propre à faire ressortir par contraste l'imperfection de la justice française. Faut-il lire par exemple ici l'expression d'une vérité positive que le narrateur voudrait transmettre sur l'organisation barbaresque, ou une construction fictive qui vise à dire la vérité sur une autre nation ?

[...] souvent les affaires importance et d'exemple se vident au Divan, qui est la moins corrompue juridiction d'entre les Barbares étant composée de trop de juges pour être obscurcie par les sollicitations des grands, la commisération des petits et par les présents<fnref n="191" />.

Concernant une pratique connue des Romains qui consistait à réclamer une taxe aux plaideurs, le narrateur écrit, songeant là encore à la France : « Je m'étonne comment les menus donneurs d'avis de l'augmentation du fisc, dans une infinité, dont ils sont chargé les registres des surintendants en France, l'ont oubliée<fnref n="192" />. » Le récit de captivité se fait ici l'instrument d'un discours sur la liberté, dans la mesure où la présence en Barbarie permet une critique de l'Etat français et ici des partisans :

[…]les malheureux campagnards et les infortunés citadins de Macara se trouvaient nonobstant leurs efforts réduits à l'impossibilité de s'acquitter, et éprouvèrent une persécution semblable à celle des partisans des dernières années, qui sous prétexte de recouvrement de quelques deniers par eux avancés pour les nécessités de l'Etat, ont amassé des montagnes d'or et des arènes de pierreries. La majesté divine et humaine y apporteront l'ordre avec le temps, sans plus souffrir les implicances malheureuses, qui engendrent l'incommode par l'aisé, la disette par la subsistance, la diminution par les crues, l'entier anéantissement par les tailles, l'esclavage par l'affranchissement, et le forcé par le gratuit[...]<fnref n="193" />.

Mais ces textes sont aussi l'occasion d'introduire une critique du système de la Grande Porte, dans la mesure où les Turcs obligent les autres peuples à entretenir des armées et les étranglent financièrement. Des Boys y fait également l'éloge du Chelybi en véritable homme d'Etat, capable de s'affranchir du joug financier turc. Evoquer un tel rapport de forces est un moyen de montrer qui sont les véritables responsables des prises de chrétiens puisque le Chelybi est esclave du Grand Turc, comme les chrétiens le sont du Chelybi :

Ses ennemis furent contraints de mettre en état de recevoir ces commandements, et de la façon qu'il s'établissait il se faisait plutôt le roi d'une monarchie que le capitaine général d'une république, il commençait déjà à imposer des lois qu'il rendait d'autant plus recevables, qu'elles ne tendaient qu'à mettre le pays dans l'indépendance du Grand Seigneur, et pour autoriser la nécessité de cette indépendance, il montrait le préjudice que la république avait soufferte des armées auxiliaires qu'elle avait été obligée de donner à tous les armements des Grands Seigneurs. Il ne faisait pas pourtant cette loi si rigoureuse, qu'elle ne permît de secourir sa hautesse en faveur de la religion pourvu que l'on ne fût pas chargé à l'avenir, des grands frais, dont on se voyait presque ruiné ; les soldats et les hommes de marine prenaient parti dans son dessein, et comme il s'en faut peu que tous les juges de la douane et du divan, ne soient marchands sur mer, il n'en restait pas beaucoup qui s'y opposassent.

<footnote n="191">¹⁹¹ René Chastelet des Boys, *L'Odyssée ou Diversité d'aventures, rencontres et voyages en Europe, Asie et Afrique. Divisée en quatre parties*, La Flèche, Gervais Laboé, 1665, t. II, p. 20.</footnote>

<footnote n="192">¹⁹² *Ibidem*, t. II, p. 22.</footnote>

<footnote n="193">¹⁹³ *Ibid.*, t. II, p. 103-106.</footnote>
C'était là ce qu'il avait projeté avec le roi de Couque, et leur sentiment était de faire si bien qu'ils fussent toujours apparemment alliés et unis aux Etats du Grand seigneur, mais ils tâchaient de n'être plus ses esclaves, de lui vendre leur secours, et ne l'y plus donner, et de faire à peu près comme les Suisses à l'Empereur de retenir toujours quelque chose de sa langue, pas beaucoup de sa religion, et n'aller jamais à son service, qu'après en avoir été longtemps sollicités, et reçu les moyens de n'y être pas à leur dépens, quoi qu'ils cherchassent ceux de ne s'y engager que comme des volontaires<fnref n="194" />.

Mais la question financière est aussi, comme nous l'avons montré plus haut, le moyen de célébrer la religion catholique, ou de valoriser l'ordre auquel on appartient ; elle donne ainsi lieu à des règlements de compte entre chrétiens. *Le Miroir de la Charité chrétienne* du père Auvry, un mercédaire, est un réquisitoire contre le manque de charité des chrétiens de France à l'égard de leurs semblables restés en Barbarie. Pour blesser l'amour-propre de ses coreligionnaires, le père Auvry fait ainsi valoir la charité des protestants, bien plus enclins à payer pour la libération des leurs que ne le sont les catholiques :

> Enfin, on prit le chemin de Toulouse, Agen, et Bordeaux, où chacun témoigna publiquement à la vue des belles processions qui se firent, qu'il n'y avait point d'aumône mieux employée, que celle qui se fait en faveur des pauvres esclaves, desquels plusieurs renient (je l'écris ingénument) parce qu'après avoir souffert longtemps avec constance des maux (dont la seule pensée ferait trembler) à la fin voyant que leurs parents ne les assistent pas, et que les petites aumônes que l'on porte en Barbarie ne peuvent pas s'étendre à tous, perdent courage entrent dans une impatience, et concevant une furieuse rage contre les riches de France (qui ne font point de libéralité pour la rédemption) ils apostasient de la foi, et de la religion catholique, et faisant reproche que s'ils étaient huguenots, les hérétiques les assisteraient beaucoup mieux que ne font les catholiques, ils s'enrôlent entre les partisans de Mahomet, dans l'espérance qu'ils ont qu'ils y jouiront d'un plus grand repos, et que l'on cessera de les tourmenter[...]<fnref n="195" />.

<footnote n="194">¹⁹⁴ Lucien Hérault, *Les Victoires de la charité ou la relation des voyages de Barbarie faits en Alger par le R.P Lucien Hérault, pour le rachat des Français esclaves aux années 1643 et 1645* (1646), op.cit., p.149-152.</footnote>

<footnote n="195">¹⁹⁵ Michel Auvry, mercédaire, *Le Miroir de la Charité Chrétienne, ou relation du voyage que les religieux de l'Ordre de Notre-Dame de la Merci du royaume de France ont fait l'année dernière 1662 en la ville d'Alger, d'où ils ont ramené environ une centaines de chrétiens esclaves*, op.cit., p. 194-195.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>(Schéma Y. Rodier)</figcaption></figure>

Les divisions entre les ordres catholiques, entre trinitaires et mercédaires, illustrent une opposition politique entre la France et l'Espagne. L'auteur de *L'Heureux esclave*, qui a la chance de se retrouver dans des situations qui lui sont favorables, prend en pitié ses camarades esclaves qui sont dans la prison de Masmore, ou « matemore », « en un lieu qui puait comme un retrait, pour n'être paré que de pots à pisser, pendus à la muraille, dans lesquels ils faisaient toutes leurs nécessités. Il y avait dans cette Masmore lorsque j'étais à Tetouan, bien trois cents esclaves, entre lesquels il y en avait environ trente de malades<fnref n="196" />. » Cette description vient alimenter le procès que l'auteur fait aux

<footnote n="196">¹⁹⁶ De la Martinière, *L'Heureux esclave ou relation des aventures du Sieur de la Marinière*, Paris Olivier de Varennes, 1674, p. 81-83.</footnote>
rédempteurs français qui, contrairement aux Espagnols, ne rachètent pas les captifs et sont donc responsables des reniements :

> C'était au commencement de décembre dans lequel temps se vend peu d'esclaves en Barbarie, à cause que les galères demeurent aux ports, les autres vaisseaux font peu de courses, et les pères rédempteurs ne vont ordinairement à Tetouan qu'au mois d'avril, mai ou juin et comme ils ne viennent que d'Espagne et de Portugal, n'achetant que ceux de leur nation, les Français et les autres étant comme désespérés de leur liberté, fait que la plupart se font renégats, qui fait qu'il y en a beaucoup en cette ville-là, principalement des Provençaux<fnref n="197" />.

Cette critique n'est pas nouvelle ; on la trouve déjà chez le père Lucien Hérault<fnref n="198" />, mais cette fois, il s'agit de piquer la vanité des Français en flattant les Espagnols, dont les capacités de rachat sont plus importantes : l'auteur en exagère l'ampleur, chiffres à l'appui.

> Les rédemptions que font nos religieux d'Espagne sont sans comparaison plus nombreuses que les nôtres ; nous ne rachetons que des escouades au prix d'eux des armées, ce sont des soleils, dont les nôtres ne sont que des rayons, il nous faut un effort extraordinaire pour racheter 100 esclaves, et eux n'en prennent jamais moins de 3 à 4000 comme leur royaume a quantité de côtes assez voisines de celles de barbarie, ils sont aussi plus sujets à être pris des pirates, mais si leurs pertes sont grandes, leurs rachats les suivent de près, et nous avons ce défaut, que quoi que les nôtres ne soient pas des moindres de la Chrétienté nous sommes pourtant ceux qui n'en rachetons presque point<fnref n="199" />.

Le discours du père Hérault tend alors à prendre un tour politique ; il montre que la renaissance du pouvoir royal est un moyen de redonner du sens à la notion de charité — tout en espérant rendre finalement celle-ci inutile, lorsque les maîtres d'autrefois deviendront à leur tour les esclaves de la puissance militaire française :

> Notre nation, cette jalouse victorieuse des fastes des Espagnols, se laisse vaincre en cet endroit, la vérité me contraint d'avouer cette honte, mais l'espérance que nous avons des charités des saintes âmes, lorsqu'elles seront encore plus soigneusement sollicitées dans ce parfait rétablissement de notre ordre, qu'elles n'ont jamais été, appuyées sur la renaissance des vertus des Français, qui croissent visiblement avec l'âge, et la gloire de notre jeune monarque, me fait dire qu'un jour viendra, que nos charités égaleront, et que nous ne l'emporterons pas seulement, sur les Espagnols, mais même sur toutes les autres nations de la terre ; et bien plus qu'en attendant que nos triomphes réduisent les Turcs à cette heureuse nécessité d'être nos sujets, nous ferons si soigneusement nos rédemptions, qu'ils seront contraints, s'ils veulent avoir des serviteurs, d'en prendre d'autres que des Français esclaves<fnref n="200" />.

De son côté, la *Relation* de Louis Desmay (1682) met en scène la rivalité entre mercédaires et trinitaires, au profit des mercédaires : « [Le roi] leur fit dire le troisième jour de venir recevoir les

<footnote n="197">¹⁹⁷ *Ibidem*, p. 81-83.</footnote>

<footnote n="198">¹⁹⁸ Lucien Hérault, *Les Victoires de la charité ou la relation des voyages de Barbarie faits en Alger par le R.P Lucien Hérault, pour le rachat des Français esclaves aux années 1643 et 1645 (1646)*.</footnote>

<footnote n="199">¹⁹⁹ *Ibid.*, p. 159-160.</footnote>

<footnote n="200">²⁰⁰ *Ibidem*, p. 159-160.</footnote>
trente esclaves qu’il avait promis de leur donner pour leur dix mille piastres. Ils le firent souvenir, quand ils furent devant lui, que tout récemment il avait traité avec les pères trinitaires d’Espagne sur le pied de cinquante piastres par reste, et qu’ils espéraient de lui la même composition<fnref n="201" />. » La réponse donnée par le roi Moulay-Ismaël est l’occasion de formuler une critique de l’Espagne : l’argent y revient, mesuré à l’aune des vies qu’il permet d’épargner. Moulay remarque en effet que les Français sont bien plus combatifs et leur coûtent bien davantage, manière indirecte de faire ainsi l’éloge de la force et de la détermination françaises : « Ce n’est pas de même, leur répondit le roi, les Espagnols ne nous coûtent rien à prendre. Ce sont des bienvenus qui s’échappent des forteresses, que le roi d’Espagne possède sur nos côtes, pour se rendre volontairement en mes fers. Au lieu que les Français ne se rendent qu’à l’extrémité, et quelquefois après nous avoir tué bien du monde<fnref n="202" /> ». Moulay-Ismaël fait aussi l’éloge des pères trinitaires espagnols, qui vont jusqu’à racheter des esclaves dont la vie est en sursis. C’est une fois de plus pour Louis Desmay le moyen de piquer l’orgueil des Français, d’autant plus que les prisonniers espagnols sont, d’après lui, des scélérats qui ne sont prisonniers des barbaresques que pour éviter les prisons espagnoles :

> De plus quand les pères trinitaires traitèrent avec moi, c’était dans un temps de peste, qui en enlevait beaucoup, et ils s’obligèrent de prendre à leur risque jusqu’à fin de paiement, n’ayant point leur argent prêt, tout ce que j’avais d’esclaves espagnols, en voilà déjà vingt de morts, depuis le marché conclu. Il faut savoir que la plupart de ces esclaves espagnols sont des scélérats condamnés pour leurs crimes à servir à perpétuité dans ces forteresses, où ils sont si cruellement maltraités, qu’ils estiment le plus dur esclavage, quelque chose de plus doux. Joint qu’étant esclaves chez les Infidèles, ils espèrent que les pères rédempteurs d’Espagne viendront leur rendre la liberté, qu’ils ne pouvaient espérer dans les forteresses, ou plutôt dans les prisons des Espagnols<fnref n="203" />.

Enfin, le débat idéologique concerne également les deux religions, chrétienne et musulmane. Face à la valorisation extrême du courage des captifs, les Infidèles apparaissent parés des pires défauts. Le père Dan considère ainsi que le vol dont les musulmans se rendent coupables à l’encontre des chrétiens ne doit nullement être rapporté à une quelconque influence astrale, celle de Mercure, mais à un goût pour la convoitise qu’ils dissimulent habilement derrière un prétexte religieux : « Ils disent pour cet effet que le zèle qu’ils doivent aux autels, et aux préceptes de leur prophète les oblige à prendre le bien aux Chrétiens, afin que leur ôtant les moyens qui leur peuvent donner quelque avantage sur eux, ils fassent à Mahomet un sacrifice plus agréable<fnref n="204" />. » Le père Dan réinterprète les signes religieux musulmans dans le sens de la convoitise : la main, seule image tolérée, est le symbole

<footnote n="201">²⁰¹ Louis Desmay, *Relation nouvelle et particulière du voyage des RR.PP. de la Merci aux royaumes de Fez et de Maroc pour la rédemption des captifs chrétiens, négociée en l’année 1681 avec Moulay-Ismaël, roi de Fez et de Maroc régnant aujourd’hui* (1682), op.cit., p. 69.</footnote>

<footnote n="202">²⁰² *Ibidem*, p. 70-71.</footnote>

<footnote n="203">²⁰³ *Ibid.*, p. 70-71.</footnote>

<footnote n="204">²⁰⁴ Dan, le père Pierre, trinitaire, *Histoire de la barbarie et de ses corsaires[...]*, Paris, Pierre Rocolet, 1649, éd. Augmentée, p. 70.</footnote>
du vol plus que du travail. Il accuse en effet la barbarie de se soutenir que par ces corsaires sans lesquels le pays ne serait rien « vu que les peuples qui l'habitent, ne se mêlent presque d'aucun trafic, comme gens fainéants, et qui n'ont point d'industrie à gagner leur vie, par un honnête travail<fnref n="205" />. »

La notion d'échange est donc essentielle dans ces textes écrits par les pères rédempteurs qui partent racheter les corps des esclaves pour sauver leur âme. Ces témoignages constituent sans doute des témoignages historiques sur le financement du rachat des esclaves ; mais on sait combien l'historien doit faire preuve de prudence quant à l'utilisation de ces sources, incluses dans un discours qui par sa mise en scène met la preuve au service d'une idéologie. Ces textes montrent toute l'habileté de rédacteurs pour lesquels le récit est le moyen de convaincre à la fois les barbaresques de réduire leur prétention financière et les chrétiens d'étendre leurs largesses. De plus, et au-delà du témoignage qu'ils représentent sur la rivalité entre musulmans et chrétiens dans le cadre de ce trafic, les textes révèlent, comme on a pu le voir, des prises de position politiques, dans la mesure, par exemple, où ils cherchent à valoriser la puissance militaire française par rapport à celle des Turcs ou des Espagnols, mais aussi dans la mesure où ils viennent s'inscrire dans le cadre du partage du pouvoir religieux entre les ordres rédempteurs, ou encore dans le cadre de l'opposition entre protestants et catholiques.

<footnote n="205">²⁰⁵ Dan, le père Pierre, trinitaire, *Histoire de la barbarie et de ses corsaires[...]*, Paris, Pierre Rocolet, 1649, éd. Augmentée, p. 72</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_15.png" /></figure>
LES RELIGIEUX TRINITAIRES DANS LES PAYS HABSBOURGEOIS ET LEURS PUBLICATIONS
SUR LE RACHAT

ERNSTPETER RUHE

Universität Würzburg

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>
Ruhe, Ernstpeter, « Les religieux trinitaires dans les pays habsbourgeois et leurs publications sur le rachat », dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 71-81.

Dans le contexte des travaux menés au sein du programme CORSO sur les récits germanophones de captifs retenus dans les pays « barbaresques », notre intérêt s'est concentré sur les publications des Trinitaires déchaussés dans les Etats héréditaires des Habsbourg, dans lesquels l'ordre a pu exercer ses fonctions pendant près d'un siècle.

Il s'y était établi en 1688, cinq ans après le siège de Vienne, pour aller racheter les nombreux captifs qui continuaient de tomber aux mains des Turcs dans les guerres du XVIIIe siècle. L'ordre devait cesser ses activités en 1783 à la suite des décrets de l'empereur Joseph II, par lesquels ce représentant d'un absolutisme éclairé mettait fin à l'existence des ordres religieux dans son empire.

La dissolution de l'ordre des Trinitaires dans les pays habsbourgeois a entraîné la dispersion des archives et des bibliothèques. Une recherche sur les publications des Trinitaires comme la nôtre s'est trouvée confrontée, par conséquent, à bien des difficultés quand il s'agit de réunir les textes imprimés. Grâce aux travaux de Moritz Gmelin<sup>206</sup> et de Thierry Pascal Knecht<sup>207</sup> la liste des titres est bien fournie. Le problème était de trouver des exemplaires.

Nos recherches, qui nous avaient permis d'en découvrir un certain nombre<sup>208</sup> ont beaucoup avancé grâce à notre collaboration avec un groupe de chercheurs autrichiens, dont le projet est accessible en ligne<sup>209</sup> : Elisabeth Pauli et Carlos Watzka (Université de Graz) travaillent notamment sur les ordres caritatifs en Europe centrale (« Karitative religiöse Orden im frühneuzeitlichen Mitteleuropa »), nommément sur le « Hospitalorden des Hl. Johannes von Gott » (« Barmherzige Brüder », Ordo Hospitalarius Sancti Johannis de Deo, OH) et celui des « Unbeschuhte Trinitarier » (« Trinitaires déchaussés », Ordo Sanctissimae Trinitatis, OSST).

Cette coopération germano-autrichienne s'est avérée très fructueuse, non seulement pour l'échange des publications des Trinitaires collectionnées séparément, mais aussi pour les perspectives méthodologiques qui se complètent de façon idéale : l'approche historico-sociologique de l'équipe

<footnote n="206"><sup>206</sup> Moritz Gmelin: « Die Literatur zur Geschichte der Orden SS. Trinitatis et B. Mariae de Mercede redemptionis captivorum », dans : *Serapeum* 31 (1870), pp. 81-94, 97-110, 113-123, 129-140 ; Idem : « Die Trinitarier oder Weißspanier in Oesterreich, und ihre Thätigkeit für Befreiung christlicher Sklaven aus türkischer Gefangenschaft », dans : *Österreichische Vierteljahresschrift für katholische Theologie* 10 (1871), pp. 339-405, en particulier pp. 392-401.</footnote>

<footnote n="207"><sup>207</sup> Thierry Pascal Knecht : « Les religieux trinitaires déchaussés dans les Etats héréditaires des Habsbourg du siège de Vienne à l'érection de la Province Saint-Joseph (1683-1727) », travail de 1997, publié en ligne : http://www.trinitarianhistory.org/studies/Province%20St-Joseph%201.htm.</footnote>

<footnote n="208"><sup>208</sup> Les textes sont accessibles dans notre bibliothèque en ligne concernant les récits de voyages germanophones au Maghreb http://www.maghreb-onlinebibliothek.romanistik.uni-wuerzburg.de/.</footnote>

<footnote n="209"><sup>209</sup> http://www.carlos-watzka.at/projekte.html. Voir, dans le présent volume, la présentation de ce site (http://www.oroc-crlc.paris-sorbonne.fr/index.php/visiteur/Projet-CORSO/Ressources/La-guerre-de-course-en-recits./I.Recits-de-redemption.-Trinitaires-et-mercedaires/Trinitarian-Sources-On-line-website).</footnote>
de Graz, et la nôtre, littéraire, qui se concentre sur les textes produits par les religieux trinitaires dans l'empire habsbourgeois et sur la spécificité de leur écriture.

Il s'agissait en effet pour nous de repérer l'évolution des textes, leurs structures et les codes qui les organisent, comme a pu le faire Jean-Claude Laborie à propos du XVIIe siècle français<fnref n="210" />, et plus spécialement des textes publiés entre 1630 et 1650, décades qui représentent selon lui le moment du pic des publications provoqué par la querelle que se livraient à cette époque les Trinitaires et les Mercédaires. Comparées à ce qu'ont pu être les activités éditoriales de l'ordre en France, les publications des Trinitaires dans les pays habsbourgeois sont de bien moindre importance. Elles relèvent principalement de trois genres de textes :

- des listes de rachats,

- des récits de mission de rachat, composés par le prêtre qui en était chargé,

- des sermons.

Il faut y ajouter les gravures qui accompagnent cette production ; bien plus rares que dans les publications françaises, elles n'en revêtent pas moins une importance certaine pour une analyse de l'image que l'ordre a voulu propager de lui. Sur d'autres plans également, la comparaison entre les corpus français et germanique doit être menée prudemment : ce qui paraît faire défaut au premier abord, peut être seulement arrangé différemment. Ainsi, les « pièces comptables qui », dans les corpus français, « justifient l'emploi de l'argent des fonds effectué lors des marchandages avec les autorités locales »<fnref n="211" /> peuvent se trouver intégrées dans l'un ou l'autre des genres pratiqués par les Trinitaires habsbourgeois.

