All of these things have been ordained by Jesus Christ to be fulfilled in this order -- to uphold and increase the important work of mercy implicit in visiting and redeeming Cbristian captives from the power of Saracens and of others who are against our law.For this specifically God has established this order.⁽¹⁾

     The liberation of captives was the sole work that justified the existence of the Brothers of Ransom in the thirteenth century although it is easy to lose sight of this central reality amid the sort of economic and institutional survivals that document their medieval activities. Only the kind of corporate self-definition, as that cited above from the Constitutions, or the body of promotional correspondence that was issued on the Order's behalf reminds us that Mercedarians were, above all, ransomers. Jaume I remembered this in 1251 by depicting the liberation of captives as holding "the first place among the other virtues" to justify the taking of Mercedarians under his protection.⁽²⁾ His grandson, Jaume II, similarly in 1302 characterized Mercedarians as those who, in emulation of Christ's redemptive sacrifice, freed Christians from barbarian custody, using their own monies and the alms of the faithful.⁽³⁾ Pope Nicholas III's words to the effect that Mercedarians were those who daily placed themselves in bodily danger to free captives typify the sentiments expressed in a succession of pontifical privileges.⁽⁴⁾ This identification of Mercedarians as ransomers can also be seen on the popular level, where wills rarely evoked the Order's patrons, Santa Eulàlia or Santa Maria, but instead used these more descriptive appelations: fratres captivorum, fratres de mercede captivorum, domus captivorum, ordo mercedis captivorum, or ordo captivorum.⁽⁵⁾

    While a close popular association between Mercedarians and [104] captives is therefore indisputable, the precise character of the aid that the brothers actually proffered captives remains to be studied adequately. We know that captives were redeemed, but their identities, numbers, and provenance are uncertain. To date, the only guides to these questions have been provided by hagiographers, whose descriptions can be aptly labeled gross exaggerations at best. Medieval sources themselves are exasperatingly sparse in this area; almost nothing of a redemptionist nature has survived from the thirteenth century, and only a handful of ransoming narratives are available from the fourteenth. Thus our attempt to reconstruct the character of this work -- so obviously important, given the elaborate structure that was raised in its support -- can only be tentative in character and approximate in its conclusions.

    In the thirteenth century, we do know that Mercedarians provided two very different, although related, services to captive Christians. To some, they gave all or part of the ransom money, while others were personally and directly liberated and escorted home by the brethren. In the former instance, Mercedarians functioned only indirectly as ransomers; more important here was their collection of alms and revenues for the redemption of captives by others, and the selection of those to be helped. It is only with the second category of captives that Mercedarians personally travelled as redeemers to the lands of Islam to haggle for captives. It is impossible to estimate which of these two categories of assistance was the larger in the thirteenth century. Instances of both types are known and consequently coexisted as aspects of the dual nature of Mercedarian redemptionism.

    Evidence of Mercedarians as dispensers of alms, i.e., ransom money, to needy captives dates from the movement's very inception. Pere Nolasc, the founder, makes his initial historical appearance in 1230 and 1231 as "the collector and custodian" of the alms for captives.⁽⁶⁾ Wills of 1230 and 1233 bequeath small sums that were to be turned over to Brother Pere for the redemption of captives;⁽⁷⁾ subsequent references to the founder similarly depict him not so much as a ransomer but as an alms collector.⁽⁸⁾ His earliest associates are identified in like fashion: Joan de Llaés in 1234 as "procurator" of the charity of captives and Domènec d'Olit as a collector of alms.⁽⁹⁾ Consequently, it seems likely that the solicitation of alms for captives, and not their actual liberation, was an important, and perhaps the primary, concern of the first Mercedarians. In this way, the young Order functioned as a supplement to the already well-established tradition [105] that entrusted to local clergy and the executors of wills the charitable assistance of needy captives.

    This aspect of the Mercedarian mission was never entirely supplanted in the medieval era by the better-known work of direct ransoming. The documents contain a consistent record of such grants of money to captives. For example, as early as August 28, 1238, two former captives are seen reimbursing the commander of Valencia, Brother Joan Verdera, for the 205 besants that had been expended in their ransoming from Játiva.⁽¹⁰⁾ While in this instance it is unclear whether Mercedarians or others had freed Arnau Miquel and Llofriu de Palafrugell, additional grants of money given out by the house at Tarragona were clearly allocated for captives not personally liberated by any of the brethren. Several of these subsidies were in fact partial and supplemented by alms from the local cathedral. Charters of 1244 and 1255, for instance, show Brother Bernat de Tonyà, the resident Mercedarian commander, acting in concert with two archdiocesan officials. In 1244 the three gave 200s. of Barcelona to a local couple, who then in turn entrusted it to Bernat de Curciano for the rescue from Almería of Robí de Na Piles. Another 150s. was handed over in 1255 to free Bernat Morató from the "land of the Saracens"; the Order and the cathedral offered still another 120s. in alms to Bernat Arrufat and his wife toward the ransom of their son Arnau.⁽¹¹⁾ The house of Tarragona was not unique in disbursing this type of alms. A grant from the commander of Gerona was forthcoming on February 22, 1265, when Bernat Porter of Majorca acknowledged the receipt of fifty besants to be used in freeing a number of Catalans from Sant Feliu de Guíxols who were held as captives in Ceuta.⁽¹²⁾ In another example from the Gerona house, Commander Berenguer d'Hostoles gave 100s. on January 2, 1320, to Guillem de Petra of the parish of Sant Esteve as a subsidy for the ransom of his son, who had been taken, along with several confederates, as captive to Bougie. It is informative to note that Guillem was directed to Brother Berenguer by the local bailiff and the almoner of his parish, suggesting the development of the Order's reputation as the normal source of such help.⁽¹³⁾

