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Trapelicino
Trapelicino
Born	first half of the 12th century; Pisa, Italia
Died	Unknown
Nationality	Italian
Occupations	privateer; merchant;
Years active	1100-1200

He was active in the second half of the 12th century. His life and military events are set in the medieval context of route exchanges between the maritime republics of Italy and the Islamic world.

History

The crime

The first record of Trapelicino dates back to 1162.^[1] This is an official document of the municipality of Pisa, the Breve consolum of that year, that is, dedicated to the oath that the incumbent consuls had to formulate regarding the actions to be taken for the good of the city. Specifically, in column I, the consuls pledged to act for the welfare of the citizens "except those who committed the wicked and abominable evil on Trapelicino's ship regarding the Saracens." Rubric XLI, on the other hand, states that "all measures taken against the men who were on Trapelicino's ship because of the "abominable and nefarious mischief done with regard to the Saracens" would be "kept in force." This meant that those guilty of that act were excluded from the oath of allegiance to the community and thus, in practical terms, ousted from the rights (protection) and duties (participation in military enterprises and political life) that citizenship entailed.
Such punishment suggests, however, that the seriousness of the crime had been very marked. It has therefore been suggested that the crime was in some way about betrayal of the civitas, i.e., one or more acts such as to seriously affect the political-economic interests of Pisa and its exponents. High treason, then, the worst crime a man of that time could commit.^[2] Given that the Commune of Pisa had, starting in 1149, established trade treaties with most of the Islamic potentates located on the Mediterranean Sea, the "treason" against the Saracens had to concern one of these numerous alliances.
The word "Saracens" used in the brief does not help much in identifying exactly the location and the Muslim domain involved. Professor Enrica Salvatori, however, has suggested a connection between the Trapelicino crime and a mid-12th-century letter sent by the vizier of the 12th and 13th Imams/Caliph Fatimid of Egypt (al-Ẓāfir and his son al-Fāʾiz bi-naṣr Allāh) - Abū l-Faḍl ʿAbbās ibn Abī l-Futūḥ^[3] - to the bishop and consuls of Pisa.^[4] In this missive it is said that the Pisans had been guilty of a terrible crime toward some merchants of Alexandria, who were tricked into boarding a ship, then robbed and killed. In retaliation, The Imam-caliph Phatimid had detained several Pisan merchants in prison, threatening a total disruption of trade relations with the Tuscan city.
Trapelicino is never named in the letter, but the fact described, the date hypothesized, and the context do indeed seem to coincide. The gravity of the commander's action was amplified given the new phase, of peaceful coexistence, that characterized relations between Pisans and Muslims in the 12th century, following the period of famous Pisan exploits and thus of bitter clashes on the sea. ^[5]

The banishment

After the disposition of the Breve Consolum of 1162, in which the measures against those who, with Trapelicino, had committed an abhominabile et nefandissimum maleficium against Saracens, Trapelicino was exiled and deprived of citizenship, but evidently retained his ship and crew, as sources attest him to Portovenere in 1165. Here we know that Trapelicino's galley remained at anchor, used in peace negotiations between Genoa and Pisa. The negotiations failed and Trapelicino, now in the service of Genoa, after being pursued by a Pisan ship in what is now the Gulf of La Spezia, went to the confrontation with his old fellow citizens and prevailed (May 1165). In the following years Trapelicino continued the running war in the service of Genoa against his fellow citizens, having at his disposal, other galleys and men from Portovenere. He thus arrived at having three galleys under his own command^[6]. The raids that Trapelicino carried out between 1165 and 1170 were part of the Pisan-Genovese war, fought in the upper Tyrrhenian Sea and the Gulf of Leo.^[7]

In Marseille

After 1170 Trapelicino disappears from Genoese documentation and resurfaces, terminated between the two Tyrrhenian powers, in a document drafted in Marseille in the second half of the 12th century. It is a convention datable to the spring of 1176 between the King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona and Marquis of Provence Alfonso II and Trapelicino himself.^[8] The privateer was to make a voyage to Constantinople, with two galleys, for a predetermined reimbursement. On board Trapelicino's galley would remain Alfonso II's siniscalco, Ramon de Montcada, who, in case of non-payment, would be held as a hostage. In this arrangement, Trapelicino's professional performance appears to be that of a totally independent privateer, in command of a small fleet, capable of providing escort service to noble personalities of European rank. Unlike the period when he had been in the service of Genoa, the contract with Alfonso II is a private one, and the contours of the gains achievable remain obscure. Relations between the Aragonese and the Pisans at the time of this agreement were good, and perhaps, by using a former Pisan privateer with a base of operations in Marseilles, Alfonso II was taking advantage of this new course of good mutual relations. It is also possible that relations between the "exiled criminal" Trapelicino and his homeland had returned to an amicable level and that the ban against his person had been cancelled or forgotten, although there are no documents to prove this.

