this volume for details about this raid.
- 50.
Mott, Sea Power, 136.
- 51.
Mott, Sea Power, 137.
- 52.
Mott, Sea Power, 259.
- 53.
On Frederick III of Sicily, see Clifford R. Backman, The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily: Politics, Religion, and Economy in the Reign of Frederick III, 1296–1337 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
- 54.
See note 24 above.
- 55.
See note 29 above.
- 56.
Mott, Sea Power, 246.
- 57.
Stanton, Roger of Lauria, 175.
- 58.
Neocastro, Historia Sicula.
- 59.
Stanton, Roger of Lauria, 175. This comment is quoted by Stanton who nonetheless defends Roger as does Mott.
- 60.
Stanton, Roger of Lauria, 196.
- 61.
See Caferro, John Hawkwood, passim.
- 62.
Louis Sicking, “The Pirate and the Admiral: Europeanization and Globalisation of Maritime Conflict Management,” Journal of the History of International Law 20 (2018): 429–70, see 428.
- 63.
On Henry, see David Abulafia “Henry Count of Malta and His Mediterranean Activities, 1203–1230,” in Medieval Malta: Studies on Malta before the Knights, ed. AnthonyLuttrell. London: The British School at Rome, 1975. 104–25.
- 64.
Léon-Robert Ménager, Amiratus—Aunopas. L’Émirat et les Origines de l’Amirauté (XIe-XIIIe siècles) (Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N, 1960); Léon Cadier, Essai sur l’administration du royaume de Sicile sous Charles Ier et Charles II d’Anjou (Paris: E. Thorin, 1891).
- 65.
On Trapelicino, see Enrica Salvatore, “Corsairs’ Crews and Cross-Cultural Interactions: The Case of the Pisan Trapelicinus in the Twelfth Century,” Medieval Encounters (special issue: Cross-Cultural Encounters on the High Seas (Tenth–Sixteenth Centuries)), edited by Kathryn L. Reyerson, 13, no. 1 (2007): 43–55. On Benedetto Zaccaria, see Robert S. Lopez, Genova marinara nel duecento. Benedetto Zaccaria ammiraglio e mercante (Messina/Milan: Principato, 1933).
- 66.
On performance see Richard Schechner, Performance Studies. An Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 2.
- 67.
Ménager, Amiratus.9–19.
- 68.
Christopher Allmand, The Hundred Years War. England and France at War c. 1300–c. 1450. Rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
- 69.
Backman, “Piracy,” 171–2.
- 70.
Benjamin Kedar, “L’Officium Robarie di Genova: Un tentative de coesistere con la violenza,” Archivio storico italiano 143 (1985): 345.
- 71.
On Benedetto, see Lopez, Genova marinara nel duecento.
- 72.
Steven A. Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese 958–1528 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 179.
- 73.
Epstein, Genoa, 180.
- 74.
See my paper, “Lordship and Piracy in the Medieval Mediterranean World,” Mediterranean Studies Association, Malta, May 2017.
- 75.
Muntaner, Chronicle, provides the most detailed account of Roger’s life.
- 76.
Angeliki E. Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins. The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II 1282–1328 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 134–47, provides a detailed discussion of Roger de Flor’s activities under the Byzantines.
- 77.
Georges Jehel, Aigues-Mortes. Un port pour un roi; Les Capétiens et la Méditerranée (Roanne/Le Coteau: Horvath, 1985).
- 78.
For a brief treatment of the history of Montpellier, see my monograph, Mother and Sons, Inc.: Martha de Cabanis in Medieval Montpellier (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), Chapter 1, 7–22.
- 79.
For background see André Dupont, Les Cités de la Narbonnaise première depuis les Invasions germaniques jusqu’à l’apparition du Consulat, Vol. I, and Les relations commerciales entre les cités maritimes de Languedoc et les cités méditerranéennes d’Espagne et d’Italie du Xe au XIIIe siècles, Vol. II (Nîmes: Imprimerie Chastanier, 1942). See also Le Petit Thalamus de Montpellier, ed. F. Pégat, E. Thomas, and C. Desmazes (Montpellier: La Société archéologique de Montpellier, 1840), “La chronique romane,” 338, and Ordonnances des Roys de France de la troisième race, 23 vols. (Paris 1723–1849), vol. 4, 669: February 1278, and Alexandre Germain, Histoire du commerce de Montpellier antérieurement à l’ouverture du port de Cette, 2 vols. (Montpellier: Imprimérie de Jean Martel ainé, 1861), I: 277–84, pièce justificative L.
- 80.
Philippe Contamine, Guerre, état et société à la fin du moyen âge. Études sur les armées des rois de France, m 1337–1494 (Paris: Mouton, 1972), and Frederic Cheyette, “The Sovereign and the Pirates, 1332,” Speculum 45 (1970): 40–68.
- 81.
For an incident of Doria piracy against merchants of Montpellier, see Marie-Claire Chavarot, “La pratique des lettres de marque d’après les arrêts du Parlement (XIIIe-début XVe siècle),” Bibliothèque de l’ École des Chartes 149 (1991): 59.
- 82.
Alexandre Germain, Histoire du commerce de Montpellier, vol. 2, P. J. CXVI, 264–7. The royal letter included the protest offered by the consuls of Montpellier against this grant. See Archives municipales de Montpellier, Inventaire. Vol. I, Grand Chartrier, Louvet 3760.
- 83.
See my article, “Montpellier et le transport maritime: le problème d’une flotte médiévale,” in Le Languedoc, le Roussillon et la mer des origines à la fin du XXe siècle, I (Paris: Editions l’Harmattan, 1992), 98–108.
- 84.
See my study, “Montpellier and the Byzantine Empire: Commercial Interaction in the Mediterranean World before 1350,” Byzantion, Revue internationale des études byzantines, 48, fasc. 2 (1978): 456–76.
- 85.
Cheyette, “The Sovereign and the Pirates, 1332,” Speculum (1970): 46.
- 86.
Cheyette, “The Sovereign and the Pirates,” 48.
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Manke, J., Reyerson, K.L. (2022). Continuum of Violence in the Mediterranean World: The Case of Roger de Lauria. In: Sohmer Tai, E., Reyerson, K.L. (eds) Mapping Pre-Modern Sicily. Mediterranean Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04915-6_3
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