Voici le corpus de textes tel qu'il est actuellement à notre disposition :

## 1. Listes de rachat

Nous avons pu réunir jusqu'à maintenant une trentaine de listes, publiées entre 1700 et 1783, listes qui ont été souvent publiées parallèlement en latin et en allemand. Nous n'avons pas encore pu trouver trace de 10 listes s'échelonnant entre 1691 et 1725. Un quart fait donc encore défaut. Il faut ajouter à ce compte une liste manuscrite du rachat de 1714, conservée à la bibliothèque nationale de Vienne.<fnref n="212" />

<footnote n="210">²¹⁰Jean-Claude Laborie: « Les ordres rédempteurs et l'instrumentalisation du récit de captivité : l'exemple des trinitaires, entre 1630 et 1650 », dans: François Moureau (dir.), *Captifs en Méditerranée (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles). Histoires, récits et légendes*, Paris, PUPS, 2008, pp. 93-102.</footnote>

<footnote n="211">²¹¹*Ibid.*, p. 94.</footnote>

<footnote n="212">²¹²Pour l'analyse détaillée de ces listes voir dans ce volume Elisabeth Pauli – Carlos Watzka : *The Discalced Order of the Most Holy Trinity in the Habsburg Empire and its activities concerning the redemption of Christian captives in Muslim-ruled countries during the 17th and 18th century*, p. 3-8.</footnote>
## 2. Sermons

Conformément aux récits de mission rassemblés sous forme d'annales, les sermons ont paru réunis en deux volumes, sous un titre que l'on pourrait traduire en français par *Le Protecteur de la liberté chrétienne*, publié par Lucas a S. Nicolao :

Lucas a S. Nicolao : *Vindex libertatis Christianae Oder Sonders Beflissener Freyheit-Beschirmer Deren Unter Tartarisch-Türckischen Dienstbarkeit angeschlossenen Christen / Vermög Wessen Der Leiblichen Dienstbarkeit unvergleichliches Elend ; deß über fünfff verflossene Jahr Hundert in Zertrennung deren Banden / und Feßeln unübermiedet schwitzenden Heil. Ordens der Allerheiligsten Dreyfaltigkeit herrlichen Schein / und scheinbahren Ehren-Ruff / alsdan vil merckwürdige Denckzeichen hinterbracht / Nun aber auch mit deren Obern Genehmhaltung durch öffentlichen Druck Den Ersten Theil Allkündig gemachet hat Fr. Lucas von Heil. Nicolao erwehnten Ordens Priester und Prediger. Gedruckt / zu Tyrnau in der Academischen Buchdruckerey durch Friderich Gall, 1722.*

Le même auteur fit paraître neuf ans plus tard une collection d'autres sermons :

Lucas a S. Nicolao : *Vindex Libertatis, Ein mit Getreuester Vorsorge beflissener Schutz-Redner Um die Freyheit deren in der beleidbahren Dienstbarkeit bey denen Türcken und Tartarn Angehaltenen Christen. Allwo zufällig von dem in ihrer Erlösung durch Salz des Himmels unermüdet beflissenen Orden der Allerheiligsten Dreyfaltigkeit / viel seltsame Zufälle / und wichtigste Denckwürdigkeiten / samt dem Kern deren herrlichen Zierden mit bey eingemengten Predig-Gedanken vorgetragen.*

Ehemahlen schon zum Druck erlassen / nunmehro aber an vielen Orthen erweitert / mit einigen Anmerkungen und Inhalts-Zeigern vermehret hat / P. F. Lucas â S. Nicolao, des obgedachten Ordens Priester / und dermahlen gewöhnlicher Sonntags-Prediger in Vienn. Vienn in Oesterreich / gedruckt bey. Johann Jacob Kürners seeligen Erben / 1731.

Les textes contenus dans les deux collections sont ou bien des sermons qui avaient été faits devant les rachetés lors de leur arrivée à Vienne, ou bien des sermons sur la vie de membres éminents de l'ordre.

Il existait également des sermons isolés paraissant sous forme de plaquette, ce qui constituait le type normal de publication des sermons en France. Nous n'avons pu en trouver jusqu'à maintenant qu'un seul spécimen, qui date de 1773. Comme le précise le long titre du texte, c'est un sermon qui a été
dit, après la procession solennelle des rachetés à travers Vienne, à l'église de l'ordre devant les chrétiens libérés de l'esclavage et une grande foule de croyants :

Engelbert von der Mutter Gottes: *Rede auf Die glückliche Erlösung der Gefangenen Christen aus Algier, welche Nach dem feyerlichem, und allgemein erfreulichem Einzug in die K. K. Haupt- und Residenzstadt Wien derer von den WW. EE. PP. Trinitariern der Löbl. Provinz des Heil. Josephs durch ihren wirklichen Erlöser der Gefangenen R. P. Bernardinum A B. M. V. aus der Sklaverey befreyten Christen, In Gegenwart derselben, und einer großen Volkesmenge in der Kirche des Ordens der Allerheiligsten Dreyfaltigkeit von Erlösung der gefangenen Christen In der Alstervorstadt den 24. des Weinmonats im Jahre 1773 vorgetragen hat Engelbert von der Mutter Gottes, Wohlgedachten Ordenspriester, der Josephinischen Provinz wirklicher Definitor, und in dem wienerischen Collegium gewöhnlicher Sonntagsprediger*. Wien, Gedruckt bey Leopold Johann Kaliwoda, auf dem Dominicanerplatz.

### 3. Récits d'une mission de rachat

Les Trinitaires ont publié à Vienne un seul titre à ce sujet en 1739. C'est un livre volumineux, composé par Johannes a Sancto Felice :

Joannis A. S. Felice: *Annalium Provinciae Sancti Josephi Ordinis Excalceatorum Sanctissimae Trinitatis Redemptionis Captivorum Libri Decem: In quibus ab origine Provinciæ [et] Ordines Propagatione post ultimam Viennæ obsidionem Anno M. DC. LXXXIII. usque ad constitutam Provinciam Anno M. DCC. XXVIII. referuntur Cænobiorum Origines, peractæ Captivorum Redemptiones, Illustrium Virorum Vitæ sive Elogia, Descriptiones variarum Urbium ac locorum in Turcia præsertim [et] Tartaria, aliæque Res Memorabiles, Sæculi duodevigesimi [et] antecedentis Historiam illustraturæ; Omnia ferè ex Summorum Pontificum [et] Imperatorum Diplomatibus, Principum [et] Magnorum Virorum Epistolis, atque aliis Domesticis [et] Originalibus Actis, Documentis [et] probatis Scriptoribus desumpta/* Studio Et Labore P. Fr. Joannis A S. Felice, Ejusdam Ordinis [et] Provinciæ Chronographi. Viennæ Austriæ, Typis Joannis Petri van Ghelen, Sac. Cæs. Regiæ que Majestatis Aulæ, [et] Universit. Typographi, 1739.
Ruhe, Ernstpeter, « Les religieux trinitaires dans les pays habsbourgeois et leurs publications sur le rachat », dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 71-81.

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>

Joannis a San Felice, *Annalium Provinciae Sancti Josephi Ordinis*, P. 256 (C. Watzka)

Ce gros volume de plus de 800 pages fait le récit de toutes les missions de rachat entreprises entre 1690 (c'est la date de la première) et 1730. Quarante ans d'activités résumés sous forme d'Annales – nous sommes loin du récit fait après la fin d'une mission et publié sous forme de plaquette. Le livre est un livre d'histoire. Il est écrit en latin. Le public auquel cette publication s'adresse est évidemment un autre que celui auquel est destiné ce que les Trinitaires ont fait paraître en allemand.

Le même auteur avait publié déjà en 1704 un autre livre, toujours en latin:

Joannis A. S. Felice: *Triumphus misericordiae, id est Sacrum Ordinis SSS. Trinitatis Institutum Redemptio Captivorum cum adjuncto kalendario ecclesiastice-historico universi ordinis*. Authore P.
F. Joanne à Sancto Felice, ejiusdem Ordinis et Instituti Sacerdote Professo. Viennae Austriae. Typis Joannis Van Ghelen, Sac. Caes. Majest. Aulae Typographie Italici. 1704, 255 p.

Ces deux livres sont de la plus haute importance pour l'auto-représentation de l'ordre, comme le démontrent Elisabeth Pauli et Carlos Watzka dans ce volume.<fnref n="213" />

Pour l'analyse de ces documents, la méthode comparatiste s'impose. L'installation des Trinitaires en pays habsbourgeois est tardive. L'histoire de l'ordre est déjà bien longue, celle de ses activités de publication aussi, lorsque l'ordre commence à s'établir en Europe de l'Est. La question est donc de savoir en quoi ces publications diffèrent de ce que l'ordre avait déjà publié ailleurs. Notre pays de référence est la France, pour lequel Jean-Claude Laborie a pu constater qu'après la phase principale de publications, qu'il situe autour de 1630-1650, il n'y a pratiquement plus d'innovations :

> Les publications du XVIIIe siècle sont très souvent des réemplois de matériaux utilisés au siècle précédent. Toute littérature d'édification tend à ce figement dans la mesure où elle repose sur la répétition d'une opération à laquelle la circonstance devient de moins en moins nécessaire. Ainsi le captif est progressivement dépouillé de son identité propre, son habit devenant un costume, son aventure une situation exemplaire. Le récit de la rédemption devient itératif et ne tarde pas à se transformer en cliché<fnref n="214" />.

« Figement », « répétivité », « cliché » – le bilan est clair. Il l'est moins pour les Trinitaires à Vienne dont le nombre restreint de publications, réparties sur plusieurs genres, réduit en lui-même le risque de répétivité. La diversité des occasions qui ont provoqué la composition des textes imprimés détermine largement leur contenu, ne laissant guère de place à l'itération.

Dans le cadre de l'étude des textes produits par les Trinitaires en pays habsbourgeois et de leur réception, deux phénomènes singuliers ont retenu notre attention.

## 1. La campagne de dénigration de l'ordre

La fin de l'ordre dans les pays habsbourgeois a été accompagnée d'une campagne bien orchestrée contre ses activités. L'administration impériale avait de plus en plus pris en main le rachat des captifs,

<footnote n="213">²¹³Pauli – Watzka ( titre cité note 7), p. 8-12. Voir aussi à ce sujet la thèse de doctorat d'Elisabeth Pauli, *Die Befreiung christlicher Gefangener durch den Trinitarierorden im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Die österreichischen Redemptionen im Kontext der Gesamtstruktur des Ordens*. Graz 2011 (sous presse).</footnote>

<footnote n="214">²¹⁴J.-C. Laborie, art. cit. note 5, p. 96.</footnote>
qu'elle préférait régler directement entre Etats par la voie diplomatique. En préparant l'interdiction de l'ordre de 1783, des tracts ont commencé à circuler, qui dénigraient les Trinitaires, les soupçonnant de connivence avec l'ennemi : les pères trinitaires ne partaient-ils pas dans l'empire ottoman pour donner de l'argent autrichien aux Turcs qui, en retour, ne leur vendaient que des éclopés et des bons-à-rien ?

Elisabeth Pauli et Carlos Watzka citent le plus important de ces pamphlets, intitulé *Bildergalerie klösterlicher Mißbräuche*.<fnref n="215" /> Ce qui reste un desideratum pour la recherche, c'est de rassembler ces publications pour lesquelles l'information bibliographique est encore assez défectueuse, et de les analyser en détail pour pouvoir comprendre la fin de l'ordre dans sa complexité.

Ceci semble d'autant plus intéressant qu'à la même époque aurait paru en France une satire de l'ordre des Trinitaires. C'est du moins la thèse qu'a avancée Guy Turbet-Delof, qui parle de « supercherie littéraire » et d'un « roman satirique [...] qui a trompé maints bibliographes »<fnref n="216" />, à propos d'un livre paru en 1785 sans nom d'auteur :

*Voyage Dans les Etats Barbaresques de Maroc, Alger, Tunis et Tripoly; ou Lettres D'un des Captifs qui viennent d'être rachetés par MM. les Chanoines réguliers de la Sainte-Trinité; suivies D'une Notice sur leur rachat, & du Catalogue de leurs noms.* A Paris, Chez Guillot, Libraire de Monsieur, rue Saint-Jacques, vis-à-vis celle des Mathurins, 1785. Avec Approbation et Permission.

Y aurait-il donc eu, en France aussi, un mouvement de dénigration des Trinitaires dans lequel cette « satire » aurait joué un rôle ? La lecture attentive du livre permet de conclure qu'il n'en est rien. S'il y a supercherie, elle est bien anodine, et elle est purement littéraire : ce petit livre de 193 pages raconte le sort d'un jeune militaire français, capturé au Maroc, vendu et revendu, puis entraîné par différents maîtres à travers les quatre pays du Maghreb, que ses lecteurs traversent avec lui.

C'est un texte bien visiblement construit suivant une formule simple et éloignée de toute satire de l'ordre, car si le captif retrouve finalement sa liberté, avec beaucoup d'autres esclaves, c'est grâce aux Trinitaires qui les rachètent. Le livre se termine par la description des processions que les esclaves libérés font à travers la France sur leur chemin de retour et par la longue « Liste des trois cents treize Esclaves François rachetés à Alger en 1785 & arrivés à Marseille le 9 Juillet de la même année. » Est-ce une liste historique, tirée d'un rachat qui avait eu véritablement lieu? Jusqu'à maintenant, un tel document n'a pas pu être retrouvé. Tout porte à croire qu'après tant de *Relations véritables* et de

<footnote n="215">²¹⁵Le nom d'auteur Obermayr est un pseudonyme [Joseph Richter], voir Pauli – Watzka, art. cit., p. 15.</footnote>

<footnote n="216">²¹⁶Guy Turbet-Delof, « Bibliographie Mathurine » (1582-1785), dans *Revue d'ascétique et de mystique* 46 (1970), pp. 387-396, ici p. 395.</footnote>
*Brefs et fidèles récits* sur les captifs en terre islamique et les circonstances de leur rachat,<fnref n="217" /> l'auteur anonyme entendait profiter des thèmes et des procédés de ces textes pour authentifier son histoire fictionnelle.

Ses ambitions ne s'arrêtaient pas là, car c'est dans ce même but de « faire vrai » qu'il introduit d'autres genres prisés de son temps. Pour la construction de l'ensemble, son modèle générique est une forme littéraire alors à la mode en Europe – le roman par lettres. En plus, il enrichit son texte d'informations sur les pays du Maghreb dans la tradition des traités contemporains sur *L'Etat des royaumes de Barbarie*.<fnref n="218" />

En combinant et cumulant à l'excès pour authentifier, il finit par présenter à ses lecteurs un texte disparate. L'histoire d'amour, contenu traditionnel des romans par lettres, est esquissée au début – le jeune militaire adresse ses lettres au père de sa bien-aimée Eugénie –, puis rapidement perdue de vue. Le mince fil narratif relie si mal une addition de sujets et de genres différents que la fonction principale des *Lettres* ne devient finalement que trop évidente : c'est de faire l'éloge des Trinitaires.

## 2. Les Trinitaires et le romantisme

Pour la littérature allemande, nous avons pu identifier un phénomène de réception autrement intéressant. L'ordre des Trinitaires doit cesser ses activités en 1783 dans les pays habsbourgeois. Trente-trois ans plus tard, la baronne Julie von Richthofen fait publier deux récits :<fnref n="219" />

<footnote n="217">²¹⁷Cf. pour ces titres fréquents Guy Turbet-Delof, *Bibliographie critique du Maghreb dans la littérature française, 1532-1715*, Alger : Société Nationale d'édition et de Diffusion, 1976.</footnote>

<footnote n="218">²¹⁸Voir par exemple Jean-Baptiste de Lafaye : *Etat des royaumes de Barbarie, Tripoly, Tunis, et Alger : contenant l'histoire naturelle & politique de ces païs*. La manière dont les Turcs y traitent les esclaves. Comme on les rachete. Et diverses avantures curieuses. Avec la tradition de l'Eglise, pour le rachat ou le soulagement des captifs, Rouen 1703. – Laugier de Tassy : *Histoire des Etats Barbaresques qui exercent la piraterie, contenant l'origine, les révolutions & l'Etat present des Royaumes d'Alger, de Tunis, de Tripoli & de Maroc, avec leurs forces, leurs revenus, leur politique et leur commerce*, par un auteur, qui y a residé plusieurs années, avec caractère public, traduit de l'anglois. Amsterdam 1725, 2 t. (Texte numérisé : http://www.bsb-muenchen-digital.de/). – Thomas Shaw: *Voyages de M. Shaw, [...] dans plusieurs provinces de la Barbarie et du Levant, contenant des observations géographiques, physiques, philologiques et mêlées sur les royaumes d'Alger et de Tunis, sur la Syrie, l'Egypte et l'Arabie Pétrée*, avec des cartes et des figures, traduits de l'anglois, La Haye 1743, 2 t.</footnote>

<footnote n="219">²¹⁹Les deux autres titres sont les suivants: *Die heilige Synkletika, Stifterinn der ersten Jungfrauenklöster und Maron, Stifter der Maroniten. Dans: Romantisch-historische Erzählungen aus dem Klosterleben der Vorzeit, von Julie Baroninn v. Richthofen. Drittes Bändchen*. Danzig, im Verlag bei G. Anhuth, 1826, 207 p. – *Der heilige Alexander, Stifter der acömetischen Mönche im Morgenlande, Dans: Romantisch-historische Erzählungen aus dem Klosterleben der Vorzeit, von Julie Baroninn v. Richthofen*. Viertes Bändchen, Danzig, im Verlag bei G. Anhuth, 1826, 176 p.</footnote>
*Die Gründung der Trinitarier oder die Gewalt der Liebe. Dans : Romantisch-historische Erzählungen aus dem Klosterleben der Vorzeit*, von Julie Baroninn v. Richthofen. Erstes Bändchen, Danzig, im Verlag bei G. Anhuth, 1826, 186 p.

*Franziska von Romero, Stifterinn der unbeschuhten Trinitarierinnen*. Dans: *Romantisch-historische Erzählungen aus dem Klosterleben der Vorzeit*, von Julie Baroninn v. Richthofen. Zweites Bändchen, Danzig, im Verlag bei G. Anhuth, 1826, 212 p.

Le titre de la série que la baronne compose en tout de quatre livres est significatif et définit parfaitement ses ambitions : « récits romantico-historiques de la vie des couvents de jadis » - Julie von Richthofen partage l'engouement du XIXe siècle pour le roman historique. Ce que le titre du deuxième livre laisse déjà deviner – c'est une vie romancée de la fondatrice de l'aile féminine de l'ordre –, se confirme lorsqu'on parcourt le premier volume : la vie de Jean de Matha y est racontée, arrangée selon le goût romantique du temps.

Jusqu'au dernier document de réception, les textes germanophones concernant les Trinitaires restent fidèles au principe central des publications de l'ordre : tout ce qui est publié est un élément de plus apporté au grand ensemble qu'est l'hagiographie de l'ordre. La baronne Julie von Richthofen y ajoute l'épilogue, en revenant au point de départ, à la clé de voûte de toute la construction hagiographique qu'est la vie des fondateurs de l'ordre. A côté de celle de Jean de Matha, fondateur des Trinitaires à la fin du XIIe siècle, Julie von Richthofen met en avant celle de la fondatrice des Trinitairiennes déchaussées qui, quatre siècles plus tard, réussit même à établir l'ordre dans le Nouveau Monde.
CHRISTIAN CAPTIVES REDEEMED BY THE AUSTRIAN TRINITARIANS FROM THE OTTOMAN
EMPIRE, THE TATARIC REGIONS AND THE "BARBARY" STATES, 1690-1783

ELISABETH PAULI AND CARLOS WATZKA

Universität Graz

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /><figcaption><< Tres unum sunt >>, Trinitarian Church, Bratislava (Photo C. Watzka)</figcaption></figure>
Pauli, E. and Watzka, C., « Christian captives redeemed by the Austrian Trinitarians from the Ottoman Empire, the Tataric regions and the "Barbary" states », dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 81-105.

The following paper presents some main findings of sociological-historical inquiries into the phenomenon of ransoming captives in early modern Europe, as conducted by the Trinitarians, a Catholic monastic order.<fnref n="220" /> Our research focuses on the activities of that order’s Austrian branch, which was active in Central Europe and organized redemptory voyages to the Ottoman Empire, the Black Sea Region and Northern Africa from 1688 to 1783.<fnref n="221" />

**The Trinitarians in the Habsburg monarchy in early modern times – an introduction**

Since its origins at the end of the 12th century, this religious community concentrated on the specific task of liberating Christians, held captive and enslaved in Muslim-ruled countries. The community soon spread throughout the Catholic-dominated countries of the Mediterranean, where frequent fighting between Muslim and Christian armies and fleets created a great demand for their specific kind of charitable as well as diplomatic work. Therefore, during early modern times also, the principal personalities behind the organization of the order were based in France and Spain.<fnref n="222" />

<footnote n="220">²²⁰ For the general history of the Trinitarian order cf. Anthony D'Errico, *The Trinitarians. An overview of their eight hundred year service to god and humanity*. Rome s.a. [1998], Thierry Knecht, *Les Trinitaires. Huit siècles d'histoire, Saint-Michel 1993, Paul Deslandres, L'Ordre des Trinitaires pour le rachat des captifs, Toulouse/Paris 1903 (2 vol.)*, Giulio Cipollone, *La famiglia Trinitaria (1198-1998). Compendio Storico*, Rome 1998, Giulio Cipollone, *Trinità e liberazione tra Cristianità e Islam. La regola dei Trinitari*, Assisi 2000, Giulio Cipollone (ed.), *La Liberazione dei 'captivi' tra Cristianità e Islam. Oltre la crociata e il ġihād: Tolleranza e servizio umanitario*, Città del Vaticano 2000, Marisa Forcina, Nicola Rocca (ed.), *Tolleranza e convivenza tra Cristianità ed Islam. L'Ordine dei Trinitari (1198-1998)*, Lecce 1998, Bonifacio Porres Alonso, *Libertad a los cautivos. Actividad redentora de la Orden Trinitaria*, vol. 1, Córdoba/Salamanca 1997, Juan Pujana, *La Orden de la Santísima Trinidad*, Salamanca 1993.</footnote>

<footnote n="221">²²¹ There is not very much research literature particularly dealing with the history of the Trinitarian order in the Habsburg Empire and the Holy Roman Empire of 17th and 18th century until now. Recent publications are: Elisabeth Pauli, *Befreiung aus tyrannischer Gefangenschaft. Der Trinitarierorden in der Habsburgermonarchie (1688-1783) und die Rückführung christlicher Sklaven aus dem Osmanischen Reich und seinen Vasallenstaaten*. In: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 90/2 (2008), p. 351-378, Elisabeth Pauli, *Der Orden der Allerheiligsten Dreifaltigkeit von der Erlösung der Gefangenen und seine Tätigkeit in den habsburgischen Ländern (1688-1783)*, in: Heidemarie Specht, Ralph Andraschek-Holzer (ed.), *Bettelorden in Mitteleuropa – Geschichte, Kunst, Spiritualität*, St. Pölten 2008, p. 133-164, Ernstpeter Ruhe, *Dire et ne pas dire: Les récits de captifs germanophones et les cérémonies de retour*, in: François Moureau (ed.), *Captifs en Méditerranée (XVIᵉ-XVIIIᵉ siècles). Histoires, récits et légendes*, Paris 2008, p. 119-133, Ernstpeter Ruhe, *L'aire du soupçon. Les récits de captivité en langue allemande (XVIᵉ-XIXᵉ siècles)*, in: Anne Duprat, Émilie Picherot (ed.), *Récits d'Orient en Occident*, Paris 2008, p. 185-200, Thierry Knecht, *Les religieux trinitaires déchaussés dans les Etats héréditaires des Habsbourg du siège de Vienne à l'érection de la Province Saint-Joseph (1683-1727)*, published online: http://www.trinitarianhistory.org. From the older ones, the most important are: Moritz Gmelin, *Die Trinitarier oder Weißspanier in Österreich*. In: Österreichische Vierteljahresschrift für katholische Theologie 10 (1871), p. 339-406, Richard von Kralik, *Geschichte des Trinitarierordens. Von seiner Gründung bis zur seiner zweiten Niederlassung in Österreich*, Wien/Innsbruck/München s.a. [1920], Quirin de Leeuw, *Die Trinitarier. Ein alter Orden mit jungem Herzen*, Mödling 1984. Moreover two master thesis have to be cited: Ruth Koblizek, *Die erste Niederlassung des Ordens der unbeschuhten Trinitarier in Wien*, master thesis, Wien 1995, Elisabeth Pauli, *Die Trinitarier in Österreich von 1688 bis 1783*, master thesis, Graz 2004. The dissertation of Elisabeth Pauli, being in completion at the moment, will give a survey of the contents of research literature existing so far.</footnote>

<footnote n="222">²²² Cf. D'Errico, *The Trinitarians*, esp. p. 447-457, where all houses of the Trinitarian order world-wide are named with their founding dates.</footnote>
Nonetheless, the internal differences over theological and disciplinary, as well as political and
economical matters – not uncommon amongst Catholic orders during the Reformation and Counter-
Reformation –, caused a division of the Trinitarian order into several congregations during the 16th
century: the old-type Calced Trinitarians, two kinds of reformed French Trinitarians and also a new
congregation of Spanish Discalced Trinitarians, were the major entities which emerged at the end of
this process around 1600, and these were acknowledged by the supreme ecclesiastical authority, the
Holy See, as autonomous monastic organizations.<fnref n="223" />

Like the ancient, united order, its reformed spin-offs benefited from their status as mendicant orders, which were allowed to collect alms for their charitable work, at least in theory, without any restrictions. This relates both to the ecclesiastical sphere<fnref n="224" /> – for which the full exemption from the bishoprics' jurisdiction has to be mentioned as a most significant achievement that allowed a coordinated, trans-regional pursuit of the order's aims – and to the secular sphere, although the for this, of course, the order was dependent on the goodwill of the relevant worldly political authorities.

