ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the conceptions of honor employed by the bellicose nobles who participated in Mediterranean warfare and religious conflict in the early modern period. Using manuscript correspondence, printed pamphlets, and published treatises, it examines how the dynamics of interfaith conflict, religious violence, galley warfare, enslavement of prisoners, and cross-cultural ransoming all challenged French nobles' conceptions of honor, especially in the realm of sanctity honor. The chapter argues that early modern French nobles' conceptions and practices of honor seriously question the model of a pan-Mediterranean honor/shame dichotomy and reveal dimensions of religious violence in the early modern Mediterranean world. Early modern French honor culture has long fascinated us with its color, pageantry, and dramatic rituals. The chapter focuses on one dimension of early modern French conceptions of honor—namely, sanctity honor—through a particular text, Henry du Lisdam's L'Esclavage du brave chevalier de Vintimille published in 1608.
