Perhaps, as some elucidation of
so intricate a subject as that of the ransoming prisoners during the
middle ages, the following remarks may not be deemed altogether unworthy
of insertion in your pages.
Originally, the supposed right of condemning captives to death rendered
the reducing of them to perpetual slavery an act of mercy on the part
of the conqueror, which practice was not entirely exploded even in
the fourteenth century, when Louis Hutin in a letter to Edward II. his
vassal and ally, desired him to arrest his enemies, the Flemings, and
make them slaves and serfs. (_Mettre par deveres vous, si comme
forfain a vous Sers et Esclaves a tous jours._) _Rymer._ Booty,
however, being equally with vengeance the cause of war, men were not
unwilling to accept of advantages more convenient and useful than the
services of a prisoner; whose maintenance might be perhaps a burden to
them, and to whose death they were indifferent. For this reason even the
most sanguinary nations condescended at last to accept of ransom for
their captives; and during the period between the eleventh and fifteenth
centuries, fixed and general rules appear to have been established for
the regulating such transactions.
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