Yet, particularly for governments of European regions, in which warfare with Muslims and abduction of Christian subjects for the purpose of slavery was a serious and constant problem, the order's support was obviously quite attractive during early modern era, perhaps not least due to the expertise that had already been built up within the Trinitarian order in handling difficulties that were linked to such a field of action as the ransom and exchange of captives of war and victims of manhunts.<fnref n="225" />

Moreover religious orders like the Trinitarians were seen as potential partners in the project of re-catholicization and Catholic reform.<fnref n="226" /> Both intense inter-religious warfare and the existence of a political project of "Catholic reform", were present in the case of the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in late 17th century, and the establishment of the order – namely the Spanish Discalced Trinitarians – there in 1688 was in fact motivated by the siege of Vienna in 1683 and, more precisely, by the enormous loss of population caused by the far-reaching devastation of imperial Western Hungary and

<footnote n="223">²²³ Cf. D'Errico, *The Trinitarians*, p. 159-202.</footnote>

<footnote n="224">²²⁴ The status of the Spanish Discalced order, which is the relevant congregation for Central Europe, in ecclesiastical law is documented most completely in the *Bullarium Discalceatorum Sanctissimae Trinitatis ab erectione eiusdem Ordinis Congregationis Hispanicae*, manuscript in the Archive of the Trinitarian Order in San Carlino alle quattro fontane, Rome. The internal legal system of the order is laid down in: Antonius a Conceptione (ed.), *Regula Primitiva et Constitutiones Patrum Discalceatorum Ordinis Sacntissimae Trinitatis Redemptionis Captivorum*, Rome 1738 (reprinted Rome 1851).</footnote>

<footnote n="225">²²⁵ Cf. the forthcoming dissertation of Elisabeth Pauli.</footnote>

<footnote n="226">²²⁶ Cf. the vast literature on the phenomenon of "counter-reformation", for the Austrian case i.e.: Thomas Winkelbauer, *Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht. Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter*, Wien 2004, part 2, and Rudolf Leeb et al. (ed.), *Geschichte des Christentums in Österreich*, Wien 2005, p. 145-360.</footnote>
eastern Lower Austria, the core land of the Habsburg Monarchy, by the Ottoman and Tataric forces during this campaign.<fnref n="227" />

As is widely known, warfare between the Ottoman and the Habsburg Empire continued afterwards until the end of the 17th century, followed in the early 18th century by two transient phases of (more or less respected) peace 1700-1714 and 1719-35,<fnref n="228" /> and the two Austro-Ottoman wars of 1714-18 and 1736-39, which interrupted them. Moreover, at the "military border" (a region not called so by the Austrians) a "minor war" continued even during the specified times of peace, and led to enormous casualties, too, particularly regarding regional villagers and border settlers, of whom thousands were taken captive even during formal "peace times".<fnref n="229" />

Therefore, captives' redemption was an unquestioned and urgent task in the Habsburg Monarchy during the first half of the 18th century, and a lot of redemption voyages by the Trinitarians – 20 between 1690 and 1750 – were destined mostly for the Ottoman Empire itself and the Crimean Tatarian Khanate in the Black Sea region.<fnref n="230" />

Moreover, a remarkable network of Trinitarian houses was built in the Habsburg Monarchy to support the activities of the convent in Vienna (founded in 1688), which extended primarily within the Eastern parts of the Habsburg monarchy: By 1728, when a special Austrian Province of the order was founded, it had established twelve settlements, including Vienna: Illava (1695), Bratislava (1697), Prague (1707), Trnava (1712), Komárom (1714), Alba Julia (1716), Eger (1717), Belgrade (1718), Pera/Constantinople (1723), Zašová (1724), Sárospatak (1728).<fnref n="231" />

This pattern of expansion changed, particularly during second half of the 18th century, when there was a long-lasting period of peace between both the Austrian and the Turkish Empire, and 'minor' border war also produced fewer of its evil outcomes for the Austrian side, due to the increasing military power of the latter, improved political relationships to the Ottomans, and, last but not least, because of the fact that the Crimean Tatars were already under heavy pressure from the Russian

<footnote n="227">²²⁷ Regarding the political and military history of the conflict between the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire during 17th and 18th century cf. Josef Matuz, *Das Osmanische Reich. Grundlinien seiner Geschichte*, Darmstadt 1996, Klaus Kreiser, Christoph Neumann, *Kleine Geschichte der Türkei*. Stuttgart 2009, Marlene Kunz, Martin Scheutz, Karl Vocelka, Thomas Winkelbauer (ed.), *Das Osmanische Reich und die Habsburgermonarchie*, Wien 2005, Heinz Kramer, Maurus Reinkowski, *Die Türkei und Europa. Eine wechselhafte Beziehungsgeschichte*. Stuttgart 2008, Ekkehard Eickhoff, *Venedig, Wien und die Osmanen. Umbruch in Südosteuropa 1645-1700*, Stuttgart 1988.</footnote>

<footnote n="228">²²⁸ Note that the period of 1700-1714 was exactly that of the war of Spanish succession, so that altogether it was not at all a period of peace in Austria, but only between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. Likewise, the years of 1733-1735 brought the war of Polish succession.</footnote>

<footnote n="229">²²⁹ Cf. Geza David, Pal Fodor (Hg.), *Ottomans, Hungarians and Habsburgs in central Europe. The military confines in the era of Ottoman conquest*, Leiden u.a. 2000.</footnote>

<footnote n="230">²³⁰ Cf. Porres Alonso, *Libertad*, p. 616f.</footnote>

<footnote n="231">²³¹ Cf. Pauli, *Befreiung aus tyrannischer Gefangenschaft*, p. 363, Antonio ab Assumptione, *Arbor Chronologica ordinis Excalceatorum Sanctissimae Trinitatis*, Rome 1894, p. 140.</footnote>
forces.<fnref n="232" /> Therefore, the number of Imperial subjects held captive within Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and Turkey, the prime 'target group' for the activities of the Austrian Trinitarians, dwindled constantly during these decades.

This is also reflected in the fact that newly founded Trinitarian settlements in the Habsburg monarchy were already becoming rare in the 1730s, and ceased after the 1750s. The last residences built were in Budapest (1738), Holešov (1748), Makkos Maria (1749), Štěnovice (1753) and Graz (1756).<fnref n="233" /> Corresponding to these shifts, Austrian Trinitarians tried to expand their "work field" to other Muslim-ruled countries, namely to the 'Barbary states' of Northern Africa, where a lot of Christians were still enslaved by pirates even in the late 18th century,<fnref n="234" /> particularly because considerable parts of Italy had fallen under the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs during the 18th century.<fnref n="235" />

Nevertheless, the dynamics of the activities of the Austrian Trinitarian province diminished from about the beginning of the reign of Maria Theresa, maybe to some extent because of the enormous challenges the Austrian state, economy and society had to face right from her uptake of power in 1740, which gave the Prussian King a pretext to attack the Habsburg monarchy, explicitly breaking the constitutional laws of the Holy Roman Empire, causing the two Silesian wars of 1740-42 and 1744-48.<fnref n="236" /> Similarly, the seven years' war of 1756-1763 surely did not contribute to a strong public interest in the fate of Austrian captives in the Muslim countries; the heavy military and economic troubles the elites and the population of the Habsburg monarchy had to face in these years were for the most part not related to religious conflict between Christians and Muslims at all.

Probably even more importantly, enlightened thought did its part in undermining the legitimacy of religious orders<fnref n="237" /> and especially of charitable almsgiving in late 18th century Austria,

<footnote n="232">²³² Cf. i.e. Günther Stökl, *Russische Geschichte. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart*, Stuttgart 1997, Boris Ischboldin, *Essays on Tatar History*, New Delhi 1973.</footnote>

<footnote n="233">²³³ Cf. Porres Alonso, Libertad a los cautivos, p. 616f.</footnote>

<footnote n="234">²³⁴ For this phenomenon cf. Robert Davies: *Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters. White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800*, New York 2004, Salvatore Bono, *Piraten und Korsaren im Mittelmeer. Seekrieg, Handel und Sklaverei vom 16. bis 19. Jahrhundert*, Stuttgart 2009, Salvatore Bono, *Corsari nel Mediterraneo. Cristiani e Musulmani fra guerra, schiavità e commercio*, Milano 1997; Salvatore Bono, *Les corsaires en Méditerranée, Rabat 1998, Salvatore Bono, I corsari barbareschi*, Torino 1964, Salvatore Bono, *Schiavi musulmani nell'Italia moderna. Galeotti, vu' cumprà, domestici*, Perugia 1999. Cf. also: Wolfgang Kaiser, *Frictions profitables. L'économie de la rançon en Méditerranée occidentale (XVIᵉ-XVIIIᵉ siècles)*, in: *Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed.), Ricchezza del mare. Ricchezza dal mare, sec. XIII-XVIII*, Florence 2006, p. 689-701, Wolfgang Kaiser, *Négocier la liberté. Missions françaises pour l'échange et le rachat de captifs au Maghreb (XVIIᵉ siècle)*, in: Claudia Moatti (ed.), *La Mobilité des personnes en Méditerranée, de l'Antiquité à l'Époque moderne. Procédures de contrôle et d'identification*, Rome 2004, p. 501-528.</footnote>

<footnote n="235">²³⁵ Cf. i.e. Adam Wandruska, *Österreich und Italien im 18. Jahrhundert*, Wien 1963.</footnote>

<footnote n="236">²³⁶ For the history of violent conflicts between states in Europe during the 18th century cf. i.e. Walter Demel, *Europäische Geschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts: ständische Gesellschaft und europäisches Mächtesystem im beschleunigten Wandel*, Stuttgart 2000.</footnote>

<footnote n="237">²³⁷ Cf. i.e. Jean Mondot (ed.), *Le Lumières et leur combat/Der Kampf der Aufklärung*, Berlin 2004.</footnote>
too, whilst a liberal laissez-faire policy was on the rise, that, at its worst, intended to ridicule the help for those unfortunates, who fell into captivity during travels, by declaring them being of questionable moral character, and even collaborators of the Turks.<fnref n="238" />

Because of this, but also due to the decline in the numbers of Christian captives in Muslim-ruled countries already mentioned, the numbers of people freed by the Austrian Trinitarians fell significantly during the course of 18th century, particularly after 1750: Whilst more than 3.000 captives were liberated by the Austrian Trinitarians during the first 20 redemption voyages during the 61-year period between 1690 and 1750, only about 850 were rescued by the 11 missions undertaken within the 34-year period from 1750 to 1783; computed as annual rates, this means an average of approximately 50 redeemed persons per year in the late 17th and the first half of the 18th century, but only about the half this number after 1750.<fnref n="239" />

## Searching and examining the *catalogi captivorum*

In the following section, we concentrate on quantitative aspects of the analysis of sources, which relate to the captives themselves who were liberated by the Austrian branch of the Trinitarian order, their sociological and demographic characteristics and some aspects of their captivity and liberation that can be reconstructed by the use of surviving documents for larger numbers of people.

An account of the actual conduct of the redemption voyages, as well as detailed analyses of the order's spiritual and intellectual self-definition, its organizational development, personal structure, financing patterns, political and social position within the Habsburg monarchy of 17th and 18th century etc., will be presented in the doctoral thesis of Elisabeth Pauli which is currently being completed,<fnref n="240" /> and will probably be in print in 2011/12. The fundamental structures regarding most of these aspects can be found in the older and, particularly, the recent research literature on the Austrian Trinitarians.

<footnote n="238">²³⁸ Cf. de Leeuw, *Die Trinitarier*, p. 26.</footnote>

<footnote n="239">²³⁹ Sources cited below.</footnote>

<footnote n="240">²⁴⁰ Elisabeth Pauli, *Die Befreiung christlicher Gefangener durch den Trinitarierorden im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert*. Graz (phil. Diss.), forthcoming.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>

From Annales – Momnument, Prague. In Joannes a San Felice, *Annalium Provinciae Sancti Josephi Ordinis Excalceatorum Sanctissimae Trinitatis Redemptionis Captivorum Libri Decem* [...], Vienna 1739, p. 562.

The following presentation focuses on selected main outcomes of contextualized quantitative analyses of contemporary serial sources on redeemed persons, the so called *catalogi captivorum*, lists
that were compiled by the Trinitarians themselves in order to document their work – for themselves, for their sponsors and for a general public potentially able to contribute to further redemption activities. These findings stem from the research on the Trinitarian order within the Habsburg monarchy, which the present authors have been conducting since the year 2006 within the framework of a research project on charitable monastic orders in early modern Central Europe, situated at the Center for Social Research at the University of Graz, and financed by the Austrian Science fund.

The aforementioned *catalogi captivorum* contain a specific composition of information on each redeemed captive, although sometimes some parameters are missing for some of the persons listed in those documents, and even the features mentioned vary slightly between them. For most cases, the existing lists<fnref n="241" /> contain the names of the liberated captives (and thus, an indication on their gender, too), their age, counted in years, their home countries, the duration of their captivity, and the amount of the ransom that was paid for them. For a large proportion of entries – more than half – the region where the individual was held captive (finally redeemed), is given, his or her professional or social status is indicated, and/or some remark on the institution or person that had given the money for this particular ransom, is made. Sometimes, the type of captivity is noted, too, but in that regard a clear bias can be perceived, because in nearly all of such cases, it was slavery on the galleys, which – as the most miserable and pitiful kind of captivity known in those days – seemed worth pointing out particularly.

Unfortunately it was, despite all efforts, not possible to find surviving copies of *catalogi redemptorum* for all redemptory missions undertaken by the Austrian Trinitarians during their presence in early modern Habsburg monarchy 1688-1783: Although it is sure that hand-written lists

<footnote n="241">²⁴¹ (Josephus a SS. Sacramento), *Relatio Austriacae Redemptionis captivorum. In Constantinopolitana Civitate peractae Anno Jubilei 1700 et Sanctissimo D. N. Clementi XI. P. O. M. Dicata*, Romae 1700, (Joannes a S. Francisco), *Catalogi Captivorum ex Turcia, & Tartaria Budziackensi Redemptorum*, Romae 1715, (Michael a S. Josepho), *Notitia Captivorum in Tartaria Redemptorum a Sac. Ordine Excalceatorum SS. Trinitatis Redemptionis Captivorum Congregationis Hispaniarum*, Romae 1720, (Andreas a Cruce), *Redemptiones Captivorum Constantinopoli, & Tripoli liberatorum per Familiam Redemptricem Discalceatroum SSme Trinitatis, Provinciarum Germaniae, & Status Veneti*, Romae 1730, (Georg a. S. Josepho), *Verzeichnis deren gefangenen Christen [...]*, Wien [1741], (Augustinus a SS. Trinitate), *Verzeichniß deren gefangenen Christen [...] Wien* [1750], (Antoninus a S. Ferdinando), *Catalogi Captivorum Christianorum [...]*, Wien [1751], (Antoninus a S. Ferdinando), *Catalogi Captivorum Christianorum [...]*, o.O. [1753], (Xaver a S. Joannes Nepomuk), *Catalogi Captivorum Christianorum [...]*, Wien [1756], (Joachimus a S. Anna), *Catalogi Captivorum Christianorum [...]*, Wien [1759], Giovanni Constanzo Caracciolo (Hg.), *Catalogo de Christiani schiavi riscattati [...]*, Roma 1764, (Daniel a Resurrectione Domini), *Verzeichniß der gefangenen Christen [...]*, Wien [1768], (Benedictus a S. Felice), *Verzeichniß der gefangenen Christen [...]*, Wien [1771], (Bernardinus a Beata Virgine), *Verzeichniß der gefangenen Christen [...]*, Wien [1773], (Bartholomeus a S. Nicolao), *Catalogi Captivorum Christianorum [...] Wien* [1776], (Anselmus a S. P. Joanne de Matha), *Verzeichniß der Gefangenen Christen [...]*, Wien [1780], (Engelbertus a Matre Dei), *Catalogi Christianorum tum redemptorum tum adjutorum [...]*, Wien [1783]. (The names set in brackets in the bibliography below refer to the *pater redemptor*, the Trinitarian responsible for the redemption travel. Year numbers set in brackets indicate the end of the redemption travel, but not to a printing date, which often is missing.)</footnote>
were compiled right from the beginning,<fnref n="242" /> the early lists of the period before 1699/1700 have not survived in any accessible way within an archive or as a print. Yet numbers of freed captives were quite small during the early stages of the orders' activities in the Habsburg Empire: 168 people were redeemed during the first five missions in the decade 1690-1699. Obviously the order first had to adapt to the conditions there and the new main 'target regions' of Eastern Europe. The conduction of the mission to the Tatar regions, to which the first redemptions were destined, caused specific, enormous problems.<fnref n="243" />

Whilst the large redemption of 1699/1700, when the Trinitarians freed over 440 Christians from the Ottoman Empire, is documented by a printed catalogue, information is again lacking for all three smaller redemptions that followed between 1701 and 1710. For the next decades, the redemptive missions of 1714/15, 1719/20, 1725-30 and 1740/41 are documented by printed catalogues, which survived in some archives; yet we could not come by any hand-written or printed lists covering the redemptions of the Austrian Trinitarians in 1724/25, 1733/34, 1737/38, 1743/44, 1744/45 and 1746/47. It seems very probable that after these enterprises printed lists were compiled, too, but there is not even any indication of such prints in contemporary publications by the order or in the research literature, and no trace of them in any of the archives we were able to consult until now.<fnref n="244" /> At least, for the period from the 20th redemption in 1747-50 onwards, a complete series of *catalogi redemptorum*, handed down in various archives, could be composed and analysed by the present authors. Thus, altogether we dispose of 17 out of (potentially) 31 *catalogi redemptorum* (55 %), which cover 2228 out of 3932 persons (57 %) liberated from captivity in Muslim-ruled countries by the Austrian branch of the Trinitarians between 1690 and 1783.<fnref n="245" />

An overview of all redemption voyages conducted by the Austrian branch of the Trinitarians between 1688 and 1783 is presented in table 1 below.<fnref n="246" />

<table><caption>Table 1: Redemptions by the Austrian branch of the Trinitarians 1690-1783 - overview</caption><thead><tr><td>Nr.</td><td>time-period</td><td>catalogue (year)</td><td>liberated persons</td><td>costs in florins</td><td>destinations of the redemption travels</td><td>patres redemptores</td></tr></thead></table>

<footnote n="242">²⁴² Cf. Joannes a San Felice, *Annalium Provinciae Sancti Josephi Ordinis Excalceatorum Sanctissimae Trinitatis Redemptionis Captivorum Libri Decem [...]*, Wien 1739, p. 101, 116-118, 145f., 214-216, 253.</footnote>

<footnote n="243">²⁴³ Cf. ibid., p. 124-148, and Pauli, *Befreiung aus tyrannischer Gefangenschaft*, p. 367.</footnote>

<footnote n="244">²⁴⁴ Therefore, if anyone could suggest to us, were we could find any of these documents, we would be very grateful. It still has to be kept in mind that maybe they did not survive at all.</footnote>

<footnote n="245">²⁴⁵ Two further catalogues, hand-written and referring to a small number of freed, should exist within a Spanish and an Austrian library according to some earlier researchers, but were not found by us yet because of apparently wrong or out-dated signatures given in the texts that refer to their existence.</footnote>

<footnote n="246">²⁴⁶ The table comprises information from the following sources: Joannes a S. Felice, *Annales*, p. 101, 116-118, 145f., 214-216, 253, 264, 294, 337, 412, 475, 558-561, 718f., 771, Porres Alonso, *Libertad*, p. 616f., Antonius ab Assumptione, *Arbor Chronologica*, p. 135f., and the catalogues cited above.</footnote>
Pauli, E. and Watzka, C., « Christian captives redeemed by the Austrian Trinitarians from the Ottoman Empire, the Tataric regions and the "Barbary" states », dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 81-105.

