Corsairs and pirates
Piracy and corsarismo only they differ for the legality of their actions of robbery. The corsairs were enjoying the famous "letter of marque" granted by the State to attack the ships and goods of enemy countries, and had to satisfy rather per cent of their earnings that could come up to 20 % to the public exchequer
"Letter of marque "
Since Fernand Braudel wrote: " The Corsairs, this lawful form of war, is not an exclusive activity of an alone group and an alone person in charge or culprit does not know. It is endemic. All persons, wretched and powerful, rich and poor , cities, nobles, states ... they are tangled in the meshes of a network stretched from end to end of the Mediterranean, for all its shores ". www.visitapalma.galeon.com
The corsairs were something like " capitalist businessmen " who were arming their fleets to extract big benefits. Of the activity corsaria they were benefiting the nobles, clergymen, merchants and families xuetes, very related to the sea. Also it was the last resource of regions with scanty economic means, as it is happened in Eivissa's island, where the corsairs have even one monument
. The piracy was, on the contrary, a depredation not controlled by the State, which nevertheless also it was benefiting of it.
It was a traditional activity in the Mediterranean from the Antigúedad, though during the XVIth and XVIIth century it grew extraordinarily because of the political conflicts and the reigning insecurity.
The clash of Carlos I with Francisco I of France and the alliance of the latter with the Ottoman Empire turned to the Islands in a border between two worlds: north and south, Christianity and Islam, Europe and Africa.
