90 Law and Morality Abroad (to ca. ad 1550)was some concern, too, to protect persons of very modest means from being
the targets of reprisal action. For these various reasons, the church took a
stand against reprisals. In 1274, the Second Council of Lyon pronounced
them to be “oppressive and contrary to the laws and natural equity”—
although the principal focus of this denunciation was the exposure of eccle-
siastics to reprisals, rather than of laypersons generally.
In response to these various objections, some steps began to be taken to
mitigate some of the harsher features of reprisals. For example, various cat-
egor ies of persons were com mon ly exempted f rom repr isa ls. Cler ics, of cou rse ,
were one of these, as befi tted a religious age when theologians did so much
of the legal writing. Students were also generally exempt, as were peasants
and shipwrecked sailors. It became common for grants of commercial privi-
leges to merchants to include exemptions from reprisals, typically by pro-
viding that only the goods of principal debtors could be seized, and not
those of third parties. Th e Italian city- states pioneered the practice of
concluding treaties that restricted or prohibited reprisals. An early example
was an agreement between Bologna and Modena concluded in 1166. Th e
transalpine kingdoms followed suit, though only much later. In 1490, for
example, En gland and Florence concluded an agreement restricting repri-
sals, as did En gland and Burgundy in 1496. Reprisals would continue,
though, to be an important part of international practice, and law, for many
centuries to come.
It was possible for sharp- eyed rulers to see the system of letters of marque
as a useful resource in times of war for bolstering naval strength. Upon the
outbreak of a war, a prince could issue letters of marque to any private par-
ties who were willing to fi t out a ship and go to sea to capture ships belong-
ing to enemy nationals. Now, however, there would be no requirement for
the letter holders to have been victims of any wrongs. Nor would there be
any specifi ed upper limit to the amount of property that could be captured.
Holders of letters of marque in this situation would thereby become auxilia-
ries of (or even substitutes for) their state’s offi cial naval forces. As an in-
ducement to the risks that would be run, the holders of the letters of marque
would be entitled to a stated proportion of any property that they succeeded
in capturing. An example of such a commission by the En glish government
is in evidence from as early as 1242. In later centuries, holders of letters of
marque of this type would become known as “privateers.”