<table><tr><td>1.</td><td>1690-91</td><td>n.a.</td><td>16</td><td>1723</td><td>Bud.</td><td>Maurus a Conceptione</td></tr><tr><td>2.</td><td>1691-92</td><td>n.a.</td><td>23</td><td>2076</td><td>Bel. u.a.</td><td>Joannes a S. Augustino</td></tr><tr><td>3.</td><td>1692-93</td><td>n.a.</td><td>34</td><td>5968</td><td>Crim.</td><td>Maurus a Conceptione</td></tr><tr><td>4.</td><td>1695-96</td><td>n.a.</td><td>45</td><td>9667</td><td>Bel.</td><td>Joannes a S. Augustino</td></tr><tr><td>5.</td><td>1698-99</td><td>n.a.</td><td>50</td><td>9480</td><td>Bud.</td><td>Joannes a S. Augustino</td></tr><tr><td>6.</td><td>1699-00</td><td>CC 1700</td><td>442</td><td>22.985</td><td>Bel., Rus., Adr., Const.</td><td>Josephus a SS. Sacram.</td></tr><tr><td>7.</td><td>1702-03</td><td>n.a.</td><td>85</td><td>19.552</td><td>Const., Bud.</td><td>Josephus a SS. Sacram.</td></tr><tr><td>8.</td><td>1706-07</td><td>n.a.</td><td>105</td><td>20.694</td><td>Const., Crim.</td><td>Joannes a S. Felice</td></tr><tr><td>9.</td><td>1709-10</td><td>n.a.</td><td>124</td><td>27.856</td><td>Const.</td><td>Joannes a S. Felice</td></tr><tr><td>10.</td><td>1714-15</td><td>CC 1715</td><td>123</td><td>26.273</td><td>Const., Bud.</td><td>Josephus a Jesu Maria</td></tr><tr><td>11.</td><td>1719-20</td><td>CC 1720</td><td>555</td><td>73.394</td><td>Bel., Const., Bud.</td><td>Josephus a Jesu Maria</td></tr><tr><td>12.</td><td>1724-25</td><td>n.a.</td><td>228</td><td>57.408</td><td>Const., Bud., Crim.</td><td>Joannes a S. Felice</td></tr><tr><td>13.</td><td>1725-30</td><td>CC 1730</td><td>231</td><td>56.537</td><td>Const., Adr., Bud.</td><td>Michael a Assumptione</td></tr><tr><td>14.</td><td>1733-34</td><td>n.a.</td><td>211</td><td>48.770</td><td>Salon, Const., Tun. u.a.</td><td>Andreas a S. Gertrudis</td></tr><tr><td>15.</td><td>1737-38</td><td>n.a.</td><td>77</td><td>18.364</td><td>Const.</td><td>Georgius a S. Josespho</td></tr><tr><td>16.</td><td>1740-41</td><td>CC 1741</td><td>330</td><td>60.802</td><td>Salon., Const., u.a.</td><td>Georgius a S. Josespho</td></tr><tr><td>17.</td><td>1743-44</td><td>n.a.</td><td>106</td><td>14.891</td><td>unknown</td><td>Ambrosius a S. Ignatio</td></tr><tr><td>18.</td><td>1744-45</td><td>n.a.</td><td>99</td><td>33.628</td><td>unknown</td><td>Antonius a S. Fernando</td></tr><tr><td>19.</td><td>1746-47</td><td>n.a.</td><td>81</td><td>31.989</td><td>unknown</td><td>Antonius a S. Fernando</td></tr><tr><td>20.</td><td>1747-50</td><td>CR 1750</td><td>109</td><td>24.354</td><td>Rus., Salon., Const., Alg. u.a.</td><td>Augustinus a SS. Trinitate</td></tr><tr><td>21.</td><td>1750-51</td><td>CR 1751</td><td>47</td><td>16.425</td><td>Rus., Const., Tri. u.a.</td><td>Antonius a S. Fernando</td></tr><tr><td>22.</td><td>1751-53</td><td>CR 1753</td><td>77</td><td>46.585</td><td>Rus., Const., Alg., Tri. u.a.</td><td>Antonius a S. Fernando</td></tr><tr><td>23.</td><td>1753-56</td><td>CR 1756</td><td>83</td><td>33.481</td><td>Rus., Salon., Const., Alg. u.a.</td><td>Xaverius a S. Joannes N.</td></tr><tr><td>24.</td><td>1756-59</td><td>CR 1759</td><td>51</td><td>46.005</td><td>Salon., Const., Alg., Tri., u.a.</td><td>Joachimus a S. Anna</td></tr><tr><td>25.</td><td>1760-63</td><td>CR 1763</td><td>67</td><td>45.263</td><td>Const., Alg., Tun., Salé u.a.</td><td>Bernardinus a Virgine</td></tr><tr><td>26.</td><td>1765-68</td><td>CR 1768</td><td>77</td><td>44.447</td><td>Const., Alg., Salé u.a.</td><td>Daniel a Resurrectione</td></tr><tr><td>27.</td><td>1768-71</td><td>CR 1771</td><td>54</td><td>23.022</td><td>Const., Alg., Tri., Salé u.a.</td><td>Benedictus a S. Felix</td></tr><tr><td>28.</td><td>1771-73</td><td>CR 1773</td><td>121</td><td>102.652</td><td>Const., Alg., Masc., Tri. u.a.</td><td>Bernardinus a Virgine</td></tr><tr><td>29.</td><td>1773-76</td><td>CR 1776</td><td>63</td><td>36.562</td><td>Const., Alg. u.a.</td><td>Bartholomeus a S. Nicolao</td></tr><tr><td>30.</td><td>1777-80</td><td>CR 1780</td><td>83</td><td>46.679</td><td>Const., Alg., Masc. u.a.</td><td>Anselmus a S. J. de M.</td></tr><tr><td>31.</td><td>1780-83</td><td>CR 1783</td><td>135</td><td>56.001</td><td>Const., Alg., Tri. u.a.</td><td>Engelbertus a Matre Dei</td></tr><tr><td>Σ</td><td></td><td></td><td>3932</td><td>1,06 Mio.</td><td></td><td></td></tr></table>

Annotations pertaining to table 1:

The column "catalogue" shows whether a list of redeemed persons (*catalogi captivorum* = CC) was available to us, and gives the year of publication; "n.a." means "not available". The following basic information – as the sum of freed captives,
costs, destinations and member of the order in charge for the particular operation – is known for (nearly) all redemptions.
Yet the *numbers of freed persons* slightly differ in some cases between the sources, as the *Annales Provinciae*, the *Catalogi captivorum* and the *Arbor Chronologica*. In those cases, the numbers given in the *Annales Provinciae* or the *Catalogi captivorum* are displayed in the table.

For one redemption (Nr. 10 of 1715) the surviving catalogue lists considerably more people (123) than the *Annales* (111),
obviously due to some addition of liberated people omitted in earlier calculations. And the numbers for *one* redemption,
Nr. 6 of 1700 differ largely between the *Annales Provinciae*, which count 442 redeemed, and the *Arbor Chronologica*, that
states a sum of 520, probably by erroneously taking into account a number of people freed by the Austrian "Grand
Ambassador" during his travel to Constantinople, on which the Trinitarians had accompanied him – cf. Joannes a S. Felice,
*Annales*, p. 278-287. For the redemption of 1720 (Nr. 11) it has to be added that the surviving catalogue is only a partial
one, listing 124 out of 555 liberated men, women and children – Cf. ibid., p. 718.

The *total cost of the redemptions* – the amount of ransom paid at each redemption, partially including the travel expenses as well – are given here, yet rounded to entire florins, according to the data in Porres Alonso, *Libertad*, p. 616f., who relies on a summary file from the archive of the order's convent in Rome, San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane. Figures for costs given in the Catalogues and/or the *Annales Provinciae* differ from them quite often, too, but mostly only to a minor degree.
These differences probably result from various forms of contemporary calculations of total costs, particularly regarding the handling of travel expenses, which either could be calculated separately or included into the ransom figures by adding a proportional value for each liberated person, the latter case probably being the more usual one. The *destinations of the redemption voyages* are presented in the table only in a selective manner (comprising those regions and cities mentioned at the title page of the catalogues). The abbreviations indicate: Adr. = Adrianople, Alg. = Algiers, Bel. = Belgrade, Bud. = Budzak region, Const. = Constantinople, Crim. = region of the Crimea, Masc. = Mascara, Rus. = Ruszik, Salon. = Saloniki, Tri. = Tripolis, Tun. = Tunis

Because redemption catalogues up to 1699 are missing, we refer only to those from 1699/1700
to 1783 in the following presentation.<fnref n="247" /> For a more detailed analysis, we also divided this time-span
into two parts, a first period from 1700 to 1741, and a second one from 1742 to 1783, each covering
42 years. Significant differences between those two periods can be observed even for such
fundamental aspects as the gender relation of the ex-captives: Whilst for the whole 18th century a
relation of about 82 % males and 18 % females can be observed for altogether 2222 persons (for 6
children, no indication of sex was given in the catalogues), this ratio is 72 % to 28 % for the period
1700-1741 but 94 % to 6 % for 1747-1783.

It is remarkable that even in the first decades of the 18th century men were clearly dominant
among the liberated captives; this was obviously due to the large number of military personnel that
fell into the hand of the enemy during warfare. From the 1740s onwards, the proportion of women
among the freed sank even more, because the main risk for Central European Christians of falling
into Muslim captivity was no longer violent fighting on land, but pirate assault during sea travel in

<footnote n="247">²⁴⁷ As the sources for this analysis are collectedly cited above, no further bibliographical indications for the *catalogi captivorum* and complementary sources are given below.</footnote>
the Mediterranean. Just because of the high risks accompanying every trip by ship during early modern time, 'normal' people not working as sailors, tradesmen, soldiers or in similar professions avoided it as much as possible, and often women were even formally excluded from ship transport.

These factors mentioned obviously also influenced the age structure of the liberated captives in general, showing a propensity for persons of ages with potentially high value for labour and/or warfare (between 20 and 40). Still, the medium value for age among the freed was quite high at 35,4 years for the whole period 1700 to 1783, 34,5 for the period up to 1741 and 36,4 afterwards. This is partly due to the comparatively small numbers of children involved (particularly during the second half of the 18th century), but also a consequence of a surprisingly high proportion of elderly people among the freed slaves: 38 % of all documented cases of redemptions relate to persons aged 40 and older, although those aged 60 years or more, were a minority of only about 6 %. They were cheaper and their owners often wanted to get rid of them if they were not able to work anymore.

But in the early period of 1700-1741, the proportion of children under 10, 12 %, was also quite high. A lot of them obviously were robbed as babies or very small children and did not bear a family name in the catalogue, a hint that they were separated from their parents either during their violent deportation itself, or afterwards during captivity at an age when they were too young to keep a trace of their original family affiliation in mind. The proportion of such young persons among the liberated sank within the second half of the 18th century, to an average of only 4% of all redeemed.

A further basic parameter regularly given in the catalogues is that of the home country. One might expect the samples of people ransomed by the Austrian Trinitarians to consist of Austrians or persons originating in the Habsburg Empire, but this is true only to a certain degree: Whilst – concerning the whole period 1700-1783 – two-thirds of the persons listed in the Austrian *catalogi captivorum* indeed originated from some part of the Central European Austrian Empire, this was not the case for one third (see table 2 below).

<table><caption>Table 2: Regional origin of the captives liberated by the Austrian Trinitarians 1700-1783</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Region</th><th colspan="2">1700-41</th><th colspan="2">1742-83</th><th colspan="2">1700-83</th></tr><tr><th>N</th><th>%</th><th>N</th><th>%</th><th>N</th><th>%</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><em>Hungarian crown lands</em></td><td>329</td><td>27,6</td><td>149</td><td>15,7</td><td>478</td><td>22,3</td></tr><tr><td>Kingdom of Hungary <sup>A</sup></td><td>226</td><td>19,0</td><td>84</td><td>8,9</td><td>310</td><td>14,5</td></tr></tbody></table>
Pauli, E. and Watzka, C., « Christian captives redeemed by the Austrian Trinitarians from the Ottoman Empire, the Tataric regions and the "Barbary" states », dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 81-105.

<table><tr><td>Kingdoms Croatia and Slavonia<sup>B</sup></td><td>29</td><td>2,4</td><td>41</td><td>4,3</td><td>70</td><td>3,3</td></tr><tr><td>Grand principality Transylvania<sup>C</sup></td><td>74</td><td>6,2</td><td>24</td><td>2,5</td><td>98</td><td>4,6</td></tr><tr><td>The Banat<sup>D</sup></td><td>59</td><td>5,0</td><td>22</td><td>2,3</td><td>81</td><td>3,8</td></tr><tr><td>Austrian hereditary states</td><td>250</td><td>21,0</td><td>199</td><td>21,0</td><td>449</td><td>21,0</td></tr><tr><td>Archdukedom Austria<sup>E</sup></td><td>189</td><td>15,9</td><td>30</td><td>3,2</td><td>219</td><td>10,2</td></tr><tr><td>Inner Austria<sup>F</sup></td><td>31</td><td>2,6</td><td>21</td><td>2,2</td><td>52</td><td>2,4</td></tr><tr><td>Austrian Coast Land<sup>G</sup></td><td>5</td><td>0,4</td><td>82</td><td>8,6</td><td>87</td><td>4,1</td></tr><tr><td>Prince-county of Tyrol<sup>H</sup></td><td>11</td><td>0,9</td><td>47</td><td>5,0</td><td>58</td><td>2,7</td></tr><tr><td>Austrian Fore Lands<sup>I</sup></td><td>14</td><td>1,2</td><td>19</td><td>2,0</td><td>33</td><td>1,5</td></tr><tr><td>Bohemian crown lands</td><td>147</td><td>12,4</td><td>72</td><td>7,6</td><td>219</td><td>10,2</td></tr><tr><td>Kingdom of Bohemia<sup>J</sup></td><td>67</td><td>5,6</td><td>39</td><td>4,1</td><td>106</td><td>5,0</td></tr><tr><td>March-county Moravia<sup>J</sup></td><td>34</td><td>2,9</td><td>16</td><td>1,7</td><td>50</td><td>2,3</td></tr><tr><td>Duchy of Silesia<sup>K</sup></td><td>46</td><td>3,9</td><td>17</td><td>1,8</td><td>63</td><td>2,9</td></tr><tr><td>Austrian Italian possessions</td><td>54</td><td>4,5</td><td>152</td><td>16,0</td><td>206</td><td>9,6</td></tr><tr><td>Dukedom Milan<sup>L</sup></td><td>14</td><td>1,2</td><td>83</td><td>8,7</td><td>97</td><td>4,5</td></tr><tr><td>Dukedom Mantova<sup>L</sup></td><td>5</td><td>0,4</td><td>21</td><td>2,2</td><td>26</td><td>1,2</td></tr><tr><td>Grand-Duchy of Tuscany<sup>L</sup></td><td>2</td><td>0,2</td><td>48</td><td>5,1</td><td>50</td><td>2,3</td></tr><tr><td>Kingdoms Naples, Sicily & Sardinia<sup>M</sup></td><td>33</td><td>2,8</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>33</td><td>1,6</td></tr><tr><td>Austrian Netherlands<sup>N</sup></td><td>8</td><td>0,7</td><td>15</td><td>1,6</td><td>23</td><td>1,1</td></tr><tr><td>Habsburg Monarchy together</td><td>847</td><td>71,2</td><td>609</td><td>64,2</td><td>1456</td><td>68,1</td></tr><tr><td>German non-Habsburg countries<sup>O</sup></td><td>177</td><td>14,9</td><td>194</td><td>20,4</td><td>371</td><td>17,3</td></tr><tr><td>Italian non-Habsburg countries<sup>P</sup></td><td>17</td><td>1,4</td><td>79</td><td>8,3</td><td>96</td><td>4,5</td></tr><tr><td>Spain and Portugal<sup>Q</sup></td><td>16</td><td>1,3</td><td>30</td><td>3,2</td><td>46</td><td>2,2</td></tr><tr><td>Poland-Lithuania<sup>R</sup></td><td>43</td><td>3,6</td><td>6</td><td>0,6</td><td>49</td><td>2,3</td></tr><tr><td>Russia<sup>S</sup></td><td>22</td><td>1,8</td><td>2</td><td>0,2</td><td>24</td><td>1,1</td></tr><tr><td>Denmark and Sweden<sup>T</sup></td><td>9</td><td>0,8</td><td>1</td><td>0,1</td><td>10</td><td>0,5</td></tr><tr><td>Ottoman Empire<sup>U</sup></td><td>30</td><td>2,5</td><td>20</td><td>2,1</td><td>50</td><td>2,3</td></tr><tr><td>Tartary<sup>V</sup></td><td>18</td><td>1,5</td><td>0</td><td>0,0</td><td>18</td><td>0,8</td></tr><tr><td>Others<sup>W</sup></td><td>1</td><td>0,1</td><td>3</td><td>0,3</td><td>4</td><td>0,2</td></tr><tr><td>Total (valid cases)<sup>X</sup></td><td>1190</td><td>100</td><td>949</td><td>100</td><td>2139</td><td>100</td></tr></table>

Annotations pertaining to table 2:

A: As an entity again under Habsburg rule after 1699; consisting, apart from the area of modern-day Hungary and other regions, also of Upper-Hungary, today Slovakia.

B: Partly under Ottoman control until 1699; today parts of Croatia.

C: Under Austrian rule since 1699, today part of Romania.

D: Temesvar Banat, Austrian since 1718, today Vojvodina and South-Eastern Romania.

E: Consisting of Lower and Upper Austria.
Pauli, E. and Watzka, C., « Christian captives redeemed by the Austrian Trinitarians from the Ottoman Empire, the Tataric regions and the "Barbary" states », dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 81-105.

F: Consisting of the dukedoms of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, and the coast land. The latter is displayed separately here for thematic reasons.

G: The 'litorale', consisting primarily of the city of Trieste, the County of Görz/Gorizia with Gradisca and the Austrian March-county of Istria, all mainly Italian-speaking regions, an integral part of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire. Moreover the city of Fiume, under Hungarian rule, is included here, too.

H: Including the bishopric of Trento, thus also the Italian-speaking population.

I: Consisting of the 'Major-Offices' (*Oberämter*) Bregenz, Breisgau, Offenburg, Rottenburg, Günzburg, Stockach, Altdorf, Tettnang and the city of Konstanz, all situated within South-Western Germany.

J: together today's Czech Republic.

K: The main part annexed to Prussia after 1742, only the Southern region around Troppau remaining Austrian.

L: Under Austrian rule since 1714 resp. 1708 and 1737. For the purpose of this statistics, all persons from these Northern Italian regions were counted as Habsburg subjects, even if taken captive and/or freed (the latter applying only to 2 individuals) before their homeland became a part of the Austrian monarchy, for the purpose of comparison.

M: Austrian from 1714 resp. 1720 only until 1720 resp. 1735. For the purpose of this statistics, all persons from these Southern Italian regions freed from 1742 onwards were not counted as Habsburg subjects, even if taken captive at a time, when their home countries yet belonged to the Austrian monarchy.

N: Large parts of today's Belgium, Austrian since 1714

O: The territories belonging to the Holy Roman Empire, but not under Habsburg rule; moreover Switzerland, Prussia and Kurland as at that time German-dominated states outside the old Reich were although included in this category.

P: Territories on the Italian Peninsula including the islands Sardinia and Sicily after the Habsburg rule, Corsica, the Venetian territories at the Dalmatian coast and the Republic of Ragusa, today Dubrovnik.

Q: Most Spanish, two liberated Portuguese (after 1741)

R: The Polish people ransomed were not counted as Austrian subjects here in general, although the southern parts of the reign became Austrian in 1772.

S: Including all White-Russian and Ukrainian places classified as "Russian" within the catalogues.

T: Nearly all Danish, one liberated Swede (after 1741)

U: Including the vassal states of Walachia and Moldavia.

V: Primarily children born there.

W: Each one person from the Netherlands, from Georgia, Persia and America.

X: Note that for 89 out of 2228 persons (4 %) documented in the catalogues available, no information on their home-country was given. The percentages in the table refer to the sum of cases valid for analysis.

The most numerous subgroup of freed captives is formed by 478 persons (22 %) stemming from the kingdom of Hungary, closely followed by 449 people (21 %) from the Austrian hereditary states. 219 ex-captives were from the lands of the Bohemian crown (10 %), and 206 persons (nearly 10 %) from Italian regions under Austrian possession during the 18th century. Further 81 persons redeemed (4 %) originated from the Temesvar Banat – under direct rule of the Austrian *Hofkriegsrat* (Court war council) from the peace treaty of Passarowitz in 1718 until 1779, when it was integrated into Hungary– and 23 persons (1 %) from the Austrian Netherlands.

If one looks at the regional distribution at the level of single provinces, and the temporal development, too, it becomes very clear, that this composition of the home-countries of the freed
captives reflects the geographical focuses of Christian-Muslim-warfare, and its shifts during the 18th century, too: Whilst the inhabitants of Hungary, Transylvania and the eastern hereditary lands form the major groups of liberated persons until ca. 1740, thus representing the regions directly affected by the Turkish and Tartaric incursions, followed by persons from the populated Bohemian lands, the picture changes clearly during the second half of the 18th century, when people from the small Austrian coast land formed the largest subgroup within the Austrian hereditary states, being nearly as many captives as those from the vast Hungarian heartland. It corresponds to the fact that the proportion of people from Habsburg Italy among the redeemed rose strongly, as they – by their traditionally strong involvement into naval trade – were now at much higher risk of being enslaved than the ordinary people living within Central Europe.

Similar shifts can be observed when looking at those ex-captives who did not originate from some part of the Habsburg Empire of the time: As already stated, more than 30 % of all persons registered in the Austrian *catalogi captivorum* were not from territories ruled (directly) by the Habsburgs. The largest proportion of them – 371 cases (17 % of all) is formed by people from German countries, for which the Austrian Trinitarians felt particularly responsible, too. Of course, the common belonging to the legal commonwealth of the Holy Roman Empire, which involved a special responsibility on the part of the Emperors for all of its inhabitants, played an important role here. The second largest group of freed subjects from territories not under direct Habsburg rule, 96 persons (about 5 %), were Italians, stemming particularly from Venice, Geneva and the Papacy. People from this category, like the “Austrian Italians” mentioned above, were mainly freed by the Austrian Trinitarians during the period after 1741.

But the Austrian Trinitarians also freed a considerable number of persons from other, more distant regions. Most Western Europeans freed by the Austrian Trinitarians were Spaniards (44 documented cases for the whole period, 2 %), which points to the traditional political relations between both reigns as well as at the bonds of the Austrian Trinitarians with the Iberian Peninsula, where the order's reformed, discalced congregation was founded at the end of the 16th century.<fnref n="248" /> The Austrian *patres redemptores* also engaged in liberating people from outside Habsburg-ruled Central and Eastern European countries, which – apart from Poland – lacked their 'own' settlements of the Trinitarian order to perform this task. Still, most Eastern Europeans ransomed by them were characterized as being from “Poland” (49 persons or 2 %), but one has to bear in mind that this notion can indicate the very vast region of the whole Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. Moreover, there was a very close cooperation between the Austrian and the Polish branch of the Trinitarians, particularly

<footnote n="248">²⁴⁸ Cf. d'Errico, *The Trinitarians*, p. 159-174, also: Juan Pujana, *Hl. Johannes Baptist von der Empfängnis. Reformator des Ordens der Allerheiligsten Dreifaltigkeit*, Rom 1975.</footnote>
during the late 17th and early 18th century.<fnref n="249" /> Indeed, most freeing of Polish people by the Austrian order's organization fell into this early stage of its activity in Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Interestingly, the number of “Russians” freed by them was, with more than 20 persons, considerable, too, and even some – very probably Protestant – Scandinavians over the years were rescued by this kind of Catholic charity. At first it may be surprising that for another not too small number of freed Christians “home-countries” within the Ottoman Empire or the “Tartar” were stated within the catalogues (the relevant regions mentioned were: Bosnia, Bulgaria, Constantinople, Greece, Moldavia, Serbia, Turkey, Walachia): In nearly all of this cases, this relates to children of foreigners born there in captivity. Finally, we find exceptional single cases like a Catholic clergyman formerly living in Hungary, but born in Persia, a 14-year old Georgian boy, and a former galley-slave with an Italian name, said to be originating from “America”, who were all helped to freedom by the Austrian Trinitarians too.

