[MR] Piracy in period

[Richard Fitzgilbert]

I'm confused, what is your contention?  Is it your contention that piracy is
period?  That is true without a doubt.  Piracy is a problem in the
Mediterranean at least as far back as the Roman Empire.  

Or, is it your contention that the Hollywood pirate persona is period? That
is an entirely different (insert silly pirate cliché of your choice here).

In particular, I'd love to see an indication that a 16th century pirate (of
any nationality or religion) used a gun powder weapon of any sort.

Richard Fitzgilbert 

-----Original Message-----
From: atlantia-bounces at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
[mailto:atlantia-bounces at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org] On Behalf Of David
Chessler
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2009 2:28 PM
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org
Subject: [MR] Piracy in period

Despite the popularity of pirate persona, it is generally recognized 
that the great period of Caribbean piracy was in the late 17th C, and 
into the 18th C--that is, definitely "out of period."  However, this 
is not  to say that there were no pirates in the 16th C. Indeed, for 
most of her reign, Queen Elizabeth used piracy as a source of income 
and as a tool of foreign policy. Only at the very end of her reign 
did she have enough of a national navy so that she could phase out 
the letters of marque and the great English pirates.

Moreover, during most of the 16th C, the Dutch and Portuguese used 
piracy against the Spanish. Many of these pirates were Jewish, or 
Jewish merchants provided "intelligence" to the actual raiders, some 
of whom were also Jewish.

A couple of sources (available in the Montgomery County, MD public library):

Edward Kritzler
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a generation of swashbuckling 
Jews carved out an empire in the New World in their quest for 
treasure, religious freedom--and Revenge
New York, Doubleday, 2008
ISBN   978-0-685-51398-2
$26.00

Susan Ronald
The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, her Pirate Adventurers, and the 
dawn of Empire
New York, Harper Collins, 2007
ISBN 978-0-06-082066-4
$26.95

Btw, the phrase "the British Empire" was first used by Dr. John Dee, 
in "The Petty Navy Royal," from "General & Rare Memorials," August 1577

--

YIS

Davitt il Bigollo da Pisa
Erudit de l'Academie de Espee de Atlantia
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