    An especially detailed account of how Mercedarians aided captives of a particular locality is extant from the house of Vich. This evidence is in the form of an undated memorial, written in Catalan, that reports the assistance given by the Mercedarian brothers Ramon de Casa and Guillem de Quadres to sixty-two residents of the town and its district. The document, which we now know only from an eighteenth-century copy, seems to span a broad period of the [106] thirteenth and the early fourteenth centuries.⁽¹⁴⁾ The two named ransomers, for instance, do not seem to have been contemporaries. Other evidence places Guillem de Quadres at Vich on January 5 and 9, 1254, and Ramon de Casa at Tarragona on March 24, 1315.⁽¹⁵⁾ Information concerning other individuals mentioned in the document is consistent with this time span. One ransomed captive, Bernat Martí of Manresa, is said to have been held at Valencia, and this would indicate a date for his redemption before 1250; the Bishop Ponç who was mentioned would have to be Ponç de Vilaró, who served in the See of Vich between 1302 and 1306.⁽¹⁶⁾ Thus, it seems probable that this document represents the ransoming work of the Mercedarians of Vich from their arrival at the middle of the thirteenth century until some point in the early fourteenth century.

    In form, the Vich document is a register of the formal ransoming contracts consummated with the captives or their relatives that were mandated by section 30 of the Constitutions. The latter required that commanders, whenever any aid was extended to a captive, draw up an agreement that acknowledged: (a) the captive's name and the site of his incarceration; (b) the sum of money turned over to the captive, his ransomer, or family; and (c) a promise that the money would be returned to the Order if, for any reason, it was not actually used to free the captive who was named. Several examples of such contracts have survived from the house at Tarragona.⁽¹⁷⁾  The Vich register summarizes all the variable elements of these contracts (i.e., the identity of the captive and the amount tendered in aid) while omitting the standard fiduciary clause that would be common to all of the contracts. The total amount of aid recorded is in excess of 3,500s. of Barcelona. Such a large amount, relative to the modest income of the typical Mercedarian house, and the disorganized and repetitive nature of the register itself confirm that what is recorded represents the alms given to captives over several decades.

    Sixty-two captives, according to this source, were given subsidies that ranged in amount from 300s. of Barcelona down to 12d.; most grants were for sums less than 100s. In a few instances, it appears that the captive's ransom was paid in its entirety: 200s. for Gerard Descomí of Castellaudí and 300s. for Bernat, son of Guillem Pere of Manresa, who was a captive in Almería. The bulk of these Mercedarian grants, however, are far smaller: 15s. for Guillem de Rafeques; 7s. for Guillem d'Oló of the parish of Sant Feliu of Tarrasa; and 40s. for Gilabert Miquel, the son of Ramon Miquel of Vich. Given the going rate for captives, perhaps 150 to 200s. or more, such sums can represent onlv a partial contribution toward the total [107] ransom. One entry in the register tells us that 60s. had been given to Pere Mateu of Vich, this upon the rccommendation of Bishop Ponç, thus suggesting that here, as in Tarragona, the Order worked cooperatively with episcopal almoners in assisting captive residents. Additional evidence for this type of cooperation comes from the archbishop of Tarragona's letter of 1256, Pope Nicholas IV's instruction to the bishop of Saragossa in 1291, and Clement V's general privilege 1305 , all of which mandated that undesignated legacies for captives be turned over to Mercedarians for distribution to captives.⁽¹⁸⁾ These funds, if the evidence of the Vich register is to be trusted, were in turn used in the aid of captives from the same rcgion.⁽¹⁹⁾ This was a prudent policy from the Order's point of view, since this local application of its charity would thereby develop ties with the communities in which it was located and thus enhance the continuing effort at raising additional alms.

