ONLINE SEMINAR: 'Kings of Privateering: A History of the Spanish enterprise' with Vera Moya - German Maritime Museum & Prize Papers Project (23 FEB 2026, 1-2 pm CET)

 

(Source: Prize Papers Project)

Dr Vera Moya Sordo is a Mexican archaeologist and historian whose work dives into shipwrecks, life and fear aboard ships, and the hidden world of privateering. She has held positions at the University of Navarra, INAH-Mexico, and the Nautical Archaeology Society (UK), and is part of the international Red Imperial Contractor State Group, exploring how warfare and state-building were shaped by society itself.

What to expect: Contrary to the traditional historiographical view of Spanish privateers having limited or nonexistent agency, they were fundamental instruments of modern naval warfare and the deployment of monarchical power internationally. Among these "kings" of privateering, those who operated in the Caribbean throughout the 18th century exemplify a multifaceted agency, mobilizing resources for war, trade, smuggling, the slave trade, and other businesses, both regionally and beyond imperial geopolitical borders.

The online lecture series "Ships & Seafaring 1500–1800" is presented as a special collaboration between the German Maritime Museum, Leibniz Institute for Maritime History in Bremerhaven (Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum der Leibniz Association) and the Prize Papers Project (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg / The National Archives, UK) and hosted together with Nele Popp.

Register here: https://lnkd.in/eKkz_8X6.

                     https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ships-seafaring-15001800-tickets-1931080938069

BOOK: John D. FORD, The Emergence of Privateering (Leiden: Brill, 2023). ISBN: 978-90-04-54140-5, € 148.40

(Source: Brill)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Series: 

• Legal History Library; 
• Studies in the History of International Law, Volume: 62/24

Privateering was legal whereas piracy was illegal. That much everyone knows. But what exactly was privateering? Answering this question turns out to depend not so much on the relationship between privateering and piracy as on the relationship between privateering and other forms of maritime raiding that had been considered legal long before the word ‘privateering’, or the practice it denoted, came into existence. This book clarifies all these relationships and explains how privateering emerged as a new legal category in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The subject is approached from a British perspective, in the light of developments elsewhere, including the movement towards a new understanding of the law regulating relations between nations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J. D. Ford is Professor of Civil Law at the University of Aberdeen. His edition of Alexander King’s Treatise on Maritime Law was published by the Stair Society in 2018.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1 Seizures of Ships and Goods at Sea before Privateering

 1 Seizures of Ships and Goods at Sea as Plunder

 2 Acquisition of Prizes in Sixteenth-Century Scotland

 3 Seizures of Ships and Goods at Sea as Reprisal

 4 Authorisation of Reprisals in Sixteenth-Century Scotland

 5 Seizures of Ships and Goods at Sea as Piracy

 6 Apprehension of Pirates in Sixteenth-Century Scotland

2 From Licit Plunder towards Licensed Privateering

 1 Regulation of Maritime Warfare in England

 2 Innovation during the Reign of Elizabeth

 3 Justification in Terms of the Practice of Nations

 4 Justification in Terms of the Law of God

 5 Justification in Terms of the Law of Policy

 6 Condemnation of Pirates as Common Enemies

3 Privateering in Theory and Practice avant la lettre

 1 Licensed Raiding in Jacobean Scotland

 2 Licensed Raiding in Jacobean England

 3 Towards a New Theory of Prize Acquisition

 4 Towards a New Theory of International Law

 5 Prize Litigation in Caroline England

 6 Prize Litigation in Caroline Scotland

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Problem of Piracy III - An Interdisciplinary Conference on Plunder by Sea across the World from Ancient to Modern - Tulane University, New Orleans - 15-16 June 2023 [deadline 15 JAN 2023]