Piracy In The Middle Ages
Ali Rami
WRLD HST
Mrs. Bucher
02/05/2015
Piracy in the Middle Ages Piracy is the act of robbery or criminal violence on and around the high sea. The term can and is not limited to include any acts committed on land, in the air, in large bodies of water or on a shore. Piracy does not normally include the crimes committed against people traveling on the same vehicle as the possible criminal. The term, “Piracy” has been used throughout history as a reference to land-raids committed by non-state agents. Piracy or pirating is also the name of a crime preformed under customary international law and may also be used as the name of a number of crimes that have been committed under the municipal law of a number of states. Piracy is distinguishable …show more content…
Also, particularly in the 1600s and 1700s, spelling varied by the printers, and words and phrases such as "Pyrate" or "an act of Pyracy" were examples of some of the accepted ways of spelling the term in past years. It may have been reasonable to assume that piracy existed as long as the oceans were being used for commerce. The following essay will examine the history of piracy in a few central regions during the Middle Ages. The most well known and influential pirates in medieval Europe were most definitely the Vikings. This was mostly due to the fact that they were warriors and looters from Scandinavia who raided any seaworthy vessels, mainly during the 8th and 12th centuries, during the Viking Age in the Early Middle Ages. The Vikings raided the coasts, rivers and inland cities of nearly all of Western Europe as far as Seville, which was attacked by the Norse Vikings in 844 AD. Vikings even attacked some of the North African and Italian coasts. They also went ahead and plundered most of the coasts of the Baltic Sea and the maze of rivers in Eastern Europe as far as the Black Sea and Persia. The reason for the immense amount of piracy during the Middle Ages was lack of any form of centralized power all over Europe which favored hooliganism and pirate-like behavior throughout the entire …show more content…
Athelstan, king and leader of the Anglo-Saxons, drove most of the horrendos and barbaric primates back. Later throughout the millennium and in the 12th century the coasts of western Scandinavia were attacked, destroyed and scavenged the by Curonians and Oeselians, nowadays, Latvia and Germany, from the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The 13th and 14th century were also points in history where piracy began to diminish, but the strong-willed pirates continued to threaten the commercial merchant guilds’ routes and nearly brought the existence of the sea trade to the brink of extinction. Another guild founded by the merchants was The Victual Brothers of Gotland. This guild was a companionship of privateers who, after many years, turned to piracy. Yet, until about 1440AD, seafaring trade in both the North Baltic Sea always was always extremely unnerving and extremely
WRLD HST
Mrs. Bucher
02/05/2015
Piracy in the Middle Ages Piracy is the act of robbery or criminal violence on and around the high sea. The term can and is not limited to include any acts committed on land, in the air, in large bodies of water or on a shore. Piracy does not normally include the crimes committed against people traveling on the same vehicle as the possible criminal. The term, “Piracy” has been used throughout history as a reference to land-raids committed by non-state agents. Piracy or pirating is also the name of a crime preformed under customary international law and may also be used as the name of a number of crimes that have been committed under the municipal law of a number of states. Piracy is distinguishable …show more content…
Also, particularly in the 1600s and 1700s, spelling varied by the printers, and words and phrases such as "Pyrate" or "an act of Pyracy" were examples of some of the accepted ways of spelling the term in past years. It may have been reasonable to assume that piracy existed as long as the oceans were being used for commerce. The following essay will examine the history of piracy in a few central regions during the Middle Ages. The most well known and influential pirates in medieval Europe were most definitely the Vikings. This was mostly due to the fact that they were warriors and looters from Scandinavia who raided any seaworthy vessels, mainly during the 8th and 12th centuries, during the Viking Age in the Early Middle Ages. The Vikings raided the coasts, rivers and inland cities of nearly all of Western Europe as far as Seville, which was attacked by the Norse Vikings in 844 AD. Vikings even attacked some of the North African and Italian coasts. They also went ahead and plundered most of the coasts of the Baltic Sea and the maze of rivers in Eastern Europe as far as the Black Sea and Persia. The reason for the immense amount of piracy during the Middle Ages was lack of any form of centralized power all over Europe which favored hooliganism and pirate-like behavior throughout the entire …show more content…
Athelstan, king and leader of the Anglo-Saxons, drove most of the horrendos and barbaric primates back. Later throughout the millennium and in the 12th century the coasts of western Scandinavia were attacked, destroyed and scavenged the by Curonians and Oeselians, nowadays, Latvia and Germany, from the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The 13th and 14th century were also points in history where piracy began to diminish, but the strong-willed pirates continued to threaten the commercial merchant guilds’ routes and nearly brought the existence of the sea trade to the brink of extinction. Another guild founded by the merchants was The Victual Brothers of Gotland. This guild was a companionship of privateers who, after many years, turned to piracy. Yet, until about 1440AD, seafaring trade in both the North Baltic Sea always was always extremely unnerving and extremely