    An example of the type of response that these Mercedarian appeals could evoke from the local community comes in the form of one-time grants or else continuing endowments for use as ransoms. Some of these were designated specifically for captives from a particular localityy; others had no such explicit limitations. In 1245, for example, one Gerald Adroer promised the Barcelona house one mitgera of barley each year "to redeem Christian captives who are held in chains by the Saracens."⁽²⁰⁾ In 1251, Bernat de Tonyà, the commander of Tarragona, accepted from the executors of Pere de Vich a census of 10s. to be paid each year on the feast of Sant Marc for the relief of captives.⁽²¹⁾ Another offering of a mitgera of barley was given on May 8, 1254, to the commander of Gerona as alms for captives.⁽²²⁾ More specific conditions are apparent in the gift to the preceptor of Perpignan in 1331 of 30s. per year for the ransoming of any captive from the port of Collioure who could be identified by the chaplain of Santa Anna's altar in the local church of Santa Maria.⁽²³⁾ Similar is the stipulation made by, Benet Bordits, a cloth merchant of Gerona, whose gift of 1332 was received by the Order "as aid in redeeming one captive who is from the city of Gerona."⁽²⁴⁾ It is probable that each Mercedarian house received a number of these endowments, whose individual or even cumulative value would be insufficient to redeem even a single captive. While such funds may well have been forwarded to the general chapter, the demands of the donor and those of good politics would suggest that priority to local captives was given in their disbursement. Such a hypothesis would at least accord with the evidence of the Vich register.

    This is not to suggest that the Order never paid the total cost of [107] a ransoming. The Tarragona contracts, for example, call for subsidies that range from 100s. to 200s., amounts easily within the going rate for captives.⁽²⁵⁾ Likewise, of the sixty-two Christians aided at Vich, at least three were redeemed fully with Mercedarian resources and another dozen, who were given between 100s. and 140s., may also have received sums approaching a full subsidy.⁽²⁶⁾ Most of the others, however, were awarded far less, and this suggests that the Order's resources were never entirely equal to the actual demand for assistance. Mercedarians were thus forced to dole out alms in smaller amounts, in the expectation that the balance could be made up by other local sources of charity, or else by the captive's family.

    In the second and more dramatic form of Mercedarian assistance directed toward captives, brothers themselves travelled to the towns of Muslim Spain and North Africa to negotiate and arrange for the liberation of Christian captives. Such ransomings provided the material out of which later Mercedarians wove the legends concerning the heroic first generation of redeemers. According to these accounts, for example, Pere Nolasc, not only the Order's founder but also the first of its ransomers, personally liberated some 1,400 captives. Ramon Nonat, a Catalan so-named on account of his Cesarean birth, risked his life and had his lips pierced with a hot iron and then padlocked while freeing Christians from Algiers and Bougie, and then in 1236 suffered martyrdom. The first English Mercedarian, Brother Serapi, was also martyred, this in 1240 while rescuing eighty-seven Christians from Algiers. Tunis was the site in 1247 of the martyrdom of another early ransomer, Pere de Sant Dionisi. These heroic figures and other Merecidarians, the legends aver, freed thousands of Christians in the thirteenth century from the ports of Africa and Granada and, at the same time, gave testimony to the truth and power of the Gospel. The extant record of the Order's ransomings unfortunately provides us with a dramatically less colorful and much more modest account of thirteenth-century happenings. Nonetheless, it is indisputable that these Mercedarians did more than collect and disburse alms; they also regularly travelled into the Muslim world to liberate captives.⁽²⁷⁾

    These expeditions into the lands of Islam, involving, as we shall see, efforts to free groups rather than specific individuals, were to all appearances projects organized by the entire Order at its annual chapter, which met early in May. Here, the Constitutions tell us, commanders were ordered to deliver whatever alms had been collected, presumably to be used as ransoms, as well as those monies [109] entrusted to the Order for designated individuals. These funds were then entrusted to specially appointed brothers called redeemers.⁽²⁸⁾ A constitutional document of 1311 defines the procedure more precisely in specifying the election of two such ransomers, one cleric and another laic, but this practice surely endured no longer than a few years afterward, since by 1318 or 1319 the clerical brothers had effectively plurged their lay colleagues from most important offices.⁽²⁹⁾ Likewise, it seems probable that for much of the thirteenth century both redeemers were lay brothers. The general procedure by which these officials were selected is confirmed in a document of 1366 that speaks of two redeemers being "assigned and appointed by the . . . Order generally, and by the master general of the Order to be redeemers of Christian captives from the power of the Saracens who are held in the regions of Barbarv.⁽³⁰⁾ This custom of appointing two redeemers each year is generally substantiated by records that show Mercedarians travelling in pairs on missions of 1296, 1311, 1361, 1371, 1373, 1388, and 1409, but there were exceptions. Only one brother appears to have been sent to Granada in 1373, while three went there in 1368.⁽³¹⁾ In any case, this work of ransoming was not for any and all Mercedarians, but ony for a smaller elite, almost always chosen from among the ranks of commanders.⁽³²⁾ We can only speculate as to the reasons for this. Was it because only their presumably longer tenure as Mercedarians would ensure trustworthiness with the alms entrusted to them? Or would only such senior brothers possess the prudence and experience necessary for the success of the mission? We know the identities of too few ransomers to come to any, general conclusions concerning the process of selection, but it does appear that no particular commandery, as for example one at a port or along the frontier, had a special claim upon the office. Rather, this position seems to have rotated widely among all of the commanders.

