Merchants, Pirates, and Smugglers

IntroductionThomas Heebøll-Holm, Philipp Höhn, Gregor RohmannThe Concept of Maritime Violence in Legal ThinkingOn 28 February 1381 Richard II (1367-1400), King of England, issued the following: "To the mayor and bailiffs of the town of New Sarum. Order to set free William Webbe of Salesbury, imprisoned upon suspicion of piracy or adhering to the king's enemies of France upon information of John king of Castille and Leon and duke of Lancastre, [...]; as the king is informed by credible persons that he is a wandering idiot, at times raving mad, so that he could do the said enemies no aid or favour." William Webbe seems to have taken against his own king, in favour of the French. We would possibly call this high treason, or we would rather point at the premodern political conditions of military service, which did not necessarily refer to national duties of loyalty. We would not call it "piracy", for this category we use to denounce pure criminals. As it seems, the royal court itself did not have a proper legal understanding of the word but used it merely to disqualify opposition to the King, or, even more generally, any form of doing evil at sea, one could say. In fact, the term "piracy" itself does occur in English law for the first time only in 1536. In 1414, King Henry V (1387-1422), grandson of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340-99), would formulate the first legal definition of violence at sea in English law: According to this, attacks on ships in times of peace or truce are defined as high treason, a breach of safe conduct conjured by the king. The "Statute of Truces" calls perpetrators "tuers des hommes, robbours, spoillours et offendours", not "pirates". But from now on, "pirates" could best be defined as people fighting against the king's enemies, but at the wrong time-a reflection of the centuries long guerrilla situation between England and its foes in the Atlantic world, and kind of an embryonic stage of the later juxtaposition of "piracy" and

ContentsIntroduction9Thomas Heebøll-Holm, Philipp Höhn, and Gregor Rohmann I. Between Criminalization and Compromise: Dealing with Maritime Violence in Medieval Legal PluralismPiracy, Patriotism, and Profit in England around 140033Thomas Heebøll-HolmThe Family Business: Royal Embargo and the Smugglers, Captains, and Councilors of Barcelona's Marquet Family57Marie KelleherPopes and Pirates: Vatican Sources Regarding Violence at Sea (12th-15th Centuries)75Tobias DanielsCargoes, Courts, and Compromise: The Management of Maritime Plunder in the Burgundian Low Countries107Bart LambertII. Islands, Ports, and Markets: Connectivity and Marginalization in the Maritime WorldPirate Places, Merchant Spaces? Distribution and Criminalization in the Late Medieval Baltic Sea127Philipp HöhnConceptualizing Danish "Piracy", c.1460-1525: A Criminalized Economy or a Circular Exchange of Goods, Money, and People?145Frederik Lynge VognsenPirates on the Coast: Littoral Expansion and Maritime Predationin Liguria and Dalmatia, 1300-1600165Emily Sohmer TaiIslands and Maritime Conflicts: Gotland around 1500189Michael MeichsnerThe Making of Connectivity: How Hamburg Tried to Gain Control over the Elbe River (13th-16th Centuries)207Gregor RohmannIII. Enforcing Markets, Economics of Violence, and the Formation of PowerMaritime Violence between Legitimising Discourses, Politics, and Economic Interests: Genoa's Conquest of Chios and Phocaea247Christoph DartmannThe Venetian Coast Guards: Staple Policy, Seaborne Law Enforcement, and State Formation in the 14th Century.269Georg Christ"To Make Good Peace or Total War": Trade, Piracy, and the Construction of Portugal's Maritime State in the Later Middle Ages (1350-1550)297Flavio Miranda & Amândio BarrosFrom the Baltic to the North Sea: Gda?sk City Councillor Bernd Pawest's Maritime Service in 1471-72313Beata Mo?ejkoPolicing the Sea: Enforcing the Papal Embargo on Trade with "Infidels"329Mike CarrHenning II of Putbus, "Piracy", the

Thomas Heebøll-Holm, Prof. Dr. phil., lehrt an der Syddansk Universitet in Kopenhagen. Philipp Höhn ist wiss. Mitarbeiter am SFB 1095 an der Universität Frankfurt am Main. Gregor Rohmann, PD Dr. phil., arbeitet am Historischen Seminar der Universität Frankfurt am Main.

»Der Band demonstriert überzeugend, dass sich beide Transformationen besser verstehen lassen, wenn man die Geschichte des Umgangs mit Gewalt auf See in den Blick nimmt, und wie umgekehrt dieser Blick zu einem besseren Verständnis von Staatsbildung und ökonomischer Hegemonie beiträgt.« Tillmann Lohse, H-Soz-Kult, 29.05.2019»Der vorliegende Band [bildet] eine grundlegende Sammlung wegweisender Beiträge für die Erforschung maritimer Gewalt in der Vormoderne.« Sebastian Kolditz, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, 46 (2019) 4»This edited volume is of high quality; it brings together interesting case studies on maritime violence and criminalization from a large variety of different European regions and develops novel theoretical concepts to examine their long-term development between 1200 and 1600.« Werner Scheltjens, Connections, 02.10.2020