All in all, the information on the fatherlands of the freed people show that the Austrian Trinitarians of 18th century were far from performing a “national” task only in their charitable work of redemption, but – according to the postulates of Catholicism – acted with respect to the international community of Christianity. This is also manifest in the fact that the Trinitarians did not at all confine themselves to ransoming members of the Catholic Church, but exerted their activities also for the redemption of Protestant and Orthodox Christians. Indeed, they placed a special emphasis on the liberation of “heretics”, of course linked with the aim of converting them to the “true Christian belief”, to Catholicism.<fnref n="250" />

As already mentioned, the *catalogi captivorum* also allow us to classify the redeemed persons concerning their professions and social status. Yet relevant data is available only for 917 out of 2228 cases, as the pertinent indications are often missing, and particularly women are nearly never classified in this regard. Thus, for only 21 out of 410 women are any indications given here apart from the eventual status as "wives" (19 of those cases pertain to "settlers" at the Austrian-Ottoman border region), but regarding the men redeemed, for 896 out of 1812 some remark on professional or social status was made. Taking only the male persons into further account, for which a more detailed statistical analysis makes sense in this case, one finds the military personnel dominating clearly in both periods, the soldiers and officers together summing up to 689 (77 % of 896 known cases, see

<footnote n="249">²⁴⁹ Cf. Joannes a S. Felice, *Annales*, Pauli, *Befreiung*, p. 366.</footnote>

<footnote n="250">²⁵⁰ The confession – most of the captives were of course of catholic faith – usually is not mentioned for single captives within the catalogues, but the topic is displayed in lengthier publications, such as: Joannes a San Felice, *Triumphus Misericordiae, id est Sacrum Ordinis SSS. Trinitatis Institutum Redemptio Captivorum, cum Adjuncto Kalendario Ecclesiastico Historico Universi Ordinis*, Wien 1704, p. 158.</footnote>
table 3).

<table><caption>Table 3: Status and profession indications for the captives liberated by the Austrian Trinitarians 1700-1783 – men according to phase of redemption</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">status indication</th><th colspan="2">1700-1741</th><th colspan="2">1747-1783</th><th colspan="2">1700-1783</th></tr><tr><th>N</th><th>%</th><th>N</th><th>%</th><th>N</th><th>%</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>without indication</td><td>413</td><td>34,6</td><td>503</td><td>55,5</td><td>916</td><td>50,6</td></tr><tr><td>with specific indication</td><td>493</td><td>65,4</td><td>403</td><td>44,5</td><td>896</td><td>49,4</td></tr><tr><td>total (valid cases)</td><td>906</td><td>100</td><td>906</td><td>100</td><td>1812</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td>among them:</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>nobility</td><td>2</td><td>0,4</td><td>2</td><td>0,5</td><td>4</td><td>0,4</td></tr><tr><td>clergymen</td><td>2</td><td>0,4</td><td>10</td><td>2,5</td><td>12</td><td>1,3</td></tr><tr><td>officers in military</td><td>20</td><td>4,1</td><td>12</td><td>3,0</td><td>32</td><td>3,1</td></tr><tr><td>soldiers</td><td>457</td><td>92,7</td><td>200</td><td>49,6</td><td>657</td><td>73,3</td></tr><tr><td>naval captains</td><td>0</td><td>--</td><td>17</td><td>4,2</td><td>17</td><td>1,9</td></tr><tr><td>seamen (mil. or civic)</td><td>1</td><td>0,2</td><td>93</td><td>23,1</td><td>94</td><td>10,5</td></tr><tr><td>tradesmen</td><td>1</td><td>0,2</td><td>23</td><td>5,7</td><td>24</td><td>2,7</td></tr><tr><td>servants, employees</td><td>5</td><td>1,0</td><td>6</td><td>1,5</td><td>11</td><td>1,2</td></tr><tr><td>handicraftsmen</td><td>5</td><td>1,0</td><td>33</td><td>8,2</td><td>38</td><td>4,2</td></tr><tr><td>border settlers</td><td>0</td><td>--</td><td>7</td><td>1,7</td><td>7</td><td>0,8</td></tr></tbody></table>

The second largest group is made up of the seamen and captains, together 111 persons or 12 %. Compared to that, only small numbers of identified professions relate to “civil” activities, like handicraftsmen, tradesmen and servants. Still, it has to be said that an indication of profession is lacking in more than the half of all cases (1311 of 2228 altogether), and it seems quite obvious that the person’s belonging to some military unit was seen as more important and thus was more frequently noted than membership of a civil profession. In particular, very simple occupations were not listed in the catalogues at all (if not exercising military or navy professions). Therefore, all that can be said for certain is that at least 31 % of all male persons (those with and those without status indication) in the lists stemmed from the military, and at least 6 % from the navy. In any case military and navy staff formed a huge proportion of all persons freed – nearly 40 % – the rest being civilians of various professions.

Another aspect of interest is the duration of captivity. In this case, data is available for 1985 out of 2228 cases (89 %). Because of its nature as a metric variable (at least principally), arithmetic
averages can be computed in this case. The rounded results are 10 years and 3 months as mean duration of captivity for the whole period of 1700-1783, and 12 years 6 months and 7 years 5 months for the two part-periods respectively. Therefore, within the second half of the 18th century, people were liberated much earlier on average.

As the catalogues provide data for the area where these persons were ransomed, too – at least for a considerable number, 1391 out of the 2228 cases (62 %) documented at all –, we are also informed about the probable place of their captivity, although it can not, of course, be assumed, that in any case these people were held captive at the same place for all the time they stayed after arriving at their 'destination' – and particularly not for those who remained slaves for decades. A classification, which refers to the political entities of the Ottoman Empire, its vassal states Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, the Sultanate of Morocco (with Salé) and Tatary, shows that the Ottoman Empire was, as could be expected, by far the most important area (see table 4):

<table><caption>Table 4: Persons liberated by the Austrian Trinitarians according to region and phase</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Region</th><th colspan="2">1700-1741</th><th colspan="2">1747-1783</th><th colspan="2">1700-1783</th></tr><tr><th>N</th><th>%</th><th>N</th><th>%</th><th>N</th><th>%</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Ottoman Empire</td><td>364</td><td>61,7</td><td>411</td><td>51,3</td><td>775</td><td>55,7</td></tr><tr><td>Tatary</td><td>222</td><td>37,6</td><td>9</td><td>1,1</td><td>231</td><td>16,6</td></tr><tr><td>Algiers and Maschera</td><td>4</td><td>0,7</td><td>323</td><td>40,3</td><td>327</td><td>23,5</td></tr><tr><td>Tunis and Tripolis</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>42</td><td>5,2</td><td>42</td><td>3,0</td></tr><tr><td>Morocco and Salé</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>16</td><td>2,0</td><td>16</td><td>1,2</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>590</td><td>100</td><td>801</td><td>100</td><td>1391</td><td>100</td></tr></tbody></table>

775 captives, that is 56 % of all accountable cases, were liberated somewhere within the Ottoman Empire; the second important 'market' for ransoming Christians from Central and – as we saw earlier – Southern Europe obviously was Algiers. From the city of Algiers or, in a minority of cases, from the town of Mascara, 327 people were redeemed (24 % of the known cases). This area is followed in importance by the Tatar region, from which 231 men and women were saved by the Austrian Trinitarians (17 %). Only small numbers of captives were freed in the other mentioned states, summing up to 58 persons (4 %). From those redeemed in the Ottoman Empire, nearly 6 tenths were bought (or exchanged) in the capital Constantinople (456 persons), whilst the remainder divides quite equally over three areas: the cities of Salonika and Smyrna (120 persons together), the rest of South East-Europe (94), and Minor Asia (105). Therefore, the urban 'hotspots' of the slave trade within the Ottoman Empire become quite visible here.
Another very interesting result can be observed, again, if we differentiate between the earlier and the later parts of the 18th century. While the figures for the Ottoman Empire itself remain quite stable, diminishing to some degree from the first to the second period (from a proportion of 62 % to one of 51 %), the change is striking for the Tatar and Barbary regions: Northern Africa played virtually no role as a destination for the Austrian Trinitarians up to 1741, whilst the Tatar region was a very important destination, and 38 % of the documented freed persons in the period 1700-1741 were liberated there. The picture is completely reversed during the period from the 1740s onwards: Now, the numbers of redeemed from Tatary tend towards zero, but there are hundreds of cases of redemption in Northern Africa, mostly in Algiers, accounting for nearly half of all persons ransomed during these later stages.

Of course, all the variables discussed here, derived from the catalogues of redeemed, can be analyzed not only separately, but also regarding the combinations that can be found between them. Here we confine ourselves to the aspect of ransoms paid for the captives. First of all one can compute the average ransom paid for one individual across all redemptions using the specific data on this issue, which is 397 fl.<fnref n="251" /> Since a minor part of the expenses obviously did not constitute full ransom prices – which one can deduce from the expression "helped with ... [amount of money]" instead of "redeemed with ... [amount of money]", it is more significant to separate these two categories, which leads to the result of an average ransom of 498 fl., whilst the subsidies for those who obviously already had saved some money on their own during captivity to buy themselves free was 111 fl. in average.

Still, impressive differences appear, if one compares different socio-demographic categories of redeemed captives, too. Taking only the cases in which the full amount of ransom was noted by the Trinitarians, it can be seen, for example, that there was a significant gender bias, with women 'costing' on average 244 fl., and thus being much 'cheaper' than men, for whom a mean price of 539 fl. had to be paid. Prices also varied a lot according to the age of the ransomed at the time, as can be seen in the table below:

<caption>Table 5: Average prices paid by the Austrian Trinitarians according to age of captives (1700-1783, only full ransoms included)</caption>

<footnote n="251">²⁵¹ To make the display of average 'prices' more readable, the calculated numbers are rounded up or down to full florins, omitting fractions or values to be given in *Kreuzer*. To give an understanding of the values of money presented here, some comparison may be useful: A qualified handicraftsman earned about a third of an Austrian florin per working day during the first half of the 18th century. Therefore, he may have got an annual wage (in money and/or goods) about 50 to 100 fl. per year. Until the 1780s, prizes and wages rose somewhat, but not to a large extent.</footnote>
<table><thead><tr><th>Age class</th><th>N</th><th>mean price</th><th>Age class</th><th>N</th><th>mean price</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>up to 9</td><td>127</td><td>214 fl.</td><td>50 to 59</td><td>139</td><td>479 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>10 to 19</td><td>55</td><td>315 fl.</td><td>60 to 69</td><td>499</td><td>304 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>20 to 29</td><td>223</td><td>543 fl.</td><td>70 to 79</td><td>15</td><td>297 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>30 to 39</td><td>269</td><td>564 fl.</td><td>80 and more</td><td>4</td><td>366 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>40 to 49</td><td>258</td><td>494 fl.</td><td>total</td><td>1139</td><td>467 fl.</td></tr></tbody></table>

Men and, less frequently, women, 'in their prime' – namely adults between about 20 and 40 years – obviously were rated most valuable on average, be it in regard to their workforce value or to other personal features related to age, such as attractiveness, whilst older captives as well as children and teenagers were – again, of course, in mean – considered less valuable. The very low figures for children under 10 are particularly noteworthy.

Moreover it can, of course, be shown, that the social status of the slaves played a major role in determining their 'prices'. Yet the social rank was not the only element of price-calculation, but also the practical and economic value the Muslim owners could derive from the workforce of their captives, which obviously contributed a lot as well. Only by this assumption can one explain why Christian ex-soldiers were, on average, 'for sale' much more cheaply than handicraftsmen. The particular need of skilled workers in Northern Africa is even reported in contemporary publications: Whilst a person characterized as handicraftsmen – and therefore probably also skilled as such – represented an average selling value of not less than 887 fl., an 'ordinary' soldier or seamen could be bought free with a mean ransom of ca. 420-430 fl., that is, less than half the money. Servants, employees and rural settlers were not very expensive either – the mean ransom for such persons was about 460 fl. Apparently because of their social status within Christian societies, higher prices had to be paid for redeeming clergymen, the mean ransom for priests and monks being 578 fl., which clearly did not reach up to that of the skilled manual workers mentioned already. Still, high military value and/or secular social rank and wealth was taken into account by the Muslim sellers of the captives, as naval captains and military officers, but also noblemen and tradesmen were among those professional classes rated highest in ransom, which on average was fixed at more than 700 fl. for a person belonging to one of these groups, and even above 1000 fl. mean for the rare cases of captured army officers and noblemen registered in this sample.

Similarly large differences in ransom amounts are to be found, if regional variances are taken into account, regarding the places where the captives were bought back. As can be seen in the table below, prizes for Christian slaves were much higher in Northern Africa than in the Ottoman Empire
itself, and liberating captives from the Tatary was comparatively cheap, too.

<table><caption>Table 6: Average prices of persons liberated by the Austrian Trinitarians, according to the region of ransoming activity (only full ransoms included)<fnref n="252" /></caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Region</th><th colspan="2">1700 - 1741</th><th colspan="2">1747 - 1783</th><th colspan="2">1700 - 1783</th></tr><tr><th>N</th><th>mean prize</th><th>N</th><th>mean prize</th><th>N</th><th>mean prize</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Constantinople *</td><td>142</td><td>404 fl.</td><td>84</td><td>391 fl.</td><td>226</td><td>399 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>Ottoman Empire (rest)</td><td>91</td><td>221 fl.</td><td>114</td><td>375 fl.</td><td>205</td><td>306 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>Tartary</td><td>212</td><td>209 fl.</td><td>7</td><td>447 fl.</td><td>219</td><td>217 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>Tunis and Tripolis</td><td>--</td><td>----</td><td>27</td><td>397 fl.</td><td>27</td><td>397 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>Algiers and Mascara</td><td>4</td><td>948 fl.</td><td>315</td><td>944 fl.</td><td>319</td><td>944 fl.</td></tr><tr><td>Morocco and Salé</td><td>--</td><td>----</td><td>16</td><td>2512 fl. (!)</td><td>16</td><td>2512 fl. (!)</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>449</td><td>280 fl.</td><td>563</td><td>759 fl.</td><td>1012</td><td>546 fl.</td></tr></tbody></table>

Particularly within the states of Algiers, Morocco and Salé, ransoms reached multiples of those asked for in Constantinople or other cities under direct Ottoman rule. This is true for the entire 18th century, but in the first half of the century the activities of the Austrian Trinitarians within the Barbary States were marginal, if numbers of freed are considered, and started only around the middle of the century. Another interesting point is that costs for redemption in the Eastern Barbary States, Tunis and Tripoli, were much lower, and similar to those usually paid in the Ottoman Empire. The reasons for this are unclear, but the high sums that had to be paid by the Trinitarians for liberating Christians in Algiers for certain are - at least partially - caused by the fact that its economy to a high degree relied upon slave-work and slave-trade.<fnref n="253" /> Moreover, the fact that slaves could hardly escape from the Barbary Coast, whilst there was at least a small chance for those in the Ottoman Empire, especially in the Balkans, could have influenced the level of the prizes, and it is important to see that in the Western North African states, Algeria and Morocco, the slave traders used to demand much higher prices due to the fact, that most of the captives there were French and Spanish, and thus from relatively wealthy states which, even more importantly, had a strong tradition of redeeming their enslaved compatriots.

The enormous sums that were necessary to buy all the captives were sponsored not least by the Aristocracy of the Habsburg Monarchy, particularly during the second half of the 18th century.

<footnote n="252">²⁵² The category Constantinople in the table includes some cases where we cannot decide whether the redemption took place in Constantinople or in Adrianople.</footnote>

<footnote n="253">²⁵³ Cf. Davies, *Christian Slaves*.</footnote>
From 1700 to 1740 between a fifth and a quarter of the ransom sums specified in the surviving catalogues stemmed from either "alms of the province", from foundations from aristocrats or from the emperor himself (private, court or state budget), and the rest, nearly a third, from "means of the order" not further detailed. But within the second half of the 18th century, more than half of the money spent for redemption purposes derived from charitable foundations established by the noble families Savoy-Liechtenstein, Batthyány, Christalnig, Decorei, Harrach, Kohary, Nemay, Rottal, Spork, Szeszeny, Szirmay, Thauszy, Zadolsky and Zichy.<fnref n="254" />

From the capital rents (!) donated by those high-ranking aristocrats more than 250.000 florins went towards the liberation activities of the Trinitarian order. This was about half of the total sum spent within the period 1747-1783, which is fully documented. Compared to that, the 54.000 florins given by the Court and the State authorities for redemption purposes, seem modest, and are exceeded twice over by the sum of more than 140.000 fl. that the Austrian Trinitarians had gained as "alms of the province", that is, as results of the collecting activities regularly performed within the Habsburg Empire, but also the parts of the Holy Roman Empire outside Hapsburg rule. Therefore, nearly one third of the money that was used for the liberation of captives was donated by people from various social strata, probably excluding only the very poor due to their straitened circumstances, and the noblest aristocrats, who preferred establishing these particular foundations with large amounts of capital, which represented their wealth, prestige and 'mercy'.

<footnote n="254">²⁵⁴ Cf. the *catalogi redemptorum*, where these foundations are indicated.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_20.png" /><figcaption>Trattato delle miserie che patiscono i Fedeli Christiani Schiavi de' Barbari, Rome, 1647</figcaption></figure>

## Conclusion

The Trinitarians, a catholic mendicant order founded in the middle ages, played an important role in the field of Christian-Muslim relations until the late 18th century by engaging in ransoming and exchanging Christian captives from Muslim-ruled countries. The Austrian branch of the Trinitarians, belonging to the Spanish Discalced Congregation, was active mainly in the Black Sea region and the Ottoman Empire very quickly after its foundation in 1688, trying to liberate and bring home some of the tens of thousands unfortunate victims of the manhunts conducted by the Turkish and Tataric forces during the 'Great Turkish War' from 1683 to 1699, the Habsburg-Ottoman wars of 1714-18 and 1736-39, but also the periods of formal peace in between, for the purpose of requisition of slaves. After the 1740es, when there were no larger violent conflicts at the southern and eastern border of the Austrian monarchy, and thus numbers of captives to be ransomed diminished within the Ottoman Empire and the Tatary, the Austrian Trinitarians increasingly occupied themselves with freeing Habsburg subordinates, who had fallen victims to piracy by the 'Barbary states' in the western Mediterranean, too.
With the help of so-called *catalogi redeptorum*, lists of freed persons, we were able to reconstruct the fundamental sociodemographic features of a majority of those people bought free or exchanged by the Austrian Trinitarian order during the 18th century, and presented some basic outcomes of our research above (whilst a broader display of results will be delivered soon in a monographic publication). The typical liberated person was male - more than 80 % - and adult, but not aged; more than 80 % were between 20 and 59 years old. Interestingly an examination of the indication of home-countries, given in the catalogues, shows that not by far all of the liberated stemmed from the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy, as could have been expected maybe. Only slightly more than the half of the liberated captives stemmed from its core lands – the Austrian hereditary states, the Bohemian and Hungarian crown lands – altogether. Germans from not Habsburg-ruled parts of the Holy Roman Empire played an important role, too, counting up to nearly a fifth of all documented cases of liberated captives. This is quite explicable, as the Austrian Trinitarians regularly collected alms within the "Reich", too, and therefore of course, there was a special obligation to free also people from these regions. Further 10 % of the freed were subordinates of the Habsburgs, but originated from their Italian possessions. Still, the Austrian Trinitarians obviously felt responsible for them, too. And, finally, more than 10 % of the freed persons were from regions not legally linked towards the Habsburg dynasty at all. This shows clearly that political borders did play a role for the charitable activity of the Trinitarians, but not a rigidly excluding one. Even confessional belonging to the Catholic Church was a renounceable criterion, which is documented by dozens of individuals stemming from definitively 'heretic' or 'schismatic' parts of Europe, like Scandinavia or Russia. Contemporary writings from members of the order in Austria, like the *Annales Provinciae* and the *Triumphus Misericordiae* of P. Joannes a San Felice, clearly confirm this point, too. One hoped for the conversion of those fellow Christians towards 'only true' Catholicism, of course, but the patres redemptores did not treat a conversion as precondition for being redeemed – as long as the person was Christian at all – but rather hoped for the later insight of these people into the spiritual superiority of a confession being that devoted to mercy and charity towards the nearest.

Of course, the social and professional status of the liberated Christians would be of high interest, too; yet information on this area is far less complete. Anyhow, it is evident that people from all social strata are represented among them. Little surprisingly, members of the military and the – civic or armed – navy play a particular important role, counting up to at least about 40 % of all captives liberated. Among those professions explicitly indicated in the sources, one moreover finds tradesmen, handicraftsmen and servants, and a few people can clearly be identified as members of the Austrian (respectively Hungarian) nobility. Apart from the latter, those characteristics are almost exclusively given for the male proportion of the freed.
In average, they had to wait for more than 10 years for their liberation, although there are
unfortunate individuals, who were rescued only after several decades of slavery abroad. More than
half of the men, women and children ransomed by the Austrian Trinitarians during 18th century, and
documented in the surviving *catalogi redemptorum*, were bought or exchanged within the Ottoman
Empire, but Algiers was an important place for redemption, too, even if nearly exclusively after
1740/41, and every sixth of the captives was located in the Tataric ruled regions at the Black sea.

Prices, which frequently were noted, too, of course vary according to the sociodemographic
characteristics already mentioned. Interestingly, women were, in average, considerably 'cheaper' than
men. Less surprising is the fact, that adults between 20 and 40, again of course in average, were more
'expensive' than younger and older people, who could not be used that intensely for work. Regarding
the stated professions, the mean ransom was the highest for handicraftsmen, whilst soldiers and
seamen could be bought free for only half of the money each. But ransom heights also varied distinctly
between various regions of the Muslim world, being most expensive in Northern Africa, particularly
in Morocco, and comparingly low in the Ottoman Empire and the Tartary. As an overall average, ca.
500 imperial florins had to be paid for the ransom of one person (if only the data of full ransom
numbers are taken into account). Prices for Christian captives of course had a certain tendency to rise
during the time space 1700-1783, like all prices did, but there is no extraordinary increase to be seen
at a general level.

Of course, the Trinitarian friars had to raise their financial means for the ransoming activities,
before conducting them, and the sources examined here often also refer to this aspect, reporting
separately donations by the state and the court, particular foundations established by the high nobility,
and funds gained by the common alms collection. It may be seen as a remarkable feature of early
modern European society that enormous amounts of money were donated for charitable purposes –
among them the one of the ransom of captives, and that not only those – who could afford it easily,
did contribute to the achievement of this aim, but also a vast number of 'common people'. Altogether,
the enormous amount of more than 1.000.000 florins was spent by the Trinitarian order between 1690
and 1783 for the redemption of nearly 4.000 human beings.
<figure><img src="image_21.png" /></figure>
ANNEXE 1. BOOK REVIEW / COMPTE-RENDU D'OUVRAGE : Bonifacio Porres Alonso, *Libertad a los cautivos, actividad redentora de la orden trinitarian*, Córdoba-Salamanca, Secretario Trinitario, 1997-1998, 3 vols.