    As to specific qualifications for the office of redeemer, the Constitutions mandated only two, and these do reflect a certain caution. First, redeemers should be temperate, avoiding excess of food and drink, and so be physically capable of the arduous journey by land or sea. Second, redeemers should also be wise and knowledgeable in the purchase of captives, an admonition that conceivably rail the gamut from acquaintance with the current prices for captives, the ability to haggle and get along with Muslim traders, and experience with the route of travel to their destination.⁽³³⁾

    Of the earliest Mercedarian ransoming missions almost nothing is known, but in all probability many of these involved liberations [110] across the battle lines of the Valencian wars. In 1238, for example, Arnau Miquel and Llofriu, both presumably Catalans from Palafrugell, acknowledged the debt that they owed to the commander of the just-founded Mercedarian house of Valencia, Joan Verdera, because of their ransoming from Játiva.⁽³⁴⁾ In 1244, Sir Carròs conferred upon the Order lands in the frontier district of Rebollet in return for services that Merced had rendered to him, and these were presumably redemptionist.⁽³⁵⁾ In 1245, Jaume I turned over the old Christian fonduk at Denia on the condition that the Order use it as a hospice for poor captives, who would assuredly be redeemed from the as yet unpacified south.⁽³⁶⁾ Thus, despite little direct evidence, the ransoming that Mercedarians did during the war for Valencia cannot be doubted.

    The later thirteenth, fourteenth, and later centuries see the establishment of new geographical routes of ransoming to Africa and Granada -- this as a consequence of two events. First, with the pacification of the Balearics, Valencia, and neighboring Murcia, ransoming could no longer be effected at nearby ports and towns. For Catalan-Aragonese Mercedarians, such missions would now require a journey to Málaga, Almería, or Granada, or to one of the various ports in North Africa. Second, the establishment of regular treaty relationships between the kings of Catalonia-Aragon and the rulers of Granada, Morocco, and Tunis provided a set of rules and procedures for what was becoming a regular form of commerce. Mercedarian ransomings after 1296, at which date a semblance of a record begins, are thus journeys to these locations: Granada, Málaga, Almería, Tunis, Bougie, and Bône. In travelling to and from these areas, Merced's ransomers were under the protection and safeguard (the medieval term is guidaticum) of the Catalan-Aragonese monarchs, as well as of the ruler of the Muslim land to which they travelled. Jaume I had issued a guidaticum to the Order as early as 1251, and this was periodically reconfirmed by him and by his successors.⁽³⁷⁾ This passport exempted ransomers from the payment of taxes and customs on money or goods used as ransoms and also forbade any subject capriciously to arrest, detain, or impede them during their journey. Similar protection was sought on the Muslim side, as is illustrated by three such requests sent on May 15, 1300, by Jaume II to the rulers of Granada, Almería, and Málaga.⁽³⁸⁾ King Pere III likewise wrote letters of introduction for Mercedarian ransomers in 1345, 1368, 1371, 1373, and 1378.⁽³⁹⁾

    The ability to travel unmolested and free from the threat of [111] being taken captive themselves, as guaranteed by these guidatica, was thus essential to the completion of any ransomer's mission. Parallel examples can also be given for nonreligious ransomers, the so-called exeas and alfaqueques. For instance, Pere III recounts in his letter of June 10, 1371, to Muhammad V of Granada the adventures of Berenguer des Archs, a Christian exea who had ransomed several Muslim captives on Ibiza some three or four years earlier. When his ship was captured en route to Granada, the Muslim monarch had Berenguer freed because of the guidaticum Muhammad had previously granted.⁽⁴⁰⁾ That similar security was expected by Mercedarians is evident from Jaume II's complaint to the Granadan ruler in September 1296 regarding the latter's seizure of two Mercedarians in Granada as retaliation for the arrest at Seville of certain Granadans.⁽⁴¹⁾ Jaume here reminded his Muslim counterpart that Mercedarians by custom had safe-passage while redeeming in Granada, and that the capture of these Catalan-Aragonese ransomers and their liberated captives could do nothing to effect the release of Granadans from Castilian Seville. Thus, King Jaume here reiterated the long-term custom of free passage for redeemers, without which the trade in captives, which benefited both sides, could not exist.

    The degree of danger to which Mercedarians exposed themselves while ransoming has been the subject of much discussion, especially in light of the special, or fourth, vow of religion that came to be required of members of the Order. First enunciated explicitly in the formula of profession contained in the Constitutions that were promulgated in 1588 by Master Francisco Salazar, this vow enjoined Mercedarians to substitute themselves for captives if this were necessary for their liberation. Thus the postulant promised: "that I will remain, held as a pledge, in the power of the Saracens if this be necessary for the redemption of Christ's faithful."⁽⁴²⁾ At issue is whether this noble and heroic practice of substitution was in origin medieval, or whether it reflected a later usage.

