Research Catalog

Title

The Uskoks of Senj : piracy, banditry, and holy war in the sixteenth-century Adriatic / Catherine Wendy Bracewell.

Author

Bracewell, Wendy.

Publication

Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 329 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm

Summary

"In this highly original work, Catherine Wendy Bracewell reconstructs and analyzes the tumultuous history of the uskoks of Senj, the martial bands nominally under the control of the Habsburg Military Frontier in Croatia, who between the 1530s and the 1620s developed a community based on raiding the Ottoman hinterland, Venetian possessions in Dalmatia, and shipping on the Adriatic." "Drawing on a broad range of sources, including the archives of the Dalmatian communes under Venetian rule and military frontier records, Bracewell provides the first comprehensive analysis of the uskoks as a social phenomenon, examining their origins, their military and social organization, their plunder economy, their mental world, and their relations with other groups in this borderland between three empires. The uskoks lived on the frontier where Christian Europe confronted the world of Islam, and they invoked the struggle against the Infidel to justify their often bloody deeds. As Bracewell demonstrates, however, uskok actions were also shaped by the maze of local political and economic rivalries, social conflicts, and ethnic and confessional antagonisms, which to this day affect the region's tumultuous history. In pages that test the concept of the social bandit, the author analyzes the motives that guided the uskoks and distinguishes these from the factors that impelled various elements of the local population to support them. She concludes that whatever the aberrations of their behavior, the uskoks provided a channel for popular protest, a means of voicing grievances for which there were no other outlets." "Moving beyond a narrow focus on these brigand communities, Bracewell uses the uskok experience as a prism through which to view a much larger subject: the collision of cultural systems which influenced European history for centuries and continues to reverberate in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean. Her book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the process whereby the peoples of interstitial societies forge and maintain concepts of identity and community."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Uskoks
• Uskokken
• Banditisme
• Zeeroverij
• Heilige oorlog
• Dalmatia (Croatia) > History, Military
• Croatia > Dalmatia
• Adriatic Sea Region > History > 16th century

Genre/Form

Military history.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 309-322) and index.

Contents

Illustrations and Maps -- Acknowledgments -- Conventions and Abbreviations -- 1 Introduction (starting p. 1) -- The Uskoks of Senj between Three Empires (starting p. 2) -- Approaches to the Uskoks (starting p. 6) -- Sources (starting p. 15) -- 2 The Borders and Border Military Systems (starting p. 19) -- The Impact of Ottoman Invasion (starting p. 20) -- Conflict and Community on the Borders (starting p. 25) -- Border Military Systems (starting p. 36) -- Klis and Senj in the Military Frontier (starting p. 45) -- 3 Origins and Motives of the Uskoks (starting p. 51) -- Origins and Numbers (starting p. 51) -- Why Become an Uskok? (starting p. 66) -- 4 The Raiding Economy (starting p. 89) -- Military Frontier Subsidies (starting p. 89) -- The Economics of Raiding (starting p. 98) -- Trade as a Function of Plunder (starting p. 108) -- 5 Military Authority and Raiding (starting p. 118) -- Senj Citizens and Uskoks (starting p. 119) -- Uskok Rank-and-File: Venturini and Stipendiati (starting p. 125) -- Uskok Commanders (starting p. 130) -- Captains of Senj (starting p. 139) -- The Habsburgs and the Military Frontier Administration (starting p. 150) -- 6 Legitimating Raiding: The Uskok Code (starting p. 155) -- The Uskok antemurale Christianitatis (starting p. 155) -- Honor and Vengeance (starting p. 162) -- Solidarity and Conflict (starting p. 170) -- 7 Allies and Victims (starting p. 175) -- Relations with the Infidel (starting p. 175) -- Uskoks and Ottoman Christians (starting p. 187) -- Christian Neighbors: Venice and Dubrovnik (starting p. 199) -- Merchants and Cities (starting p. 209) -- The Rural Population of Dalmatia (starting p. 218) -- 8 The Final Decades (starting p. 237) -- Deteriorating Relations with Venice (starting p. 238) -- Rabatta's Commission in Senj (starting p. 244) -- Dissent over the Limits of Raids (starting p. 250) -- The Peace of Zsitvatorok and Conflict with the Hofkriegsrat (starting p. 262) -- Popular Support for the Uskoks (starting p. 273) -- Vlatkovic's Trial: The End of the Independent Vojvodas (starting p. 277) -- Toward War with Venice (starting p. 281) -- 9 The Dispersal of the Uskoks (starting p. 289) -- Appendix I: Chronology (starting p. 305) -- Appendix II: Glossary (starting p. 307) -- Bibliography (starting p. 309) -- Index (starting p. 323)

ISBN

• 080142674X
• 9780801426742

LCCN

91055548

OCLC

• ocm24539544
• 24539544
• SCSB-1950089

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library