DANIEL HERSHENZON

University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

These three volumes are extremely valuable for scholars of the history of the Trinitarian order and its redemption operations, the traffic of people, and captivity of Christians in the early-modern Mediterranean. The first tome and volume provides a brief history of the order surveying the ransom missions conducted by its different European branches. The second tome, the second and third volumes, is a collection of archival sources, especially royal privileges the Castilian and Aragonese Trinitarians received over the years. This is not an academic, critical history of the Trinitarian order but rather a well-documented and useful chronicle of its captive-redeeming activities.

In the first section of the first volume, Porres presents a brief history of the order from its foundation in 1198 and surveys royal and papal legislation relating to its ransom and fund raising mechanisms. The fact that the rule of the order stipulated that a third of its income—from alms the friars begged—be dedicated to captive-redeeming was crucial but not enough to fund the ransom operations. Other necessary sources of income were wills, donations, and rents. Much of the funds were collected by the Trinitarian confraternities and individual layman (*síndicos*). Porres ends this section in a discussion of the conflict between the Trinitarians and the Mercedarians (many of the documents in the other two volumes relate to the tensions between these orders) and of the history of the Trinitarian hospitals in Algiers and Tunis.

In the rest of the first volume, Porres surveys in length a large number of documented redemption missions conducted by the order (the *calzados* and the *descalzados*), through its history. He goes over the redemptions conducted by the Iberian, French, Italian, Polish, and Austro-Hungarian Trinitarians. While the discussion about the Eastern branches is especially interesting as less is known about them, the sections on the French and Iberian branches are richer and better-documented. Porres shows how, in contrast to what scholars argued, the Iberians and French did not limit their work to North Africa and occasionally were active in Istanbul. His survey points out the important role of intermediaries and of European consuls absent from much of the scholarship in facilitating in many cases the work of the friars. Porres provides interesting information about the processions the
Trinitarians conducted upon returning with the captives, the few cases when the Mercedarians and the Trinitarians worked together, and the importance of peace agreements between Muslim and Christian polities for captive-redeeming. Finally and conveniently each of the sections has a table summarizing the number and dates of expeditions sent by each branch, the names of the friars leading it, and the number of rescued captives.

The second and third volumes provide chronologically arranged collections of royal privileges the Trinitarians received from the crown –the second volume is dedicated to Castile, the third to Aragon. The records discuss the rights the Trinitarians had over wills, the licenses they received to beg alms, the networks of layman who helped fund raising, and the rivalry between the Mercedarians and the Trinitarians.

The volumes have more than a hundred illustrations taken from early-modern Trinitarian publications. The first tome has a sixty-three-page bibliography of primary sources and scholarly works focusing on the order in general, on its ransom activities and on additional related topics. The second offers an annotated bibliography of primary sources focusing on the privileges the order obtained and an additional bibliography of primary and secondary sources on the same subject. Both volumes have useful indices of names and places.
SOURCES ON THE REDEMPTION OF CHRISTIAN CAPTIVES BY THE TRINITARIAN ORDER DURING EARLY MODERN TIMES - AN ONLINE COLLECTION OF DIGITALIZED SOURCES AND OTHER INFORMATION.

CARLOS WATZKA AND ELISABETH PAULI

Center for Social Research, University of Graz, Austria

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>

Digitalization of historical sources - introductory remarks

The technological developments of the past 10-20 years have led, as is widely known, to a revolution in the professional work of historians and in general of scholars working in the cultural and social sciences. Whilst in some areas new difficulties have arisen – for instance, how to permanently save the vast amounts of documents now only existing within electronic data-processing systems, to make
Pauli, E. and Watzka, C., « Sources on the redemption of Christian captives by the Trinitarian Order during early modern times - an online collection of digitalized sources and other information », dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 109-120.

them accessible as sources for future historiography<fnref n="255" /> –, in other fields great, unforeseen opportunities arose. These included an easy, ‘world-wide’ access – by digitalization and posing ‘into the web’ – which now seemed possible also for huge numbers of historical sources, until now safeguarded in the depths of not always very user-friendly institutions like archives and scientific libraries, where they had been made accessible, if at all, only to some ‘chosen few’, mostly high-ranking academics and well-off experts.<fnref n="256" />

Yet the actual possibilities of digitalization were over-estimated, particularly in the beginning, which, among other consequences, led to quite absurd pronouncements, like the senseless and unrealistic plan to scan “all the world’s books”, as indeed was secretly planned by ‘Google’ since 2002 and announced to the public in 2004. This was a megalomaniacal idea later dismissed in favour of scanning ‘only’ several million books in the first decade of the 21st century.<fnref n="257" />

Apart from legal problems, enormous costs (in terms of working time, technical instruments, and therefore, of money) and technical difficulties hindered the realization of large parts of such gigantic projects until 2010. In particular, it remains questionable as to whether projects to digitalize “all content” of national archives etc, that is, billions of documents of very different sizes, shapes, materials etc., will ever become realistic.<fnref n="258" />

Yet some change is happening right now in a field somewhat easier to handle, that of the digitalization of printed books, and again, Google is at the forefront of activities, using the concept of "private-public-partnership" with public libraries. In early 2010, for instance, the Austrian National Library

<footnote n="255">²⁵⁵ Cf. Botho Brachmann, *Neue Quellengattungen*. In: Friedrich Beck, Eckart Henning (ed.), *Die archivalischen Quellen. Eine Einführung in ihre Benutzung*, Weimar 1994, pp. 133-152; Martin Burkhardt, *Arbeiten im Archiv*. Paderborn et al. 2006, pp. 91-94; cf. also the recent article: *Archive, Quellen, Editionen* at: http://www.historicum.net/lehren-lernen/internet-im-geschichtsstudium/archive-quellen-editionen/ (15.02.2010).</footnote>

<footnote n="256">²⁵⁶ Cf. for that view i.e. Charles E. Smith, *A Few Thoughts on the Google Books Library Project. Only by transforming knowledge contained in print to new and easily accessible digital formats can we guarantee its survival*. In: *EDUCAUSE Quarterly*, vol. 31, no. 1 (January–March 2008), pp. 10–11, available online at: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/AFewThoughtsontheGoogleBooksLi/162510 (15.02.2010).</footnote>

<footnote n="257">²⁵⁷ For the ‘Google-case’ cf. esp.: N.N. [Google corporation], *About Google books: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/about.html* (15.02.2010), Kevin Kelly, *Scan this book! In: *New York Times*, 14.05.2006, available online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/magazine/14publishing.html?pagewanted=all (15.02.2010), Miguel Helft, *Google’s Plan for Out-of-Print Books Is Challenged*. In: *New York Times*, 03.04.2009, available online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/technology/internet/04books.html?r=1 (15.02.2010), Hannes Hintermeier, *Die Google-Strategie. Das Teuflische an diesem Plan*. In: *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung*, 19.03.2009, available online at: http://www.faz.net/s/RubCF3AEB154CE64960822FA5429A182360/Doc~EEADFBE2D64E9489B96A115D147378F07~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html* (15.02.2010). In the shape of a traditional book, the critique of Google’s plans was formulated recently by: Jean-Noël Jeanneney, Quand *Google défie l’Europe. Plaidoyer pour un sursaut*. Paris 2005. An English translation later appeared under the title *Google and the myth of universal knowledge* (Chicago 2007).</footnote>

<footnote n="258">²⁵⁸ Cf. the current, still miserable state of the *Europeana*, particularly for the field of written sources: www.europeana.eu. The pertaining problems were discussed recently i.e. in: Hendrik Werner, *Wer scannt die Bücher, scannt die Namen*, at: *Welt online*, 12.01.2010: http://www.welt.de/die-welt/kultur/article5815393/Wer-scannt-die-Buecher-scannt-die-Namen.html* (15.02.2010).</footnote>
agreed with the corporation to "digitalize and make accessible online" "its complete historical stock of books from the 16th to the 19th century".<fnref n="259" /> Not only the physical copies of the books remain, but also the digitalized versions will become property of the Austrian National Library, and the scans will be offered for download not only at Google books, but will also be made available (and, in fact, partly already are!) for free download by the Austrian National Library itself, which will also dispose of the full rights of use in the future, but gives non-exclusive rights for the use of the digitalized versions to Google, too.

Therefore, at least from the point of legal and power relations, this new approach seems acceptable also from a standpoint of securing public interests in free access to the printed cultural heritage. We still have to wait for the results, particularly regarding the question as to whether it will be possible to produce *qualitatively sufficient* scans of such enormous amounts of text material. If this succeeds – and recently scanned books available online at Google books<fnref n="260" /> already give hope for that (in contrast to earlier elaborations, which were in some cases of poor readability) – it will be indeed of great value for academic research also. This of course is even truer as similar agreements, which seem to correspond not only to Google's, but also the public's interests in this matter, are already in place for more than 20 university, national or public libraries, mainly in Europe and the USA.<fnref n="261" />

Nonetheless the physical existence of libraries etc. will probably not cease in the near future under the pretext that they are “superfluous”, and this is even more unlikely for such institutions as archives, although closing some down was already suggested by some economists and officials on the argument that it would save money, of course in ignorance of the fact that a digital representation cannot entirely replace the material existence of a document in most cases, regarding its potential heuristic value.<fnref n="262" /> Within this context, specialized digital collections of historical documents, concentrating on certain topics, distinct archival stocks etc. become more and more attractive, not at least because of the shortening of search processes, which becomes more urgent with the amount of material available online, but impossible to oversee even under the condition of an already defined, very precise search topic. Particularly, this is true for projects for scholarly and scientific purposes, because they, in general, meet very particular interests and needs.

Moreover, such offers sometimes can be carried out at a relatively low cost, if related to research

<footnote n="259">²⁵⁹ Österreichische Nationalbibliothek – Max Kaiser, *Austrian Books Online*, at: http://www.onb.ac.at/bibliothek/austrianbooksonline.htm (05.10.2010).</footnote>

<footnote n="260">²⁶⁰ Google books: http://books.google.com (05.10.2010).</footnote>

<footnote n="261">²⁶¹ See: Google books, *LibRARY PARTNERS*: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html (05.10.2010).</footnote>

<footnote n="262">²⁶² Cf. the remarkable suggestion by the audit office of the Province of Saxony, Germany, in 2003, for the State Archives of the province, to digitalise all sources and then burn the originals, reported in: Burkhard, *Arbeiten im Archiv*, p. 91. To evaluate the potential losses due to exclusively electronically storage of images or texts of historical sources cf. Friedrich Beck, Eckart Henning (ed.), *Die archivalischen Quellen. Eine Einführung in ihre Benutzung*. Weimar 1994, particularly the contributions on the material aspects of written sources: Ilka Hebig, *Schriftträger und Schreibmaterialien*. In: ibid., pp. 153-162, Dieter Hebing, *Siegel und andere Beglaubigungsmittel*. In: ibid., pp. 207-218.</footnote>
activities already pursued by the professionals offering them: During the last decades, as analogue
and, later, digital copies of sources from many institutions were readily available and inexpensive,
more or less extended collections of copied documents became part of the research processes on
historical subjects.<fnref n="263" /> Therefore, if a digitalization project is ‘added’ to previously conducted
‘conventional’ research, considerable parts of the work necessary for the construction of an online-
database – such as the collection, assembling, structuring and evaluating of relevant sources – are
probably already done, and providing documents of value for other scholars and/or students on the
web can create additional value for the scientific community.

The aim of the project

The project to be presented here, called Online-Sammlung von Quellen und Informationen zur Geschichte des Ordens der Unbeschuhten Trinitarier in der österreichischen Monarchie und im Heiligen Römischen Reich 1688-1783, that is, the Online collection of sources and information regarding the history of the order of the Discalced Trinitarians in the Habsburg monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire 1688-1783, provides an internet-based collection of sources and data, related to the activities of the Trinitarian order in the field of the redemption of slaves within the early modern period. That seems particularly worthy since most of even the printed sources concerning the early modern history of redemption of Christians enslaved in Muslim countries by this catholic organization are very rare and difficult to access at the few libraries or institutions, which own copies of them. Therefore, a presentation of original texts in a specific online database may contribute to make scholarly work related to that topic more efficient.

The first stage of the collection can already be used online at:

http://www-classic.uni-graz.at/cfs1www/trinitaria-collectio/ or

http://www.trinitaria-collectio.uni.graz.at

For the initial stages, we confined our collection to sources from Central and Southern Europe, and
the 17th and 18th century, for the simple reason that we mainly dealt with these regions and periods in
our research so far,<fnref n="264" /> and therefore collected considerable amounts of relevant material. This focus

<footnote n="263">263 For an interesting application cf. the virtual reconstruction of at least some parts of the large and ancient, recently destroyed archive of the City of Cologne: http://www.historischesarchivkoeln.de (15.02.2010). In Austria, in the particular field of history of religion, important digitalisation projects are carried out by the Institut zur Erschließung und Erforschung kirchlicher Quellen (IEEkQ), St. Pölten, and ICARUS – International Centre for Archival Research, Vienna. Cf. http://www.monasterium.net/at (15.02.2010).</footnote>

<footnote n="264">264 Our current research project *Charitable catholic orders in Central Europe 1605-1783. Social innovations and cultural transfers by monastic organisations – the example of the activities of the Charitable Brethren and the Discalced Trinitarians*, is conducted at the Center for Social Research of the University of Graz and financed by the Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung). For interim results, concerning the History of the</footnote>
could be extended later on, if possibilities and demand arise, especially as a result of to cooperation
with scholars working on the history of the Trinitarian order in other regions and periods. We have
to thank Ernstpeter Ruhe, emeritus Professor for Romance philology at the University of Würzburg,
Germany, at this occasion; not only did he contribute a lot to the first stage of the database, which is
going online in 2010, by generously sharing relevant sources with us for the purpose of this project
developed in cooperation with him, but he also had the idea for the whole project.<fnref n="265" />

Legal aspects

A crucial problem for editions of historical sources, whether digital or not, is the compliance with
legal demands. The full reproduction of texts and/or images of documents, in contrast to their ‘simple’
academic use in form of description, interpretation and partial citation, often requires particular
permission of the owner of the original document (despite of any rights of the author himself and his
heirs, which do not have to be taken into account when dealing with the time period before 1800, of
course).<fnref n="266" /> The online database presented here, therefore, contains only material for which the rights
for publication have been clarified in advance, by permission given by institutions or persons
disposing of original sources or by some other way: Especially for those printed sources, which due
to a lack of interest for a non-scientific public are not too expensive, it sometimes was easier for us,
already during the collection of materials, to purchase original copies of books from antiquarians
(which during the last years became much easier by ‘the web’, too), with the further advantage of
gaining the rights of use, too. Other sources presented by us were made freely accessible on the
internet, without restrictions for further use, by other owners of originals.

Technical aspects

The online database "trinitaria-collectio" is situated physically on a server of, and virtually embedded

<footnote>Trinitarian order, cf. the other contribution of us to this online volume, moreover; Elisabeth Pauli, *Befreiung aus
tyrannischer Gefangenschaft. Der Trinitarierorden in der Habsburgermonarchie und die Rückführung christlicher
Sklaven aus dem Osmanischen Reich und seinen Vasallenstaaten (1688-1783)*. In: *Archiv für Kulturgeschichte* 90/2
(2008), pp. 351-378; Elisabeth Pauli, *Der Orden der Allerheiligsten Dreifaltigkeit von der Erlösung der Gefangenen und
seine Tätigkeit in den habsburgischen Ländern (1688-1783)*. In: Heidemarie Specht, Ralph Andraschek-Holzer (ed.),
*Bettelorden in Mitteleuropa. Geschichte, Kunst, Spiritualität*. St. Pölten 2008, pp. 133-164.</footnote>

<footnote n="265">265 For Ruhe’s studies regarding the Trinitarian order and the redemption of Christians in the Muslim-ruled countries cf. esp. Ernstpeter Ruhe, *L’aire du soupçon. Les récits de captivité en langue allemande (XVIᵉ-XIXᵉ siècles)*. In: Anne Duprat, Emilie Picherot (ed.), *Récits d’Orient dans les littératures d’Europe (XVIᵉ-XVIIᵉ siècles)*. Paris 2008, pp. 185-200; Ernstpeter Ruhe, *Dire et ne pas dire. Les récits de captifs germanophones et les cérémonies de retour*. In: François Moureau (ed.), *Captifs en Méditerranée (XVIᵉ - XVIIᵉ siècles)*. Histoires, récits et légendes, Paris 2008, pp. 119-133.</footnote>

<footnote n="266">²⁶⁶ Of course, the rules of copyright vary a lot from country to country, posing not a little problem to the handling of pertaining questions in the case of internet-publications. For an overview on this matter cf. Paul Goldstein, *International Copyright. Principles, Law, and Practice*. Oxford et al. 2001</footnote>
Pauli, E. and Watzka, C., «Sources on the redemption of Christian captives by the Trinitarian Order during early modern times - an online collection of digitalized sources and other information», dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 109-120.

within the web-pages of the Karl-Franzens-University of Graz, Austria:

http://www-classic.uni-graz.at/cfs1www/trinitaria-collectio/ or www.trinitaria-collectio.uni.graz.at

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /></figure>

Due to this organizational embedding it is guaranteed, that the sources chosen for online-publication will stay accessible via internet at least for a middling-term-perspective, too, which seems decisive with regard to the sustainability of the project.

At the cited page, we give a short introduction into the collection. At the moment this is only in German, but will soon also appear in those languages, we consider most relevant to the potential users – English, French, Italian, Spanish, and, last but not least, Latin.

From the main page, the user can look for his path to the single sources then by two means:

1. By using the "systematic overview"-subpage, which classifies the documents presented there in the following categories:

* *Overviews and introductions to the history of the Trinitarian Order in general (17th and 18th cent.)*

* *Overviews and introductions to the history of the Trinitarian Order in the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire (17th and 18th cent.)*

* *Sources on the history of the Trinitarian order in general (17th and 18th cent.)*
*Sources on the history of the Trinitarian order in the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire (17th and 18th cent.)*

2. By a chronological list of the sources collected.

The texts – research contributions and sources (at the moment only printed ones) can then be called
up individually and downloaded for free, either in their entireties, or chapter by chapter, depending
on the length of the texts and the data volume thus necessary for their storage.

The single scanned pages with high quality solutions were first transformed into tif-files and then composed to pdf-files, each comprising some dozens of pages, for an optimal relation between image quality for these compressed files, and download size, which does not exceed some MB per pdf-entity now available for the user (single contribution, single booklet or chapter of book), thus allowing on the one hand the download also by people who do not dispose of high-speed internet access and vast storage capacities, and on the other hand fast download for the average academic user, provided with maybe not newest, but good technical equipment and online access.

The losses in picture quality due to this procedure were low, as can be proved by accessing the online
collection. Yet, there are several unclear pages, even some badly recognizable text parts left in some
digitalized sources. Still, these are consequences not of the treatment of digital files, but of the
scanning and photographing process, or of the rather bad state of some originals used. The plan for
an online database arose at a point in time when we already had conducted inquiries for sources on
the topic of the Trinitarian order several times, and not all of the photocopies or photographs we had
made were of optimal quality for later reproduction. This point was a major obstacle for us regarding
the digital presentation of some sources, which can only be overcome gradually, due to the relevant
sources being so scattered geographically. Some other original material simply is so badly preserved
– i.e. lacking or very soiled pages – that even the most careful reproduction process will deliver only
'deficient' images usable for online presentation. Despite of these difficulties still, we were able to
produce high-quality images of nearly all of the pages of those texts that were held suitable for such
a presentation at all.

The technical construction of the online-presentation itself on the basis of a html-structure, and the
graphical design of this, was performed by the web designer and colleague of us in the field of
sociology, Dirk Raith, who also disposed of the skills to conduct the data conversion process already
sketched above, in order not to exceed the limits of reasonably usable data volumes whilst saving as
much image resolution as possible for the readability of the texts.
Pauli, E. and Watzka, C., «Sources on the redemption of Christian captives by the Trinitarian Order during early modern times - an online collection of digitalized sources and other information», dans Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries* [Projet CORSO, ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011, p. 109-120.

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /></figure>

Current and future contents

At the moment (Oct. 2010), the following texts can be downloaded directly from
[http://www-classic.uni-graz.at/cfs1www/trinitaria-collectio/](http://www-classic.uni-graz.at/cfs1www/trinitaria-collectio/) or
[http://www.trinitaria-collectio.uni.graz.at](http://www.trinitaria-collectio.uni.graz.at)
or from pages of other persons and institutions linked to that page.

OVERVIEWS AND INTRODUCTIONS INTO THE HISTORY OF THE TRINITARIAN ORDER IN THE AUSTRIAN HABSBURG MONARCHY AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE (17TH AND 18TH CENT.) [RESEARCH LITERATURE]:

Elisabeth Pauli, *Der Orden der Allerheiligsten Dreifaltigkeit von der Erlösung der Gefangenen und seine Tätigkeit in den habsburgischen Ländern (1688-1783)*. In: Heidemarie Specht, Ralph Andraschek-Holzer (Hg.), *Bettelorden in Mitteleuropa. Geschichte, Kunst, Spiritualität* (= Beiträge zur Kirchengeschichte Niederösterreichs 15), St. Pölten 2008.
Duprat, A. (dir.), *La guerre de course en récits. Terrains, corpus, séries*. Projet CORSO [ANR-06-CONF-021], 2011.

Thierry Knecht, *Les religieux trinitaires déchaussés dans les Etats héréditaires des Habsbourg du siège de Vienne à l'érection de la Province Saint-Joseph (1683-1727)* [1998ff]

Furthermore, we have created links to the most important bibliographies on the Trinitarian order available on the www. [http://www.trinitarianhistory.org/](http://www.trinitarianhistory.org/) and [http://www.trinitari.org](http://www.trinitari.org)

## SOURCES ON THE HISTORY OF THE TRINITARIAN ORDER IN GENERAL (17TH AND 18TH CENT.):

Pasquale Guasque, *La Celeste institutione del Sacro Ordine della S.ma Trinita della Redentione delli schiavi con li Privilegii, Gratie & Indulgenze concesse a dett'ordine & alli Fratelli, Sorelle & Benefattori di esso*. Velletri (Alfonso dell'Isola) 1640 (71 pp.).

N.N., *Brevissimo compendio delle indulgenze, gratie e privilegi, concessi da'Sommi Pontefici, e confermati dalla felice memoria di Papa Urbano Ottavo all'Ordine & Archiconfraternità della Santissima Trinità della Redentione degli schiavi cattivati da'Barbari & Saraceni*. Rome (Camera Apostolica) 1647 (45 pp.)

Alfonso Dominici, *Trattato delle miserie, che patiscono i fedeli Christiani schiavi de'barbari, & dell'Indulgenze che i Sommi Pontefici han concesse per il riscatto di quelli*. Rome (Camera Apostolica) 1647 (50 pp.).