    Mercedarian historians, while acknowledging the absence of any direct mention of this vow either in the Constitutions of 1272 or in those promulgated by Master Ramon Albert in 1327, nevertheless aver that the vow of redemption, or fourth vow, is a part of the earliest Mercedarian traditions, and that its practice is implied in the documentation of the medieval era.⁽⁴³⁾ There is in fact no lack of contemporary witness to the dangers encountered by thirteenth-century Mercedarians. Papal letters of indulgence especially, in their effort to portray the brethren as worthy recipients of alms, consistently [112] pointed out the hazards of religious ransoming. Alexander IV thus wrote in 1255 that Mercedarians not only collected alms for captives but also did not shrink from risking their own souls for their brothers, namely captives.⁽⁴⁴⁾ In 1258, this same pontiff was even more graphic in citing the physical dangers, including that of death, that were encountered in rescuing such Christians.⁽⁴⁵⁾ Nicholas III in 1278 told the faithful that these ransomers daily placed their bodies in danger of death and went on to quote scripture to the effect that no greater love exists than that shown by one who lays down his life for a friend.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Finally, and most pointedly, Boniface VIII in 1297 reported that the Brothers of Santa Eulàlia travelled beyond the seas for the redemption of captives and there pledged themselves and placed themselves in great danger on behalf of captives.⁽⁴⁷⁾

    The exact nature of this danger, however, is never described in these pontifical privileges. Thus, it is not clear whether these popes were alluding to special dangers attendant on practices such as substitution or to hazards encountered by anyone who regularly plied the sea routes to North Africa: capture by pirates or else arrest and imprisonment by Muslim authorities. Some evidence, namely Jaume II's letter of January 4, 1302, and another sent by the consuls of Segorbe in 1303 to Pope Boniface VIII, even alludes to the possibility of the brethren having to engage in armed conflict, but this has no other confirmation; besides, any fighting, except perhaps in self-defense, would be incompatible with the status of ransomers as protected intermediaries.⁽⁴⁸⁾ The Constitutions of 1272 also fail to give us a clear picture of the dangers faced by the brothers: "Let all the brothers of this order always appear to be happy if it is their office to give their life, just as Jesus Christ gave his for us."⁽⁴⁹⁾ Therefore, apart from these general allusions to physical risks encountered by ransomers, there is no direct evidence for the medieval practice of the fourth vow.

    Is there, on the other hand, evidence that belies the existence of the fourth vow in this era? The few surviving accounts of Mercedarian ransomings make no mention of this custom. The missions of 1361 and 1366, for example, were simple exchanges of money for captives. Extant details from the ransoming of 1388 make clear that the two Mercedarian ransomers bypassed an opportunity to practice substitution. These, we are told, freed thirty-eight individuals from "the very great number of Christians who are captive in the city of Bougie by the Saracens." Because the Mercedarians lacked the funds to free more than these, they both returned to Valencia to ask the [113] administrator of the diocese, Cardinal Jaume, to proclaim an indulgence for those who would respond to the ransomers' plea for additional money.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Presumably, in the minds of these redeemers, freedom for one or two additional Christians among so many still being held at Bougie, was not considered to be worth the risk of substitution, or else this particular custom had not yet become established among the brethren.

    In sum, therefore, the evidence weighs against the medieval practice of substitution, although of course this is not to deny that some high-minded Mercedarian ransomer might at some time have offered himself in trade for a captive. It can be argued that the very idea of substitution, however heroic, was not terribly practical and in fact belied the hard-nosed approach to ransoming that seems to have characterized Mercedarian attitudes. It does seem doubtful that these experienced traders would have endangered, by so incapacitating one or both of the appointed ransomers, a year's ransoming mission and subsequent alms collection money to liberate one or two additional Christians from the crowded slave markets of North Africa. Finally, we have no evidence that an astute Muslim trader would be willing to let a possibly well-worn Mercedarian stand as a substitute for a younger and stronger Christian captive.

    If the resources of the Order of Merced were unable to meet completely the needs of all Christian captives, can we arrive at some estimate of the numbers whom the Order did succeed in liberating? Various estimates of these have been made by Mercedarian historians, most comprehensively by Antonio Gari y Siumell. He counts 65 separate redemptions for the period 1218 to 1295 -- 31 to peninsular locales, 33 to African, and 1 to an uncertain locale -- that freed a total of 9,727 captives in groups that ranged in size from 27 to 526.⁽⁵¹⁾ This would yield an annual total of approximately 125 liberated Christians. Estimating their ransom to be in the range of 150s. each, such a number would thus have required the Order to expend each year almost 19,000s. in ransoms. An effort of this magnitude strains one's credulity in light of the much lower revenue estimates that we have adduced from the Mercedarian domain, particularly in the first half of the thirteenth century. In any case, there is simply no evidence upon which to base the sort of year-by-year chronicle of Mercedarian ransomings that has been produced by this author. If we turn to the scattering of evidence that has actually survived, we are presented with a more modest appraisal of the Order's accomplishments.

