Term
Corsair
Etymology
From French corsaire, from Latin cursarius (raider), from cursus (course, run).
Definition
The Mediterranean term for a commissioned irregular naval combatant operating against the shipping of religiously opposed states. The Barbary corsairs of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Salé operated under Ottoman or Moroccan commission against Christian European shipping; the Knights of Malta and the Spanish galley fleets operated under Christian commission against Muslim shipping. Both sides framed their activity as legitimate religious warfare rather than as piracy, and the corsair states maintained substantial diplomatic, legal, and economic infrastructure (prize courts, ransom-negotiation systems, treaty arrangements) of a kind no Caribbean Golden Age pirate haven ever produced.