Francesco di S. Lorenzo, *Compendio Memorabile dell'institutione, approbatione & progresso dell'Ordine della Santiss. Trinita del Riscatto [...]*. Rome (Camera Apostolica) 1650 (64 pp.).

## SOURCES ON THE HISTORY OF THE TRINITARIAN ORDER IN THE AUSTRIAN HABSBURG MONARCHY AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE (17TH AND 18TH CENT.)

### A) WORKS ON THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER AND THE REDEMPTION ACTIVITES IN CENTRAL EUROPE

- Joannes a S. Felice, *Annalium Provinciae St. Josephi Ordinis Excalceatorum Sanctissimae Trinitatis Redeptionis Captivorum Libri Decem [...]*. Vienna (Johann van Ghelen) 1739 (XXIV + 823 pp.).

- Joannes a S. Felice, *Triumphus Misericordiae, id est Sacrum Ordinis SSS. Trinitatis Institutum Redemptio Captivorum, cum Adjuncto Kalendario Ecclesiastico Historico Universi Ordinis [...]*. Vienna (Johann van Ghelen) 1704 (XII + 255 pp.).
Lucas a S. Nicolao, *Vindex Libertatis Christianae oder Sonders Beflissener Freyheit-Beschirmer deren unter tatarisch-türckischen Dienstbarkeit angeschlossenen Christen [...].* Tyrnau (Friedrich Gall) 1722 (X + 73 pp.).

Lucas a S. Nicolao, *Vindex Libertatis, ein mit getreuester Vorsorge beflissener Schutz-Redner um die Freyheit deren in der beleidbahren Dienstbarkeit bey denen Türcken und Tataren angehaltenen Christen [...].* Wien (Johann J. Kürner) 1731 (192 pp.).

Engelbert von der Mutter Gottes, *Rede auf die glückliche Erlösung der gefangenen Christen aus Algier [...] nach dem feyerlichen und allgemein-erfreulichen Einzug in die k.k. Haupt- und Residenzstadt Wien deren von den WW. EE. PP. Trinitariern der löbl. Provinz des Heil. Josephs durch [...] R.P. Bernardum a B.M.V. aus der Sclaverey befreyten Christen [...].*

Wien (Leopold J. Kaliwoda) 1773.

## B) LISTS OF REDEEMED CAPTIVES

*Catalogus Captivorum Christianorum, Quos P.P. Discal. Provinciae S. Josephi, In Ditionibus Haereditariis Augustissimae Domus Austriacae Erectae, Ord. SSS. Trinitatis De Redemptione Captivorum, A Die I. Augusti Anni 1747. usque ad ultimam Aprilis Anni 1750. in Turcia, tam Europaea, quam Asiatica, uti & in Barbaria, aut persoluto lytro nativae libertati restituerunt, aut pecuniariis subsidiis ad eam recuperandam adjuverunt, Viennae Austriae, [1750]*

*Catalogus Captivorum Christianorum Quos PP. Discalceati Ordinis SSS. Trinitatis De Redemptione Captivorum, Provinciae S. Joseph In Ditionibus Haereditariis Augustissimae Domus Austriacae Erectae, Ab Anno 1756. usque ad Annum 1759. tam in Turcia Europaea, & Asiatica, quam in Barbaria ... adjuverunt, Viennae Austriae, [1759]*

*Catalogus Captivorum Christianorum, Provincia S. Josephi, Ordinis Discalceatorum SSS. Trinitatis De Redemptione Captivorum Erecta In Ditionibus Haereditariis Augustissimae Domus Austriacae, Ab Anno 1777 usque ad Annum 1780, tum Africanis in oris, praecipue Algerii, Mascherae, & Tripoli; tum in Turcia Europaea & Asiatica, aut persoluto lytro nativae libertati restituit, aut pecunariis subsidiis ad eam recuperandam adjuvit, Viennae [1780]*

## C) THEOLOGICAL TRACTATES, SERMONS AND LITERATURE ON SODALITIES

Christoval de la Anunciacion, *Triunfos Austriacos o oraciones panegyricas [...].* Vienna
(Johann van Ghelen) 1707 (88 pp.)

Franciscus Xaverius Brean, Lob- und Danck-Predig, als Ihro Römisch-Kayserlich- und Königlich Catholische Majestätten dem Herren deren Herr-Schaaren vor die eroberte Haupt-Vestung Belgrad, den 28. August-Monaths, an des H. Kirchen-Lehrers Augustini Fest [...] in des H. Stephans Thom-Kirchen feyerlichsten Danck erstatteten. Wiener-Neustadt (Samuel Müller) 1717.

Lucas a S. Nicolao, Geistliches Glück- und Freunden-Band zwischen Himmlischen Hülff-Geistern und Insassen der Erde [...] an deren Heil Engeln jährlicher Ehren-Begängnuß den 13ten Sonntag nach Pfingsten [...] in würdigen GOTtes-Hauß deren Englischen Gliebds-Töchtern des Heiligen Patriarchen Dominici bey St. Anna zu Brünn in Mähren [...] Tyrnau (Friedrich Gall) 1721.

Josephus Egger, Kunst-volles Tugend-Bild auß denen Vollkommenheiten der drey-einfachen GOTtheit entworffen. Welches der Heil. Joannes von Matha, grosser Regel-Vatter und wundersamer Ordens-Patriarch der allerheiligsten Dreyfaltigkeit von Erlösung deren Gefangenen, in sich selbsten mittels seiner vornehmsten Helden-Thaten verfertiget hatte. Wien (J.B. Schilgen) 1727.

Wenceslaus von Sinzendorf, Supremi entis entium Dei nostri magni unius et trini, coelis, angelis et hominibus inscrutabile esse. Des Allerhöchsten Weesen alles Weesen, Unseres Grossen, Drey- und Einfachen GOTtes, denen Himmeln, Engeln und allen Menschen unergründliches Weesen [...]. o.O. o.J.

Theodorus Franciscus Xaverius Engel, Regio Longinqua. Fehrne Landschafft [...] Lob-Rede [...] am hohen Titular-Fest deß Barfüsser-Ordens der Allerheiligsten Dreyfaltigkeit von Erlösung gefangener Christen in eigener Closter-Kirchen zu Wienn ausser dem Schotten-Thor in der Alster.Gassen [...]. Wien (Maria Theresia Voigtin) 1726.

Ignatius Gnändl, Trisagium oder Dreyfaches Heilig [...] am hohen Titular-Fest deß Barfüsser-Ordens der Allerheiligsten Dreyfaltigkeit von Erlösung gefangener Christen in eigener Kirchen zu Wienn ausser dem Schotten-Thor [...]. Wien (Maria Theresia Voigtin) 1727.

Deodatus J. P. du Beyne de Malechamps, Alpha & Omega. Der Anfang und das Ende, in dem Geheimnuß göttlicher Weesenheit [...] am hohen Titular-Fest deß Barfüsser-Ordens der Allerheiligsten Dreyfaltigkeit von Erlösung gefangener Christen in eigener Closter-Kirchen zu Wienn ausser dem Schotten-Thor in der Alster-Gassen [...]. Wien (Maria Theresia Voigtin) 1728.
Augustinus L.B. ab Heuel de et in Dieffenau, *Convallis Mambre, das Thal Mambre, in welchen daß die Gräntzen deß eingeschränkten Menschlichen Vernunffts-Liecht übersteigende Einfach und Drey-Persöhnte Geheimnuß Götterlicher Allerhöchster Majestät, Abrahae dem Vatter vieler Völcker als ein unermessentlicher unerschöpfflicher Abgrund kundtbar worden* [...] Wien (Maria Theresia Voigtin) 1729.

Augustinus L.B. ab Heuel de et in Dieffenau, *Abyssus abyssum invocat. Ps.41.V.9. Ein Abgrund ruffet den andern an. [...] Lob- und Ehren-.Rede an dem hohen Titular-Fest deß Barfüsser-Ordens der Allerheiligsten Dreyfaltigkeit von Erlösung gefangener Christen in eigener Closter-Kirchen zu Wienn ausser dem Schotten-Thor in der Alster-Gassen* [...] Wien (Maria Theresia Voigtin) 1730.

## Conclusion

Altogether, the source texts alone presented add up to a volume of more than 2.000 original pages. It is, of course, planned to enrich the collection in the future, whether it be by further digitalization of original sources and research literature made accessible online, or the adding of entirely new sections, such as the presentation of originally hand-written and later typed and edited material.

In particular, it is planned to establish two data collections within the online presentation, the first comprising basic information on all Austrian Trinitarian brothers of the 17th and 18th century, which are known by their names, and the latter containing data on the liberated captives of these same centuries, derived from the *catalogus captivorum*. But these parts of the project, obviously necessitating much greater efforts, will take considerable time to carry out. We hope to be able to add further sources to the collection now existing, and, of course, we are grateful for any help and suggestions concerning this project.<fnref n="267" /> We hope that our collection of documents on the history of the Trinitarian Order in early modern time will be useful for other scholars and students.

<footnote n="267">267 In case of interest, please contact carlos.watzka@uni-graz.at or elisabeth.pauli@uni-graz.at.</footnote>
CH. II. RECITS DE CAPTIVITE : CAS ET SERIES
<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>
BARBARY CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES FROM EARLY MODERN ENGLAND:

TRUTH CLAIMS AND THE (RE)CONSTRUCTION OF AUTHORITY

DANIEL VITKUS

Florida State University

> Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. [...]
> Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of
> discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which
> enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned;
> the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those
> who are charged with saying what is true.

Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power”

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

This essay is primarily an analysis of English captivity narratives from
the early modern period. I will discuss several related aspects of these
texts — their truth claims, their conformity to ideological pressures,
and their cultural function for their initial audience. Nonetheless,
because this essay originated as part of a collective effort to understand
the captivity narrative form, not within the distinct borders of any
national literary tradition, but within a broader context of translation,
transmission, hybridization, and cross-cultural interaction, I would like
to begin with a quick look at a French captivity narrative.<fnref n="268" /> After all,
French contact with the Islamic world during the sixteenth century was
much more extensive than English contact, and along with other
foreign sources and influences, the French experience in the Mediterranean provided an important
model and precedent for English interaction with Islamicate cultures and for the production of English
writing about the Mediterranean.

<footnote n="268">268 I would like to express my gratitude to Anne Duprat and the other organizers of the international colloquium on “Barbary Legends: Codes, Strategies, Diversions” that took place at the University of Jaen in November of 2009, and to the organizations and institutions that supported that gathering of scholars. This essay was originally written for presentation at that conference. A longer version of this essay will appear in a forthcoming volume of articles based on papers given at that colloquium: *A. Duprat (ed.), Légendes barbaresques. Codes et stratégies du récit de captivité (XVIe- XVIIIes)*, Paris, Bouchène, [2011].</footnote>
Let me begin, then, with the tale of a French captive who was captured and tortured by the Turks, persevered in his Christian faith, and then made a heroic escape--this captive is none other than Panurge, the crafty, cowardly follower of Pantagruel. In *Pantagruel*, which first appeared in 1532, Rabelais provided his readers with a fictional version of the tales of captivity that were already circulating throughout Europe, advertised as “true stories” and recited by those who publicly declared themselves to be good Christian victims of “Turkish” cruelty. On the streets of Paris, London, and in other cities, beggars claiming to be returned captives or war veterans (from Barbary, Turkey, or other distant places) called for Christian charity to relieve them from want.

When Pantagruel first encounters Panurge, he appears “pitoyablement navré en divers lieux: et tant mal en ordre qu’il sembloit ester eschappé es chiens” (246).<fnref n="269" /> When Pantagruel offers his assistance, asking “. . . dont venez vous, où allez vous. . .?” (163), Panurge answers in a series of thirteen speeches, each one delivered in a different foreign tongue. This disordered mixture of languages brings together ancient and contemporary, vernacular and learned, Latin and Arabic. Panurge’s foreign babble is both glossolalic and heteroglossic: it bespeaks the rich diversity of the Mediterranean environment, and suggests the Babylonian confusion of the Genesis myth, as well as a Pentecostal speaking in tongues. Thus we are introduced to Panurge through a display of linguistic variety that confounds but also impresses Pantagruel.

From the start, Panurge demonstrates the ability of the trickster to play upon the ignorance of others and to draw upon the complexity of the world-at-large in order to gain credit with his local auditors. Having established his authority as a speaker of many tongues, Panurge finally reverts to his native tongue, French, and explains, “a present viens de Turquie, où je fuz mené prisonnier lors qu’on alla à Metelin en la male heure. Et volentiers vous racompteroys mes fortunes, qui sont plus merveilleuses que celles de Ulysses. . .” (249). In a comic effort to make the most of his rags and wounds, Panurge claims the status of epic warrior-hero, forced, like Ulysses, to return to his home in the disguise of a beggar. He partakes here of the rogue, the *picaro*, the romance wanderer, and the returned traveler, but also he represents a sixteenth-century social reality: Panurge enters Rabelais’s text as a fictional version of the vagrants and masterless men who identified themselves as victims of enslavement, torture and imprisonment in Barbary, and who walked the streets of European cities begging for food, alms and employment. Chapter 14 of *Pantagruel*, “Comment Panurge racompte la manière comment il eschappa de la main des Turcqs,” contains many of the fundamental elements of the captivity narrative that emerged as a specific genre in print during the sixteenth century, and continued long after.

<footnote n="269">²⁶⁹ All quotations from *Pantagruel* are taken from François Rabelais, *Oeuvres Complètes*. Ed. Mireille Huchon and François Moreau. Paris: Gallimard, 1994.</footnote>
Pantagruel, “je n’en mentz de mot” (266). We also find another of the common features of the captivity narrative--the physical ordeal and the captive’s stubborn refusal to convert in spite of temptation or coercion (though in Panurge’s case we know that the prohibition against alcohol is his only real objection to the law of the Quran). Furthermore, Panurge’s story includes the requisite demonization of Islam and the Turks as materialistic, cruel and irrational; and finally it provides the satisfactions of revenge and escape that are often part of the “true” captivity narratives.

Of course, Panurge’s autobiographical tale about where he came from and how he received his wounds is a captivity narrative that cannot be verified or trusted, nor is it meant to be. By putting such a tale in the thirsty mouth of Panurge, Rabelais encourages us to question the legitimacy of other returned captives, the sincerity of their motives, and the veracity of their tales. Should we look at some of our “real” captivity narrators as Rabelais asks us to look at Panurge? Or should we regard the captivity narrative printed in England and other countries as sincerely penned “true stories,” non-fictional accounts that directly reflect the actual, unmediated experiences and sufferings of their author-survivors? I would suggest that while we should remain sympathetic to the history of real suffering, we should also retain the skeptical distance, if not the mockery, that defined Rabelais’s view of the captivity tale.

If we recognize that Panurge, as the author of his own captivity tale, was far more eager to please his audience and gain their sympathy for his cause than he was to tell the truth; if we acknowledge that his tale is really derived from folkloric and romantic sources, and not an original and unadulterated narration of real events, then we may also want to take a similar view of our captivity narrators and assess their accounts from an analytical perspective that is informed by our historical and theoretical sensitivity to the complex constructedness of such texts.

This may seem like an obvious point--that we should doubt the truth claims made by the authors of the captivity narratives. Perhaps we would all agree that these texts are not to be taken at face value, as empirical evidence of what really happened to Christian captives in North Africa and the Ottoman empire. And yet, those scholars who have published extensive analyses of the English captivity narratives have, in fact, gone too far in crediting these tales with the authenticity, empirical accuracy, and individual authority that their early modern narrators insist upon. Among these scholars are Robert C. Davis, Nabil Matar, and Linda Colley, all of whom have written recently and extensively on Barbary captivity.<fnref n="271" />

<footnote n="271">²⁷¹ Nabil Matar, “English Accounts of Captivity in North Africa and the Middle East, 1577-1625.” *Renaissance Quarterly* 54 (2001): 553-72; Linda Colley, *Captives*. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002; Robert C. Davis, *Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800*. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.</footnote>
In *Christian Slaves, White Masters*, Robert C. Davis claims that “between 1530 and 1780 there were almost certainly a million and quite possibly as many as a million and quarter white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast” (23). Working from sources in English, French, Spanish, and Italian, Davis uses archival papers in manuscript and printed narrative “reports” as evidence for this estimate. It is certainly admirable that Davis has attempted such a valuable, ground-breaking historical project, “a broad [...] census of Mediterranean slaving” (Davis 4), but in his zeal to correct what he believes is a gross underestimation of the scale of Barbary slavery, he includes among his “hard figures” estimates appearing in texts written by clerics (including members of the Trinitarian and Mercedarian orders) who were in the business of raising charitable contributions for ransoming captives (Davis cites, for example, Pierre Dan and Diego de Haedo), and estimates from printed reports authored by those who had been enslaved themselves (for example, Davis relies on captivity accounts by Emanuel d’Aranda and Francis Knight).<fnref n="272" /> While it would be wrong to disagree with Davis’s general contention that Mediterranean slavery has been under-counted, his employment of the captivity narratives as empirical evidence is problematic. Davis himself notes the hesitation of other historians: for example, Norman Bennett argues that the ex-slave narrators were prone to the “natural exaggeration of men who have been deprived of their freedom” (cited in Davis 10). While archival sources, such as diplomatic reports, lists of redeemed captives, or records of ransom requests, can be considered relatively reliable, Davis’s use of the figures that appear in early modern captivity narratives occurs without sufficient skepticism about how the alarmist function of captivity narratives must surely have led to inflated figures.

Captivity narratives per se comprise only a small portion of the documents that Davis employs as evidence, but they are the primary objects of interpretation in Nabil Matar’s study of English captivity in North Africa during the early modern period. Matar, in an article published in *Renaissance Quarterly* in 2001, which was then reprinted as a chapter of his 2008 book *Britain and Barbary*, surveys ten captivity narratives printed in England between 1577 and 1625. According to Matar, it would be wrong to argue, as he says Fernand Braudel does, that “the captives were encouraged by official government policy-makers to write down [their stories] in order to alienate their readers from the Muslims and their world” (Matar 553). Matar goes on to accuse Braudel of imposing a Franco-

<footnote n="272">²⁷² See Ps. Diego de Haedo, *Topografia e Historia General de Argel*. 3 vols. (vol. 3 is a facsimile of the original edition, published in Valladolid in 1612) Madrid: La Socieda de bibliófilos españoles, 1927-29. Pierre Dan, a Redemptionist friar, is the author of *Histoire de Barbarie et de ses corsaires* (Paris, 1637). Emanuel d’Aranda’s *Relation de la Captivité et Liberté du Sieur d’Aranda*, Brussels, 1662 (3rd ed.), was translated into English by John Davies and printed as *The History of Algiers and its Slavery* (London, 1666). D’Aranda was held for two years (1640-41) in North Africa. And see Francis Knight, *A Relation of Seven Yeares Slaverie Under the Turkes of Algerie, Suffered by an English Captive Merchant. Wherein is also conteined all memorable Passages, Fights, and Accidents, which happened in that Citie, and at Sea with their Shippes and Gallies during that time. Together with a description of the sufferings of the miserable captives under that mercilesse tyrannie*. London, 1640.</footnote>
historical point of view on English texts while failing to carry out the kind of literary “close reading” (553) that Matar claims he will perform. Matar wishes to steer our attention away from the social function of the captivity narratives as printed texts that were disseminated amongst the English reading public, and to draw our attention instead to the captivity narrators as individual, autonomous authors. He de-emphasizes the texts’ participation in “international polemic against Islam” and focuses instead on “the personal ambitions and goals of the captives” (554). Matar is keen to stress the individual subjectivity of the captives-as-narrators, to take their accounts at face value and talk about their “personality,” “goals,” “motivation,” “first-hand experience,” and so on.

Matar, caught in the grip of Foucault’s author function, goes overboard in assuming that the captives are actually the unmediated authors and shapers of these narratives. But the printed captivity narratives published in England during the early modern period show extensive evidence of editorial meddling, ghost-writing, plagiarism, and embellishment. Their content cannot be taken as true tales of agony and endurance, coming straight from the heart. We should resist the notion that the story of an intense, heart-wrenching captivity in Barbary must be an accurate narration of actual events simply because its insistent claim to truth cries out to the reader with a passionate promise of veracity.

According to Matar, Edward Webbe, identified as author on the title page of a 1590 captivity narrative, writes “in his own voice and words” (556). Matar seems unwilling to entertain the possibility of collaborative or multiple authorship, insisting instead that Webbe “transforms the captivity account into a travelogue, describing the dominions in which the slave had found himself—including descriptions that are clearly fabrications and woodcuts of strange and exotic creatures” (556). Matar also declares that John Rawlins’ 1622 narrative is “written by Rawlins himself” (563), and Matar accounts for that text’s shift into third-person perspective as “a literary technique not uncommon in seventeenth-century writing” (563) rather than a sign of another writer’s intervention.<fnref n="273" /> This urge to read the narrative as the product of individual authorship is misguided because it works to reduce the complexity of the text and to erase the multiple agencies that participated in its production. Rather than insisting and fixating on Rawlins as a truth-telling author and as the sole source and unifying consciousness for the narrative, we need to exercise a hermeneutics of suspicion. It is much more likely that what Matar terms the “polemical agenda” and the way that the narrative structure resembles “the manner of a sermon” (Matar 563) are the signs of a ghost writer whose narrative intrusions and shaping of the text serve a theological and nationalistic agenda that cannot be identified with the individual, authorial intentions of Rawlins himself. Various agents participate in the production of the printed text, and they may have had more control over the

<footnote n="273">²⁷³ For the text of Rawlins’ narrative, see the version included in Daniel Vitkus, ed. *Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England*. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.</footnote>
form and content of the narrative than Rawlins, who merely supplied the raw data that his anonymous co-authors shaped to their purpose and then saw through the process of print and publication.

In her recent book *Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850*, Linda Colley takes a more skeptical approach than Matar. She acknowledges that the British captivity narratives are “distorted to some degree” by the inadequacies of memorial reconstruction, and by the author’s “preconceptions and prejudices,” and she admits that some “Narratives might be further compromised if they were the work of more than just the captives themselves” (91). Colley concludes that “it is important to get away from the notion that these or other captivity narratives can usefully be characterized as either truthful or crudely mendacious.” She makes an analogy between the way that “we all of us convert life’s crowded, untidy experiences into stories in our own minds, re-arranging awkward facts into coherent patterns as we go along, and omitting episodes that seem in retrospect peripheral, discordant, or too embarrassing or painful to bear” (92). These are useful observations, but in spite of her assertions of skepticism about how an author might recollect and compose their story, Colley retains the idea that the captivity narrative texts correspond quite closely to the reflections of an individual mind. She acknowledges the “pruning and refashioning” that occurs when memory is drawn upon as the source of an oral or written account, and she does not share Matar and Davis’s faith in the empirical accuracy of these texts, but she keeps her interpretations focused on the authors as individual historical agents and authors.