    The earliest Mercedarian ransomings for which evidence has [114] survived are those to Tunis (1361), Bône (1366), and Bougie (1388). The first is known from two charters dating from the summer of 1361. The first charter, of July 20, recollects the sale to the Mercedarian Bernat Aymà, commander of Tarragona, and Francesc Serra, commander of Gerona, by a resident of Barcelona of his Muslim slave, who was then to be exchanged for one Jaume Martí, a resident of Tarragona being held captive at Tunis.⁽⁵²⁾ A second charter, dated September 10, records the exchange in the city of Tunis of some 343 gold florins by a Christian merchant so that these same ransomcrs could free several other Christians from captivity.⁽⁵³⁾ The second ransoming, known from a charter redacted at Palma on July 8, 1366, produced the liberation by the commanders of Tarragona and Olivar of twelve captives (who were natives of Catalonia, Valencia, Sicily Majorca, and Sardinia) from their imprisonment at Bône and Collo in North Africa.⁽⁵⁴⁾ The third documented ransoming, that of 1388, saw the commanders of Barcelona and Sagunto free from Bougie thirty-eight captives, who were natives of Valencia, Catalonia, and Aragon. These, we are told, were rescued from the large Christian slave population there at a cost of 3,840 gold duplae.⁽⁵⁵⁾

    What these rare accounts suggest is that Mercedarian commanders during the summers made regular journeys to Africa or to Granada to rescue Christians. Ransoms were paid in money (or perhaps merchandise?) or through the exchange of a Muslim captive. Christians so freed tended to be natives of the Crown of Aragon, and in the case of Jaume Martí could be a specific individual singled out by the Order for redemption. But in general it seems that Mercedarians were not seeking out individuals but rather tried to free as many countrymen as funds would allow -- the lack of sufficient money, as the 1388 charter makes clear, forced the Order to engage in a process of selection, but how and according to what standards this was done is unclear. If the numbers represented by these charters are at all typlcal, then Mercedarians, even if we add an annual Granadan mission to the African, were responsible for freeing several dozen captives each year, not the hundreds of legend.

    This more-modest estimate accords well with other evidence. The Vich register, that early fourteenth-century account of the ransoming efforts of an individual Mercedarian house, reports aid that was presumably proffered over a period of decades to only sixty-two captives and, of these, fewer than a half dozen appear to have been directly ransomed by Mercedarians. The fifty besants paid in 1265 to Bernat Porter of Majorca for the ransom of Catalans from Ceuta [115] could not have freed more than a handful.⁽⁵⁶⁾ Likewise, when the master in 1409 gave his ransomers permission to borrow between five and six hundred gold Aragonese florins for use as ransoms, he could not have expected the liberation of many more than a dozen Christians.⁽⁵⁷⁾ Non-Mercedarian evidence also supports these more-modest estimates of freed captives. For example, in 1361 Pere III set at liberty a party of seven Muslims from Valencia; in 1365 he requested that fifteen be freed from custody on Majorca; and in 1367 he asked the ruler of Granada to let go ten or twelve of his own subjects.⁽⁵⁸⁾ Given the much larger number of Christians held captive in Muslim lands, these modest levels of redemption suggest that ransoming helped only a fraction of all such captives, thus highlighting its importance for those who sought and actually achieved liberation.

    The principal difference between Mercedarian ransomings and those negotiated by the king or by merchants is their eleemosynary character. While there are a few, and usually early, instances where the Order accepted money in return for its services,⁽⁵⁹⁾ the general impression -- and in fact the credibility of the Order's entire alms campaign rested on this assumption -- is that captives were ransomed at no charge to themselves. Papal bulls, donative charters, and the Order's own Constitutions consistently refer to captives as the poor, whose needs are presumably to be assuaged with the alms of the faithful; several instances have already been cited that demonstrated how the Order handed over such monies to captives. Consequently, Mercedarians probably aimed at helping the less-than-great, who themselves lacked the means and funds to effect their own liberation through private or royal channels. Merchants, sailors, hijackcd travellers, and coastal residents were the sort of people helped. Such is suggested by the bequest in 1331 to the Mercedarians of Perpignan of a modest annual income for use in ransoming any of the donor's neighbors who might be captured.⁽⁶⁰⁾