Conclusions

The figure of Trapelicino covers a wide period of time from the first decades of the 12th century, when Pisa began to weave intense trade relations with Islamic lands, especially with the Fatimid imamate/caliphate, to the end of the same century. In the middle of the 12th century, the figure of this privateer is extremely interesting, as he acted for remuneration within the framework of a precise mandate of a "city-state" such as Genoa was: this type of figure appears extremely early in this period, as it is usually attested in the late medieval sources. Finally, the experience at the side of the Aragonese in the second half of the century shows how that of the privateer was for Trapelicino a real commercial enterprise, given the detailed nature of the agreement with Alfonso II.

Notes

^ I brevi dei consoli del Comune di Pisa degli anni 1162 e 1164 Introductory study, texts and notes with an Appendix of documents edited by O. Banti, Rome, Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages, 1997, pp. 45-46 and 64. The text of 1164 (sworn in 1165) merely replicates the chapters of the previous one, making additions and changes to it that do not vary the contents related to Trapelicino.
^ G. Milani, "Exclusion from the Commune. Conflicts and political bans in Bologna and other Italian cities between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, Rome, Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages, 2003.
'^ The stepson of Ibn Salār, former governor of Alexandria and later wāṣita of al-Ẓāfir, in turn became vizier and elevated al-Fāʾiz, just 5 years old, to the throne to manage the remaining Fatimid power undisturbed. He died as a result of the military insurrection of the governor of Ashmūnaym (Upper Egypt) Ṭalāʾīʿ b. Ruzzīk, whose intervention had been literally invoked by the Fatimid family, terrified by the violence of ʿAbbās, who had al-Ẓāfir and his brothers killed, whom he falsely incriminated of the murder. See, among others Abulfeda, Recueil des historiens des croisades - Historiens orientaux, I, p. 30.
^ M. Amari, I diplomi arabi del Regio Archivio di Stato fiorentino, Florence 1863, no. II p. 241-245; this is an undated letter but linkable to a similar letter from the governor of Alexandria, dated February 1154 (Ibid., no. III pp. 246-249.
^ An Armenian source, the Livre des deux jardins distinguishes the two phases well: the first in which Pisans and Genoese "were at times fearsome warriors who did serious damage and burned with an unquenchable hatred, at times travelers who imposed themselves on 'Islam by trade and escaped the strictness of regulations, the second in which treaties were concluded that were also advantageous from the Muslim point of view, so much so that, writes the Livre, "they bring us as goods those very weapons with which they used to fight us before. The Pisan-Muslim treaties of the 12th century normally confirm this new and different phase of relations, in which, too, of course, especially in the Levant, there was no lack of periods of confrontation, as never disappeared the endemic phenomenon of piracy and race war.
^ Annali genovesi di Caffaro e de' suoi continuatori, edited by L. T. Belgrano, I, Rome, 1890, pp. 175-178.
^ Maritime Republics
^ Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó, Chancery, Pergamins, Alfons I, Extra inventories 2621. The document was edited by Sanchez Casobon (Alfonso II Rey de Aragón, Conde de Barcelona y Marquìs de Provenza. Documentos (1162-1196), edited by A. SANCHEZ CASOBON, Zaragoza, Institucón "Fernando el Católico," 1995, no. 63) with serious transcription errors and overly broad dating; better is the edition proposed by Ferrer and Duran in 2000 (M. T. FERRER I MALLOL and D. DURAN I DUELT, Una ambaixada catalana a Costantinoble el 1176 i el matrimoni de la princesa Eudòxia, in "Anuario de Estudios Medievales ", 30/2 (2000), pp. 963-977, especially pp. 975-977; E. SALVATORI, "The Pisan privateer Trapelicino. Un avventura mediterranea del XII secolo," Enrica Salvatori, in "Bollettino Storico Pisano," LXXVI (2007), pp. 31-56.

