“Fungible Freedoms: A Spiritual Economy of Raiding, Captivity and Ransoming in the Medieval Mediterranean”

This article examines the intertwined monetary and spiritual economies that developed around maritime raiding, captivity and ransom in the medieval Mediterranean. Scholars have often portrayed Muslim maritime violence as parasitic predation on an otherwise productive Mediterranean economy. Such interpretations emphasise material loss while overlooking the ways in which violence itself generated other forms of capital. For medieval observers the liberation of captives carried meanings that extended well beyond financial exchange. Drawing on Latin and Arabic sources, this article argues that captivity and redemption operated within a broader spiritual economy shared by Christian and Muslim societies. In this system, the freedom of captives functioned as a fungible commodity capable of being converted into political authority, institutional prestige and spiritual merit.