Îles, corsaires et pirates dans la Méditerranée médiévale

Islands, Privateers and Pirates in the Medieval Mediterranean. Mediterranean islands used to play an important part in the organisation of privateering and piracy. More than a vocation,this was a compulsory part imposed on the islands by their position of maritime borders, by conflicts and by the specific aspect of sea-wars that turned them into strategic places for defence and control over trade and military sea routes. The study of some examples show how privateering and piracy spread out in the western as in the Levant islands in a background of diffuse rivalry and open wars between Christian powers on the one hand and Christians and Muslims on the other hand, all of them using and manoeuvring them. Political consensus or the inability of central powers to establish strict control over weapons are determining factors in the construction of island spaces and communities that jutted out into the sea with aggressiveness.