We need to go further in our skepticism. We need to acknowledge fully the multi-layered, heavily mediated quality of the captivity narratives from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The composition of these texts is almost never a “true story,” or an autobiographical mirror of the captive’s experience: these narratives are always already compromised by the ideological environment in which they are told, written down, and prepared for print. They would not be printed in the first place if they did not serve the ideological agenda of printers and publishers, or the profit motive that required texts to entertain and to make themselves understood within a preexisting discourse (of Protestantism, English nationalism, anti-Catholicism, etc.). As textual and cultural analysts, we ought to view the captivity narrators as figures in a text, as textual constructions, not as “real persons.” Our project of historical reconstruction should work to recover the complexities of these narratives’ origins and their ideological function rather than imposing on them an anachronistic interpretation-- one that relies on the modern concepts of authorship and autonomous subjectivity.
In order to illustrate my point about reading these narratives skeptically, I want to take a brief look at three English captivity narratives from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as examples of how complex and multi-layered these texts can be. First published in 1590, Edward Webbe's captivity narrative begins with the author's dedication to Queen Elizabeth, but this dedication should not be understood as the genuine voice of a humble subject and former captive, speaking true words of gratitude and hope to his monarch. While there may have been a real Edward Webbe who was enslaved, who actually suffered, and who then returned to England to tell his tale, we do not have any direct, unmediated access to that person and their experience. Aside from the pamphlet, we have no other evidence of his existence. In our analysis, we are contending, not with a flesh-and-blood witness, but with a text, and with a representation that cannot be trusted because it is produced within a matrix of cultural production that cannot be identified with individual agency or unalloyed authorial intention. "Webbe" is merely a "character" or "persona" in a text, a rhetorical construction or imposition, the result of a formal structure and ideological strategy implemented by collaboration and shaped by the early modern conventions of dedicatory rhetoric. In this dedicatory epistle to the queen, "Webbe" is a textual figure who functions to exemplify a virtuous English identity, an identity which is constructed in contrast to the power and temptation of "the Turk." The persona in the text speaks for the alliance of God, nation, and monarch against their alleged foes: "if in Turkey I would have denied my Christ, or in my travaile would have forsaken my Prince for to have served for Spaine, thereby to have become a Traytour to your Majesty & my native Countrey, I need not to have lived in want, but in great prosperity" (2v).<fnref n="274" /> Like many other authorial personae in the captivity narratives, Webbe employs the rhetoric of humility and "plain" truth-telling: it is a "true discourse though rudely penned" (A2v), he writes. And in the "Epistle to the Reader," once again the truth claim is elaborately reiterated:

> And this I protest, that in this booke there is nothing mentioned or expressed but that which is of
> truth, and what mine owne eyes have perfectly seene. Some foolish persons perhaps will cavil & say,
> that these are lies and fained fables, and that it conteineth nothing else: but to those I answere, that
> what soever is herein mentioned, he[.] whosoever he be, that shall so find fault and doubt the truth
> hereof, let him but come and conferre with me or make enquiry of the best and greatest Travellers
> and Marchauntes about all this land: and they doubtless shall be resolved that this is true which is
> here expressed. . . . (A3r)

This sort of desperate claim to veracity is pervasive in English captivity narratives as well as in all
travel narratives of the early modern period. The function of these claims is to preempt reader
skepticism and therefore obtain the authority of direct experience, eye-witnessing, and of "plain"

<footnote n="274">²⁷⁴ Edward Webbe, *The Rare and most wonderful thinges which Edward Webbe. . . hathe seene and passed in his troublesome travailes*. London, 1590.</footnote>
truth-telling. But often the text doth protest too much: after all, it was proverbial that "A traveler may lie with authority" (Tilley T476), and Webbe's claims to have accompanied a Turkish army of thousands in a campaign against Prester John, as well as his many digressive references to exotic monsters and wonders taken straight out of Mandeville do make his truth claims for the narrative suspect. Even in 1590 it was unlikely that anyone would seek out Webbe's "lodging at Black-wall" (A3r), knock on his door, and interrogate him face-to-face, and today we certainly cannot take up Webbe's offer to "come and conferre" with him.

The multi-authored, composite nature of these captivity narratives is seen once again in the captivity
narrative of Thomas Smith, which is set in Algiers and was printed in 1670.<fnref n="275" /> That account is
prefaced by a dedicatory epistle written by "A. Roberts" and addressed to Thomas Manley:

The Author was not willing to let the world know so much of his Life, had he not been solicited and almost forced to it by the importunity of those whose Request he did not dare to deny. Death hath carried him another Voyage while he was writing this, and forced him to leave his Work unperfect in my hands. (A3v-A4r)

In both Webbe and Smith, the narrative voice solicits the reader's identification with the sufferings and actions of the captive, repeatedly asserting the narrative's truth value. But why are these insistent claims to truth-telling so common in these texts? Not, as Lennard Davis has argued, because the distinction between fact and fiction had not yet been established, but rather because there was a great deal of legitimate doubt on the part of readers.<fnref n="276" /> These assertions of truth value are raised in opposition to the pervasive belief that "Travelers are liars."

Sometimes, it is the most sensationalized and therefore the most entertaining information that is the least likely to be true. For example, in Thomas Smith's 1670 captivity account, he claims that, upon arrival in Algiers,

[...] great Companies flock'd about us to see us, having been fore-informed that we had behaved
ourselves like men of Courage in the Fight. Some whose Relations had been killed, gave us such
Welcome as became the cruelty and impertinency of Heathens: They loaded us with Curses and
Imprecations, and did strangely insult over us. Had not our Guardians protected us from their
Violence, I think we had been torn in pieces. One amongst the rest was animated with a strange fury
and desire of revenge for the death of his dear Comrade; both were Spanish renegadoes: He drew his
Cymeter at us, and begg'd the liberty to sacrifice one of us, promising to pay his Ransome. When
that could not be obtained, he desired only to cut off our Ears. I know not how it happened that he
came near one of us, and with a Blow struck off part of the cheek of a German, which he took and
greedily swallowed, telling the Assistants that that he never tasted so sweet a Morsel in his days as
that was; so strangely had vengeance transported him, that he was content to feed upon us. (21-22)

<footnote n="275">²⁷⁵ T[homas] S[mith, *The Adventures of (Mr. T. S.) An English Merchant, Taken prisoner by the Turks of Argiers*. London, 1670.</footnote>

<footnote n="276">²⁷⁶ See Lennard J. Davis. *Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel*. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.</footnote>
Did a raging Spanish renegado really strike off a piece of German cheek flesh with a scimitar and then devour it raw, with blood trickling down his chin? Not likely. Rather, this sounds like a fragment of romance narrative that has been included in the story, and in fact Roberts, in his dedicatory epistle, says that Smith's "Memoires [...] contain many useful Observations, adorned with variety of most pleasant Adventures: They may appear very strange to such as have seen nothing but their Cradle; with them they may obtain the Credit of a well humoured Romance" (A2v). Roberts goes on to insist upon the "higher value" of "this Relation" in which some strange events may "look like Miracles" (A3r) but are true to life. During the course of Smith's narrative, the erotic adventures of the protagonist follow the conventions of late 17th-century romance tales in ways that clearly steer away from plausibility. Furthermore, Smith's boastful descriptions of his love affairs and his remarkable success as a soldier and political advisor to his master are suspiciously self-aggrandizing. The narrative includes repeated references to his own good looks and to the attention he received from numerous Muslim women, mostly rich widows or wives. He claims that his profound commitment to Christianity prevented him from accepting "All the Advantages proposed to me" (217). "[T]he vast Riches & Revenues could make no Impression upon my spirit" (217), he writes.

Five years after Smith's tale was first printed, another captivity narrative was published in England, William Okeley's *Ebenezer, or a Small Monument of Great Mercy*, and in that text the authorial persona admits that readerly distrust is understandable: "Courteous reader, I do readily agree with thee, that there is no sort of writing more liable to abuse than this of the narrative" (131), but the author assures the reader that "This book is Protestant, and hates a lie" (130).<fnref n="277" /> At the same time, Okeley confesses that he is not the sole author: "Till I could prevail with a friend to teach it to speak a little better English, I could not be persuaded to let it walk abroad. . .the stuff and matter is my own, the trimmings and form is another's" (145).

We should read these tales as national and theological figurations, parables of exchange with and resistance to Islamic power, to "turning Turk" in the broadest sense of that term. While most, if not all, of the captivity narrators were living persons, their presence in the text is an absence. Webbe, Smith and Okeley are merely figments that appear within the social imaginary. As such, they are shaped by forces circulating through the culture in complex ways. Though these narratives, we may begin to recover and reconstruct the spectral remnants of the real lives of English captives who were enslaved in North Africa. In order to achieve this objective, a more sophisticated and historically accurate theory of textuality, signification, and authorship is required, one that can incorporate the multiple agencies and causalities that worked together and in tension to produce a printed text.

<footnote n="277">²⁷⁷ Quotations are taken from the version of the text in Daniel Vitkus, ed. *Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England*. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.</footnote>
We ought to consider the formal features and patterned structures of these narratives, not as unique works of “creative non-fiction” engendered by the originality and individuality of the returned captive-as-author, but as texts that, to a great degree, are shaped by the conventional features and generic expectations of the captivity narrative form. As such, they exhibit particular formal and structural characteristics that recur in many of the captivity accounts. Based on my reading of the thirty or so captivity narratives printed in England between 1589 and 1704, I have come up with this list of elements that comprise the typical contents of the captivity narrative form:

1) departure

2) encountering danger

3) crisis: flee, fight or surrender

4) struggle

5) capture and search

6) arrival at the slave market

--treated like livestock, cruelty, dehumanization, etc.

7) the new master (repeated if sold)

--the cruel master/the good master

8) conversion

--temptation to convert (wealth, preferment, authority, feminine enticements, marriage, etc.)

--attempts to force conversion

(often the narrator faces both Islamic and Roman Catholic hostility to his Protestant faith)

9) erotic intrigue

10) monsters and wonders

11) sharing “intelligence” (political and ethnographic information)

12) escape, mutiny or ransom

--plotting, preparing, awaiting the day

--often failed or given false hope

13) revenge

14) homecoming

15) paratexts: dedicatory epistles, “To the Reader,” appended certifications of truth, lists of names. These elements arose, as all generic conventions do, from out of pre-existing forms of writing, and certainly the English captivity narratives of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries relied upon the French, Italian and Spanish models that came first. In this, as in so many things, English culture was belated, improvisational and adaptive. Just as the English emulated Italian capitalism, adapting it to their own needs as their maritime commerce expanded rapidly after 1570, so too, did the English
emulate other Mediterranean systems: the production of captivity narratives to serve national and religious interests; and the kind of diplomatic relations that had previously existed between France and the Ottoman Turks.

And so perhaps I can return, in my conclusion, to Rabelais. There is a bitter irony in making Panurge a veteran of the Franco-Venetian, papally sponsored “crusade” in 1502 mounted against the Turks at Myteline when, by the 1530s, it was clear that what was called "the sacrilegious union of the Lily and the Crescent" would come about, and that real military cooperation between France and the Turks was in the offing. Soon after his defeat and capture at the Battle of Pavia in 1526 and the humiliating treaty of Madrid that followed, François I began negotiations with the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent. Before long, the French would be aiding Muslim jihad in Hungary and Austria, not joining in any Christian crusades against the Ottomans. Even as *Pantagruel* was issuing from the presses in 1532, Ottoman troops were once again marching on the Habsburg capital, Vienna. Later, with French cooperation, Ottoman troops would help bombard Nice and would spend the winter in Toulouse. By the 1560s, the French alliance with the Ottoman sultan against Papal-Habsburg power was a strong precedent for the Anglo-Ottoman alliance that began in 1580.

In this sense, the English positioned themselves economically and politically in the Mediterranean, in ways that mimicked their traditional rivals, the French. With Anglo-Spanish tension on the increase, leading up to the Spanish Armada of 1588, and with a rising number of English subjects risking capture and slavery in the Mediterranean, the English formed their own agreement with the Sultan. It is at this very juncture that the English captivity narratives begin to appear in print, starting in 1589. A preexisting model was readily available. In the case of the English captivity narratives, there is often a triangulation (Protestant-Roman Catholic-Muslim) that gave the structure of meaning in these texts a Protestant specificity. When English captivity narratives begin to be produced by English writers, they are put together under the pressure of ideology, and they conform in many ways to pre-established generic conventions found in romance texts, tales of martyrdom, and the preexisting captivity form that was passed, through the matrix of travel and trade, from its origins in the multicultural Mediterranean to the shores of England.<fnref n="278" />

<footnote n="278">278 These tales, in turn, would help to produce new literary and cultural forms, including the early English novel, as G. A. Starr, Lennard Davis, and others have argued. See Starr, G. A. "Escape from Barbary: A Seventeenth-Century Genre." *Huntington Library Quarterly* 29 (1965): 35-52.</footnote>
« SOUVENEZ-VOUS DE VOTRE SEIGNEUR QUI VOUS A DELIVRE DE LA MER » -LE RECIT DE CAPTIVITE DE WILLIAM OKELEY ET LA QUESTION DE LA RELIGION EN ANGLETERRE PENDANT LA RESTAURATION (1660-1688).

CATHERINE CURRAN-VIGIER

Université de Rouen

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>William Okeley, *Ebenezer or A Small Monument of Great Mercy*, Londres, 1675</figcaption></figure>
Dans un ouvrage récent intitulé *Captives. Britain, Empire and the World (1600-1850)*<sup>279</sup>, L. Colley rappelait l'importance de prendre en considération, lorsque l'on interprète les récits des expériences de captivité vécues par des sujets britanniques, le contexte de leur publication. Pour elle cependant les orientations idéologiques de ces récits semblent être essentiellement dues à la nécessité pour l'auteur de réé integrer la société anglaise, et à sa volonté de prouver qu'il n'a pas renié sa religion, et ne s'était pas fait musulman. L'analyse du contexte semblerait ainsi se limiter à une considération de la situation personnelle du captif au moment de son retour dans la société anglaise, ainsi qu'à une prise en compte des relations qu'entretenait l'Angleterre avec l'empire ottoman et avec les différents Etats barbaresques à l'époque. La situation politique en Angleterre, et les circonstances matérielles entourant la publication des récits semblent avoir moins d'importance.

Pourtant, si nous acceptons le constat de Nabil Matar<sup>280</sup>, selon lequel les références à l'islam et aux Turcs servaient à clarifier, à soutenir et à justifier dans le texte la position que revendiquait l'auteur chrétien du récit respectivement dans le camp des *Dissenters* ou dans celui de leur opposants, des Anglicans ou des anti-Anglicans, ou des anticatholiques, il nous faut bien prendre également en compte, dans notre interprétation de ces textes, la question de l'identité religieuse de l'auteur et de son texte. Pour D. Vitkus, dans son introduction au texte d'Okeley dans lla collection de récits de captivité qu'il rédige et dont N. Matar fournit l'introduction, Piracy, Slavery et Redemption (2001) la question du contexte religieux est très importante pour notre compréhension du récit<sup>281</sup>. Il nous rappelle que le texte d'Okeley parait juste avant la découverte du prétendu « complot papiste » dénoncé par Titus Oates en 1678, et que le sentiment populaire antipapiste était très fort à l'époque. L. Colley affirme que « nous pouvons être raisonnablement certains que Okeley a été incité à publier ses expériences par des ministres Anglicans qui l'auraient d'ailleurs aidé à mettre en forme et à rédiger son récit »<sup>282</sup>. Certes, Okeley a eu le soutien d'une ou de plusieurs personnes, ceci est dit dans

<footnote n="279"><sup>279</sup> Colley, L. (2002) *Captives – Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850*, p. 93 « captivity narratives are fractured, composite sources, but it is inappropriate – indeed it is something of a cop-out - to analyse them textually but not contextually. »</footnote>

<footnote n="280"><sup>280</sup> “Both Islam and the Turkish Empire were part of the common parlance and were used for propaganda purposes; references to them served to clarify, support and vindicate Christian positions in the camp of the Nonconformists and the anti-Nonconformists, the Anglicans and the anti-Anglicans and the anti-catholics.” Matar, N. (1998) *Islam in Britain 1558-1685*, Cambridge, CUP, p. 106.</footnote>

<footnote n="281"><sup>281</sup> “There are many signs of a Calvinistic, providentialist agenda in Okeley’s text, and the revival of antiroyalist Protestantism in England may account for the printing of the text after so many years, in 1675”. Vitkus, D. (éd.), *Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England*, New York, Columbia University Press, 2001, p. 125.</footnote>

<footnote n="282"><sup>282</sup> “In Okeley’s case, we can be reasonably sure who these auxiliaries were. A deeply religious man, he was urged to publish his experiences by some Anglican clergymen, and it was probably they who also helped him shape and style his narrative”, Colley, L. *Captives, Britain, Empire and the World, 1600-1850*, (2002) p.92.</footnote>
l'avant-propos<sup>283</sup>. On peut cependant se demander pourquoi cette personne, ou ces personnes, ne sont pas identifiées dans le texte. Un examen approfondi des circonstances de ce soutien nous permettrait en effet d'en savoir bien davantage sur la structure de la publication, sur Okeley lui-même et sur les raisons pour lesquelles ce récit a été publié. Nous essaierons d'abord de montrer que l'aide qu'a reçue Okeley dans la rédaction de son texte provient non pas d'une source anglicane (l'église reconnue par l'Etat) mais d'un groupe de puritains dissidents exclus eux-mêmes du pouvoir et contestant l'ordre établi à la Restauration, y compris la domination de l'Eglise Anglicane. Nous tenterons ensuite de retracer le contexte politique dans les années 1670, concernant notamment l'état de la marine anglaise après les guerres anglo-hollandaises, la question concomitante de la corruption, et la crainte populaire d'un pouvoir absolutiste soutenu par les catholiques. Ceci afin d'expliquer pourquoi le texte d'Okeley ne paraît qu'en 1675 — soit trente ans après l'évasion de son auteur et ses compagnons d'Alger.

Son récit nous apprend qu'il fut capturé en juin 1639, et s'évada avec quatre autres esclaves chrétiens en juin 1644 ; il aura donc passé cinq années en captivité<sup>284</sup>. Okeley lui-même fit son retour en Angleterre en septembre 1644, arrivant au milieu de la guerre civile. Avec Cromwell, le parti des puritains, appuyé sur le « New Model Army », prend le pouvoir et exécute le roi. Afin de gagner la guerre civile, Cromwell avait accordé beaucoup de liberté d'expression aux sectaires protestants, les mobilisant notamment pour le recrutement de sa nouvelle armée et, plus tard, pour la constitution d'une marine. Cette licence inclut la liberté de prêcher, de publier et de se rassembler pour pratiquer sa religion. Dans les villes portuaires la population soutient majoritairement la cause parlementaire. Au début de la guerre civile le soutien des marins est d'une importance capitale pour les forces de Cromwell. Les marins, comme les soldats, sont pleinement impliqués dans les débats concernant l'avenir du pays. Mais la question de l'exécution du roi divise les forces antiroyalistes, et une partie de la marine se mutine en 1648 pour rejoindre les royalistes en Hollande. Toujours est-il que dans les années qui s'ensuivent, la marine est reconstituée par Cromwell, les conditions de travail améliorées, et les hommes restent globalement fidèles à la cause des puritains. Mais la mobilisation des éléments les plus pauvres de la société, et les attentes suscitées par la révolte contre l'ordre social établi ont convaincu les aristocrates et les marchands d'œuvrer pour faire rentrer celui qui incarne l'autorité royale, Charles Stuart, de son exil en France. La monarchie est restaurée en 1660.

C'est le moment de la revanche pour les royalistes, qui ne tardent pas à réoccuper les positions perdues pendant l'Interrègne. En ce qui concerne la marine, une nouvelle classe d'officiers issus de

<footnote n="283"><sup>283</sup> Okeley (1675), in Vitkus (2001) p. 145, « The Stuff and matter is my own, the Trimming and Form is anothers ». D. Vitkus, (ed) *Piracy, Slavery and Redemption; Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England*. New York, Columbia University Press, 2001.</footnote>

<footnote n="284"><sup>284</sup> Et non six, comme l'affirme L. Colley, *op. cit*, p. 92.</footnote>
l'aristocratie remplace les officiers de Cromwell. Jacques, le frère cadet du nouveau roi Charles, devient Amiral en Chef. Lorsque le nouveau parlement se réunit en mai 1661, une nouvelle série de lois, connue sous le titre du *Clarendon Code*, excluent les puritains de la vie publique. Ces lois tirent leur nom de celui du très ambitieux Henry Hyde, Comte de Clarendon, dont la fille sera mariée à Jacques, héritier du roi. Clarendon deviendra un objet de haine, non seulement pour les puritains mais aussi pour tous ceux qui s'opposent à la corruption de la vie publique sous la Restauration, comme le poète et parlementaire Andrew Marvell. Le but du *Clarendon Code* était de chasser les puritains de la vie publique, et l'un des premières étapes fut de les exclure des municipalités, où l'on ne peut siéger qu'à la condition d'accepter les dogmes de l'Eglise Anglicane. L'année d'après, l'Acte d'Uniformité obligea le clergé à se déclarer entièrement d'accord avec le rituel de l'Eglise Anglicane. C'est ainsi que 2000 ministères non-conformistes furent exclus de leurs paroisses. Il en allait de même pour les enseignants. Comme Morton nous le rappelle, c'est ainsi que les puritains furent exclus de l'appareil de l'Etat et de l'Eglise de l'Etat<fnref n="285" />. La loi régissant les conventicules, ces réunions de non-conformistes (1665) empêcha ceux-ci de se rassembler pour prier (ou discuter), interdisant toute pratique publique d'un culte en dehors de l'Eglise Anglicane. En plus, les lois imposèrent l'assiduité dominicale, rendant obligatoire la participation au culte anglican.

Pour les non-conformistes connaissant le régime ottoman, la liberté de culte qui régnait en pays d'Islam pouvait alors paraître bien avantageuse, par rapport à la répression en vigueur en Angleterre.

Ces lois rendent en effet très difficile pour qui que ce soit la publication d'un récit puritain, surtout au moment où l'Etat cherche à renforcer la hiérarchie anglicane. Courir le risque d'une incarcération, de la perte de son emploi peut-être — il y avait peu d'intérêt matériel à publier un récit explicitement puritain ; les raisons devaient donc être d'ordre idéologique.

*Ebenezer* est-il donc un récit puritain ? L'accent mis sur la Providence divine par l'auteur du récit situe celui-ci clairement dans la tradition calviniste. L'argument essentiel du puritanisme radical, la cause de son opposition à l'Etat et à l'Eglise repose, on le sait, sur la possibilité pour l'homme de raisonner sur les événements de sa vie, et de trouver lui-même leur sens en s'interrogeant sur la véritable signification de ces événements. Les puritains, loin d'être des libres-penseurs, prennent pour cela les Ecritures pour guide, ce qui explique leur insistance sur les textes de la Bible, et la multiplication des citations dans les textes puritains. En ceci ils se distinguent de ceux qui, comme les Episcopaliens, insistent sur la nécessité d'une intervention du clergé entre l'homme et son Dieu. Cet effort de réflexion sur la signification des événements de leur vie entraîne donc les puritains à écrire beaucoup, et leurs journaux intimes peuvent devenir des biographies spirituelles. Ils écrivaient

<footnote n="285">²⁸⁵ Morton, A.L. (1979) *A People's History of England*, p. 274-5. London, Lawrence & Wishart.</footnote>