05 Works, Today, February 8th, is Saint John of Matha’s Day, With Footnotes – # 39

Saint John of Matha (1160–1213) was a Christian saint of the 12th century and founder of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity, dedicated to ransoming captive Christians.

Between the eighth and the fifteenth centuries medieval Europe was in a state of intermittent warfare between the Christian kingdoms of southern Europe and the Muslim polities of North Africa, Southern France, Sicily and portions of Spain. According to James W. Brodman, the threat of capture or kidnapping, whether by pirates or coastal raiders, or during one of the region’s intermittent wars, was a continual concern for residents of Catalonia, Languedoc, and the other coastal provinces of medieval Christian Europe…

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