    The clearest evidence that captives were normally not expected to reimburse the Order for the amount of their ransom is the requirement first stated in the Constitutions, and then enforced with great diligence and vigor, that captives must serve the Order for a period of time after their release, during which time they were to assist in the collection of alms.⁽⁶¹⁾ That such service was regarded by Mercedarians as a kind of repayment on the part of captives for their liberation can be deduced from the contract that was signed in the summer of 1366 between the commanders of Olivar and Tarragona and the captives whom they had just freed from Bône and Collo.⁽⁶²⁾ [116] Here the twelve freed Christians acknowledged their gratitude to their redeemers, who had undergone hardship and difficulties in effecting the redemption. As a consequence, each individually swore an oath on the Gospels and did homage to the Order, promising to observe the custom of serving Merced for six months, beginning with the day that each set foot in Catalonia or in the kingdom of Valencia. In order to guarantee the payment of this service, Brothers Francesc Bou and Bernat Muner insisted that this agreement first be signed in Africa, immediately after their liberation, and then be registered at the party's first Christian landfall, in this case at Palma on Majorca. Clearly such care was taken with the composition and preservation of this contract because it represented for the Order a valuable property right, one that could easily be ignored by once-grateful captives after their return home. Thus, the Mercedarian custom was to buy freedom for captives with alms at no direct cost to the captives, but then to insist that this be repaid with service that would in turn replenish the Order's coffers. This bartering of service for a ransom further reinforces our impression that the Order served the less-than-wealthy, "the poor of Christ."

    The form of redemptionism practiced by the Mercedarian Order, as we have now seen, united and elaborated upon the two typical methods for assisting Hispanic Christians who had been captured. Through direct grants made by its regional superiors, Merced subsidized the ransoming of those who managed to negotiate their own liberation. For others incapable of such self-help, the Order also sent redeemers to Muslim locales to free whomever of its countrymen that its funds allowed. Here it came to face the unpleasant tasks of selecting whom to help and of enforcing a service obligation upon those fortunate enough to be chosen. Its ability, however, to establish and maintain this work demonstrates the successful marriage of religion and charity in thirteenth-century Christian Europe.

1. Constitutions, Prologue.

2. Documentos de Jaume I, 3: 30-31, no. 569.

3. ACA, Cartas Reales, 1335.

4. Bullarium de Mercede, 24 (August 5, 1278).

5. So, for example, King Pere II addressed Mercedarians as the "Brothers of Ransom of the Order of Captives": ACA, Pere II, Reg. Canc., 57: 229r, also, Guilleuma de Cerveria in 1243 gave her 20s. to the "House of Captives of Barcelona": ACB, Calix 32-B, 9'est., Testag, no. 127.

6. ACA, Monacales, 2679:37r, ACB, DC(d), 1246, cap. 14.

7. ACA, Monacales, 2679:37r; ACB, DB, 1/2 escala, no. 602.

8. In 1232, Nolasc is the "procurator" of the alms for captives (ACA, Monacales, 2676:390rv); in 1234, "rector of the alms for captives" (ibid., 143rv); and in 1243, the "minister of the alms for captives" (ibid., 381v).

9. AHN, Clero, carp. 76, no. 11; ACA, Monacales, 2679:38r.

10. ACA, Monacales, 2676:7r-8r.

11. Ibid., 136v-137r.

12. Ibid., 9rv.

13. Ibid., 5r-6r.

14. Ibid., 2682:17-20; 2676:27r-29r.

15. Ibid., 2679: 155rv, 69r.

16. For Bishop Ponç, see Costa y Bafarull, Memorias de Solsona, 1: 267-68, 2: 628.

17. ACA, Monacales, 2676:136r- 138r. For examples of contracts negotiated between merchants and captives, see P. Malausséna, "Promissio redemptionis, le rachat des captifs chrétiens en pays musulmans à la fin du XIVe siècle," Annales du Midi 8o (1968): 255-81.

18. ACA, Monacales, 2675: 36; Bullarium de Mercede, 27, 35.

19. Such captives were residents of Vich itself, and of Tarrasa, Manresa, Gurb, Tona, Ripoll, Seva, Tarradell, and hamlets of the area.

20. ACA, Monacales, 2676: 188rv.

21. Ibid., 216rv.

22. Ibid., A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 11.

23. Ibid., 2676: 76rv.

24. Guilleré, "Assistance à Gerone," in Riu, La pobreza en Cataluña, 1: 192.

25. ACA, Monacales, 2676: 136r-138r.

26. The following amounts were paid out to these captives: Bernat of Manresa (300s.), Gerard Descomí (230s.), a resident of  Ponç de Cabrianes (200s.), Nadal Cornell's son from Vich (140s.), N'Andreu Sariba of Tona' son (100s.), Na Bonfilia of Vich' son (100s.), Ulardel of Torelló's son (100s.), a captive of Satorra (120s.), Bernat Desplá of Manresa (100s.), Segard from Manresa (120s.), Romeu Sarroca of Manresa (100s.), Pere Nadal of Vich's son (100s.), Bernat Martí of Manresa (100s.), and Codinet and his nephew (210s.).

