By: Stephen
C. Neff, Reader-in- Law, Public International Law, University of Edinburgh Law
School
The valiant Achilles – that paragon of
Greek warrior-heroes – is not ordinarily associated with economic
entrepreneurship or war profiteering. But Homer, in the Iliad, recounts
an interesting incident in his colorful career. In a daring night raid against
Troy, Achilles captured Lycaon, one of the many (fifty) sons of King Priam. He
then proceeded to sell his royal captive into slavery in Lemnos, for the tidy
sum of one hundred oxen. The purchaser, incidentally, was Eunus, the son of
another Greek hero, Jason (of golden-fleece fame). Fortunately for Lycaon,
however, a “guest-friend” purchased him from Eunus, this time for the worth of
three hundred oxen, thereby enabling him to return to the fray at Troy.
The incident of Lycaon was not, strictly
speaking, a ransom arrangement, since Lycaon did not secure his freedom
directly from Achilles in exchange for money. In the course of time, though, a
fully fledged practice – one could even call it something of an industry – of
prisoner ransom arose in the European Middle Ages. Central to it was the
notion that prisoners of war belonged, in law, to the individual parties who
captured them. Captives were regarded, with good reason, as valuable
commodities, chiefly for the ransoms which they could fetch. So important was
this process of ransoming prisoners that a very elaborate body of law and
practice grew up around it.
Ransoming involved individual negotiations
over terms between the immediate parties. But it also involved the
governments, since it had an impact on the overall war effort. From the
standpoint of the captive’s home state, there was concern over the transfer of
resources to the enemy side for the ransoming. Conversely, the captor side
could be concerned that a ransomed prisoner was then free to rejoin the
conflict and augment the opposing forces. For this reason, ransoming was
sometimes not allowed. A famous example was at the Battle of Agincourt in
1415, where prisoners were ordered to be killed – to the great financial
detriment of the victors. In general, though, the prospect of capturing a high-ranking
enemy combatant and reaping the glittering reward of a ransom was part of the
allure of medieval warfare.
At every step of the way, legal
considerations played a role. More specifically, an amalgamation of two bodies
of law was applicable. One was the law of arms, which was a transnational
legal code governing warfare – a kind of medieval analogue of the present-day
Hague and Geneva Conventions. This set out the general rules of conduct for
captors and prisoners. The other was the law of contract. This was part of
general natural law, which was held to be binding on all persons without regard
to diversity of political allegiance. It governed the specific arrangements
agreed between captor and prisoner.
A first step was determining who, legally,
was the captor. It was not, or not necessarily, the person who took the
prisoner into his physical custody. According to the law of arms, the lawful
captor was the person to whom the captive gave his word of honor, to be a good
and loyal prisoner and faithfully to keep his word. This might not be the
person who initially took physical custody of the prisoner because feudal
underlings were required to turn any captives over to their superiors, to whom
the requisite word of honor would then be given. The commitments were
typically reduced to writing, in what were called, appropriately enough,
letters of obligation. In principle, these agreements were reciprocal, so that
a breach of the conditions by the captor would release the prisoner from his
obligations.
A highly crucial step in this process was,
of course, determining the amount of the ransom. On this, a concept of just
price was operative, at least in theory. The Italian scholar Alberico Gentili,
writing at the end of the Sixteenth Century, held that a ransom price should be
“moderate” and that a captor should refrain from exacting “as much as he could”
from his unfortunate charge. Especially reprehensible, in Gentili’s eyes, was
the infliction of cruel treatment onto a prisoner, with a view to increasing
the ransom that he was willing to pay.
So far as can be gathered, the just price
envisaged by the lawyers was a sum that was reasonably proportionate to the
prisoner’s ability to pay. In practice, however, captors were typically not so
forbearing; not surprisingly, they tended to err on the high side when
negotiating for ransoms. Payments in instalments were commonly arranged,
sometimes with harsh penalty provisions if the payment schedules were not
rigorously met.
The rates naturally varied according to the
rank and worth of the captive. A mere archer fetched, on average, a paltry
£2. Slightly – but not much – higher on the scale was the famous literary
figure Geoffrey Chaucer, who was captured in France during the Hundred Years
War. He was ransomed by his employer, King Edward III, for the
less-than-princely sum of £16. For noble prisoners, the prices were naturally
much higher. A practice appears to have evolved, of fixing ransoms at about
one year’s revenue from the captive’s estate.
At the very highest levels, the sums
involved could be huge – and most of all when royal personages fell into enemy
hands. In 1250, King Louis IX of France was captured in Egypt while crusading
(unsuccessfully, it
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