From the multiple treatises and testimonies of the redemption of captives, beyond the historical knowledge of the religious, naval and adventurous life of the 16th and 17th centuries, we derive a very special poetics based on testimonies of concord, a corsair activity that dates back to the Middle Ages. The conflict between Christianity and Mohammedanism in the Mediterranean peoples through literature produced an extraordinarily fertile narrative that straddled document, legend and literary sociology.
Among these stories, the autobiographical 'El capitán cautivo' by Cervantes in Chapter XXXVII of the First Part of Don Quixote, starring Captain Ruy Pérez de Viedma, 'who in his costume showed himself to be a Christian recently come from the land of the Moors', stands out, set in the last third of the 16th century and an accurate and literary summary of what this activity between Spain and the Turkish Empire entailed. As well as an inexhaustible source of narrative moulds from tradition and folklore, such as the three sons who separate from their father to seek their fortune, the ogre's daughter or the two lovers who flee captivity together, the story offers a possible solution to the misunderstanding between the two cultures.
Scholars such as George Camamis claim that the protagonist's escape with Agi Morato's daughter is based on a narrative from the "Gesta Romanorum" (14th century), first printed in 1470. The core of the interracial love story has also been linked to the "Ninth Amusement" of the third day of Giambattista Basile's "Pentameron", from which famous universal fables derive, from "Cinderella" to "Puss in Boots", taken up by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, collected by the Neapolitan Giambattista Basile, who published them at the beginning of the 17th century in the Neapolitan Baroque dialect. Although the Italian narrative contains, as is usual for the writer, very characteristic elements of a magical nature, Cervantes' narrative contains historical details.
The story is well known: a Christian in Barbary abducts a girl, Zoraida, with whom he has fallen in love, the young form then conspires and foments rebellion against her possessive father. Finally, the daughter flees with her Christian lover, departs with her grief-stricken father's immense wealth - a treasure that will eventually be irretrievably lost by the looting of the French during the flight - voluntarily undergoes a conversion to Christianity under the name of Maria and marries Ruy. The Christian affiliation of the hero and the anti-Christian (either Jewish or Muslim) affiliation of the betrayed "ogre" father (in reality a victim) and the necessary conversion of the prodigal daughter are thus clear. Of particular interest here is the concept of cultural encounter and hybridisation: Ruy is no longer the first-born son of a fallen noble house who has given himself up to military life, but has become Islamised - his Moorish appearance gives him away - in the same way that the Saracen Zoraida has become Christianised: "See if you can do how we go, and you will be my husband there, if you wish, and if you do not wish, nothing will be given to me; for Lela Marién [the Virgin Mary] will give me whom I marry".
Certainly, between the coasts of La Bebería and Andalusia, there was a large trade in abduction and slavery: Muslims and Christians captured individuals of different confessions to offer them their freedom in exchange for a ransom. Agents quickly emerged in Castile who specialised in the redemption of these captives held by the Muslims. The alfaqueques, for example, were dedicated to redemption and their activity was regulated by Title XXX of the "Partidas" of Alfonso X the Wise, which states that the redeemer must possess up to six virtues necessary to exercise this office and even how to make the journey. Moreover, this Corsican activity gave rise to the foundation of two religious orders, the Order of the Trinity and the Order of the Merced, and their redeemer friars were famous for their adventures; finally, other people through private initiative, without submitting to any rules, also carried out multiple redemptions, such as merchants, who quickly paid the ransom for cases of urgency. For example, " El Tratado de la redención de cautivos" (1603) and the "Peregrinación de Anastasio" narrate in autobiographical terms the vicissitudes of the imprisonment of the religious Jerónimo Gracián Dantisco (1545-1614), a formidable testimony of Christian captivity in Tunisia, as opposed to other texts set in the kingdom of Morocco and the city of Algiers. The "Relación del cautiverio y libertad de Diego Galán", a native of the town of Consuegra and resident of the city of Toledo, also stands out. It contains the thrilling autobiographical account of the young Diego, who was captured by Algerian pirates between the age of 14 and the age of 25, when he managed to return to his native Toledo after eleven years of vicissitudes. This work, halfway between a memoir and an adventure novel, takes place between Algiers and Constantinople, and presents knowledge of the Mediterranean and its cultures as the fruit of a necessary curiosity and a desire for novelty and astonishment: "I was born with the inclination to see the world and new things every day".
On the other hand, the "Tratado para confirmar los pobres cautivos de Berbería", by Cipriano de Valera (1531-¿?) - the first translator of the Bible into Spanish - was printed to confirm the poor captives of Barbary in the Catholic and ancient Christian faith and religion, thus providing solid arguments for those captured by the Algerian and Moroccan corsairs, in order to defend their beliefs with irrefutable premises in the face of attacks by the Muslims and also by the papists. The ransomed, mostly men but also women and children, were sold and ended up in Fez, Algiers, Tetouan, Oran and Tremecén, sometimes for several years, until they were ransomed. It is interesting to note here that they could not always be freed; many, in fact, apostatised and went on to profess the Muslim religion and others died waiting for freedom, as pointed out by one of the great experts on this issue, the researcher Lucía Andújar Rodríguez. Also, in its most extreme and experiential reality, the integration of some old Christians into Islam tells us about a lesser-known reality, but undoubtedly the result of the need for survival and, of course, of the coexistence between two cultures too close to ignore each other.
David Felipe Arranz (Valladolid, 1975) is a philologist, journalist, comparativist and associate professor of Communication at the Carlos III University of Madrid. He has directed the cultural and radio magazine 'El Marcapáginas' since 2000 and is the author of some fifteen books on politics, literature and film.
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Poetics of Captivity: Cervantes and Ransoms in the Mediterranean - Atalayar EN
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