27. The fullest account of these legends is contained in José Antonio Garí y Siumell, La Orden redentora. The author tells us that his relation of redemptions is drawn from these earlier sources: Bernardo de Vargas, Chronica sacri et militaris ordinis B. Mariae de Mercede redemptionis captivorum (Palermo, 1616-22); José Linás y Aznor, "Cathalogus magistrorum generalium," in Bullarium de Mercede; and Zumel, De vitis.

28. The Constitutions of 1272 speak of the Order's ransomer in the singular: "And let them [i.e., the commanders] give a written account to the aforesaid master of any item or amount of money that was lent or borrowed, taken in or paid out, for reason of any captive. Let this be handed over to that brother who, with the advice of the chapter, is sent to that land whence these things ought to be delivered" (cap. 3).

29. "Let there be elected there [i.e., at the chapter ] by the master, prior and definitors together two brothers, one cleric, one laic, who with the amount of money that can be had from the Order's surplus are to be sent for the redemption of captives from the lands of the Saracens": ACA, Monacales, 2676: 309r, cap. 2.

30. Ibid, 2703, perg. 4..

31. ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 104:103r; ACA, Monacales, 2703, pergs. 3, 4; Dufourcq, "Guerre sarracenorum," 96, no. 120; 105, no. 153; 112, nos. 173-74; AHN, Clero, carp. 122, no. 14.; ACA, Monacales, A Rollo 3, ORM, no. 9.

32. Sixteen ransomers can be named from the fourteenth century, but none from the thirteenth. Of the former, thirteen served as commanders (at Tarragona, Gerona, Olivar, Pamplona, Majorca, Toulouse, Agramunt, Sagunto, Barcelona, Monflorite, and Perpignan). The fourteenth seems to have been a mere brother, but on his mission to Granada in 1368 he was accompanied by two commanders, who presumably were the principal ransomers. The remaining two, who went in 1315 to Granada, are identified by name only, but these too may have been commanders. One, Joan de Claressach, had certainly attained such office by 1317, when he commanded Castellón de Ampurias; his colleague in 1315, identified as Berenguer d'Ortalena, may well have been Berenguer d'Hostoles, a definitor in 1315 and then commander of Gerona. An early fifteenth-century team of ransomers, appointed in 1409 for the province of Catalonia, consisted of the prior of Barcelona and the commander of Perpignan, and thus confirms the pattern.

33. Constitutions, cap. 20.

34. ACA, Monacales, 2676:7r-8r

35. AHN, Clero, carp.3193, no. 3.

36. Ibid., carp. 3193, no. 4.

37. ACA, Monacales, 2676:530rv. See Jaume I's reconfirmation of September 16, 1256 (AHN, Clero, carp. 3193, no. 8), and Jaume II's of September 17, 1297 (ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 109:318r).

38. ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 117:87rv.

39. Ribera, Real patronado, 564; Dufourcq, "Guerre sarracenorum," 96, no. 120; 105, no. 153; 112, nos. 173-74; ACA, Pere III, Reg. Canc., 1263:53r.

40. Dufourcq, "Guerre sarracenorum," 105, no. 151.

41. ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 104:103r.

42. Juan Herrada Armijo, El voto de redención en la Orden de la Merced (Santiago de Chile, 1951), 37.

43. For a discussion of this, see Jeronimo Lopez, "El torno al cuarto voto mercedario," Estudios 12 (1956): 361-400.

44. Bullarium de Mercede, 6-7.

45. Ibid., 11-13.

46. Ibid., 24.

47. Ibid., 32-33.

48. ACA, Cartas Reales, 1335; Monacales, 2679:65v.

49. Constitutions, Prologue.

50. For the missions of 1361 and 1366, see ACA, Monacales, 2703, pergs.3, 4; for 1388, see AHN, Clero, carp. 122, no. 14.

51. See Gari y Siumell's La Orden redentora, 9 - 108.

52. ACA, Monacales, 2703, perg. 3.

53. Ibid., 2704 :4rv.

54. Ibid., 2703, perg. 4.

55. AHN, Clero, carp. 122, no. 14.

56. ACA, Monacales, 2676: 9rv.

57. Ibid., A Rollo 3, ORM, no. 9.

58. Dufourcq, "Guerre sarracenorum," 70, no. 14; 83, no. 67; 93, no. 112.

59. For example, see the repayment by Arnau Miquel and Llofriu de Palafrugell in 1238 of 205 besants that the Order had advanced for their ransoms (ACA, Monacales, 2676:7v-8r), or the prepayment to the Order in 1244 of 100s. Melgorian for the ransoming of a Narbonnais (ibid., 117v).

60. ACA, Monacales, 2676:76rv.

61. Constitutions, cap. 21. See the efforts of Pere II in 1275 to enforce this obligation (ACA, Pere II, Reg. Canc., 57:229r) and those of Jaume II in 1297 (ibid., Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 109:318rv).

62. ACA, Monacales, 2703, perg. 4.