Bibliography

E. Salvatori, Il corsaro pisano Trapelicino. Un'avventura mediterranea del XII secolo, in "Bollettino Storico Pisano" , LXXVI (2007), pp. 31–56
G. Milani, Banditi, malesardi e ribelli. L'evoluzione del nemico pubblico nell'Italia comunale (secoli XII-XIV), in "Quaderni fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno", 2009, pp. 109 – 140
M. Tangheroni, Fonti e problemi della storia del commercio mediterraneo nei secoli XI-XIV, in Ceramiche città e commerci nell'Italia tardo-medievale (Ravello, 3-4 may1993) (Senato Universitario Europeo per i beni Culturali - Editrice S.A.P: Mantova, 1998) pp. 15–22.
C. De Mas Latrie, L'Officium Robarie ou l'Office de la Piraterie à Gênes au Moyenage, in «Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes» (1892), pp. 264 e ss.
Ph. Gosse, Storia della pirateria, Firenze 1962
G. Airaldi, Pirateria e rappresaglia in fonti savonesi dei secoli XIII e XIV, in «Clio», X (1974), pp. 67–88
M. Mollat, Guerre de course et piraterie à la fin du Moyen Age: aspects économiques et sociaux. Position de problèmes, e De la piraterie sauvage à la course réglementée (XIVe-XVe siècles), entrambi in Id., Etudes d'histoire maritime (1938-1975), Torino, Bottega d'Erasmo, 1977, pp. 473–486 e 591-610
A. Unali, Marinai, pirati e corsari catalani nel basso medioevo, Bologna, Cappelli, 1983

External links

Il corsaro pisano Trapelicino: un'avventura mediterranea del XII secolo di Enrica Salvatori [1]
Banditi, malesardi e ribelli di Giuliano Milani
I diplomi arabi di Michele Amari

[1] I brevi dei consoli del Comune di Pisa degli anni 1162 e 1164 Introductory study, texts and notes with an Appendix of documents edited by O. Banti, Rome, Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages, 1997, pp. 45-46 and 64. The text of 1164 (sworn in 1165) merely replicates the chapters of the previous one, making additions and changes to it that do not vary the contents related to Trapelicino.

[2] G. Milani, "Exclusion from the Commune. Conflicts and political bans in Bologna and other Italian cities between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, Rome, Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages, 2003.

[3] '^ The stepson of Ibn Salār, former governor of Alexandria and later wāṣita of al-Ẓāfir, in turn became vizier and elevated al-Fāʾiz, just 5 years old, to the throne to manage the remaining Fatimid power undisturbed. He died as a result of the military insurrection of the governor of Ashmūnaym (Upper Egypt) Ṭalāʾīʿ b. Ruzzīk, whose intervention had been literally invoked by the Fatimid family, terrified by the violence of ʿAbbās, who had al-Ẓāfir and his brothers killed, whom he falsely incriminated of the murder. See, among others Abulfeda, Recueil des historiens des croisades - Historiens orientaux, I, p. 30.

[4] M. Amari, I diplomi arabi del Regio Archivio di Stato fiorentino, Florence 1863, no. II p. 241-245; this is an undated letter but linkable to a similar letter from the governor of Alexandria, dated February 1154 (Ibid., no. III pp. 246-249.

[5] An Armenian source, the Livre des deux jardins distinguishes the two phases well: the first in which Pisans and Genoese "were at times fearsome warriors who did serious damage and burned with an unquenchable hatred, at times travelers who imposed themselves on 'Islam by trade and escaped the strictness of regulations, the second in which treaties were concluded that were also advantageous from the Muslim point of view, so much so that, writes the Livre, "they bring us as goods those very weapons with which they used to fight us before. The Pisan-Muslim treaties of the 12th century normally confirm this new and different phase of relations, in which, too, of course, especially in the Levant, there was no lack of periods of confrontation, as never disappeared the endemic phenomenon of piracy and race war.

[6] Annali genovesi di Caffaro e de' suoi continuatori, edited by L. T. Belgrano, I, Rome, 1890, pp. 175-178.

[7] Maritime Republics

[8] Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó, Chancery, Pergamins, Alfons I, Extra inventories 2621. The document was edited by Sanchez Casobon (Alfonso II Rey de Aragón, Conde de Barcelona y Marquìs de Provenza. Documentos (1162-1196), edited by A. SANCHEZ CASOBON, Zaragoza, Institucón "Fernando el Católico," 1995, no. 63) with serious transcription errors and overly broad dating; better is the edition proposed by Ferrer and Duran in 2000 (M. T. FERRER I MALLOL and D. DURAN I DUELT, Una ambaixada catalana a Costantinoble el 1176 i el matrimoni de la princesa Eudòxia, in "Anuario de Estudios Medievales ", 30/2 (2000), pp. 963-977, especially pp. 975-977; E. SALVATORI, "The Pisan privateer Trapelicino. Un avventura mediterranea del XII secolo," Enrica Salvatori, in "Bollettino Storico Pisano," LXXVI (2007), pp. 31-56.

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