LEO AFRICANUS ON SALÉ – Corsairs & Captives

These days, we have access to enormous amounts of information about the world. Documentaries take us down into the black depths of the Marianas Trench in the Pacific, or up upon the icy crest of Mount Everest. Google Earth gives us bird’s eye views of anywhere on the planet at the twitch of a mouse. We’ve grown used to this wealth of detail just waiting for us to access it from the comfort of our living room, and we tend to take it for granted.

People in the past had far, far less information about the world available to them.

Back in the sixteenth century, maps—at least reasonably accurate maps—were relatively uncommon. Large parts of the world were terra incognita. North and South America, Africa, East Asia—all were unknown and mysterious places.

The only way to find out about them back then was to go there.

Few people were able to do that, though. Fewer still were able to travel to such places and write coherently about them upon their return. Those who did pull of that double feat created the equivalent of runaway bestsellers, for the sixteenth century was the age of exploration, when Europe discovered the rest of the world, and there was a huge demand for more information about faraway places.

One of these bestselling authors was a man commonly known as Leo Africanus.

Joannes Leo Africanus (John, the Lion of Africa) was born in the Muslim Emirate of Granada, in southern Spain somewhere around 1485 (opinions differ) and died, perhaps in Europe, perhaps in the Maghreb (again, opinions differ), around 1555.

His family emigrated from Granada to Fez, Morocco, where he received a sophisticated university education. As a young man, he participated in a variety of commercial and diplomatic missions that allowed him to travel widely throughout North Africa. In 1518, while returning from one of these missions, he was captured by Christian corsairs.

Because of his native intelligence and obvious education, he ended up before the Pope in Rome, where he eventually converted to Christianity, was given his freedom, and learned Italian and Latin. Sometime around 1526, he completed the manuscript of a comprehensive work in which he described the history/geography of the whole of North Africa. In 1550, this was published in Italian under the title Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili che iui sono, per Giovan Lioni Africano (A Description of Africa and the Notable Things There, by John, Lion of African). In 1556, Latin and French translations were published. In 1600, an English translation appeared. Leo’s work was a “bestseller”—hugely influential and widely read. For several centuries, it remained the most important source of detail about North Africa available to European readers.

One of the places that Leo Africanus visited and described was Salé, the (in)famous Moroccan corsair capital (he was likely there in the early fifteen-teens).

Back in September/October 2019, I posted a series about Salé titled Salé: The Turbulent City, in which I referred to Leo Africanus’ description of the city as it existed in the sixteenth century. This week’s post consists of his description in its entirety.

Salé, remember, was actually two towns located on opposing banks of the Bu Regreg river, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. In the sixteenth century, Europeans referred to the town on the north bank of the Bu Regreg as Old Salé and that on the south bank as New Salé. Leo Africanus refers to Old Salé as Salla (the Arabic name of which “Salé” is a rendering), and to New Salé as Rabat. New Salé/Rabat was the town that became the corsair capital, but this did not happen until the second decade of the seventeenth century. When Leo Africanus visited it, New Salé/Rabat was at a low point in its history.

The image accompanying this post is of Salé as it was when Leo Africanus visited it.

Here then is Leo Africanus on the appearance of the two towns of Salé in the early sixteenth century (almost a hundred years before it became a corsair capital).

Salla (Old Salé, located in the river’s north bank)

Salla is most pleasantly situated upon the Atlantic seashore, within half a mile of Rabat, the two towns being separated by the river Bou Regrag. The buildings of this town have an air of antiquity about them, being artfully carved and supported by stately marble pillars. Their temples are most beautiful, and their shops are built under large porches. At the end of every row of shops is an arch, which, they say, is to divide one occupation from another. And, to say all in a word, there is nothing wanting here which may be wished for either in a most honorable city or in a flourishing commonwealth. Moreover, all kinds of merchants come here, both Christians and others. Here the Genovese, the Venetians, the English and the low Dutch all trade.

In the 670^th year of the Hegira [1273 AD], this town was surprised by a certain Castilian captain. T town’s inhabitants were put to flight, and the Christians enjoyed the city. They kept it ten days, but were then suddenly assailed by Jacob, the first king of the Marin family [i.e., Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Abd Al-Haqq, early Sultan of the Marinid dynasty, ruled 1258-1286], who could not, they thought, stop his war against Tlemcen. The Christians were put to the worst, the greater part being slain, and the residue put to flight.

Many houses of this town, however, are desolate, especially near the town walls. Though they are most stately and curiously built, yet no man will inhabit them. The land adjoining this town is sandy and not fit for growing grain, but is very profitable in places for growing cotton. Many of the inhabitants weave most excellent cotton cloth. Here likewise are made very fine combs which are sold throughout the kingdom of Fez, for the region hereabouts has a great plenty of boxwood trees fit for the purpose.

Their government is very orderly and discreet still to this day. They have most learned judges, umpires, and deciders of doubtful cases in law. This town is frequented by many rich merchants from Genoa, for whom the king hath always had in great regard because he gains much yearly by their business. These merchants partly live here at Salla and partly at Fez, from both of which towns they mutually help one another.

Rabat (New Salé, located in the river’s south bank)

This great and famous town was built by Ya’qub al-Mansur, the king and Mohammedan patriarch of Morocco, upon the Atlantic shore. Along its norther part runs the river Bu Regreg, which empties into the sea there. The rock upon which this town is founded stands near the mouth of the river, having the river on the one side and the sea on the other.

Some say the town was built in this spot because king al-Mansur, possessing the kingdom of Granada and a great part of Spain besides, and Morocco being so far distant, worried that if war should happen he could not in due time send new forces against the Christians. So he decided to build some town upon the seashore where he and his army might remain all summer long. Some tried to persuaded him to stay with his army at Ceuta, a town upon the Strait of Gibraltar, but al-Mansur, seeing, because of the barrenness of the soil there, that he could not maintain a royal army for three or four months in Ceuta, caused this town of Rabat in short order to be erected, and to be exceedingly beautified with temples, colleges, palaces, shops, stores, hospitals, and other such buildings.

Moreover, on the south side outside the walls he caused a high tower, like the tower of Marrakesh, to be built, only the winding stairs were somewhat larger, so that three horses abreast might well ascend it. From the top of this tower, one can see ships a long way out at sea. So exceedingly high is this tower that I think there is nowhere the like building to be found.

In order to attract sufficient artisans and merchants from other places to settle in Rabat, al-Mansur decreed that every man according to his trade and occupation should be allowed a yearly stipend. After this, within a few months, this town was better supplied with all kinds of craftsmen and merchants than any other town in all of Africa.

Here al-Mansur used to reside with his troops from the beginning of April until the month of September. Because there was no water in the town fit to drink (since the sea runs ten miles up into the river, and the wells likewise yield salt-water), al-Mansur caused fresh water to be conveyed to the town by pipes and channels from a fountain twelve miles distant. The conduit he ordered constructed had arches, like the aqueducts in many places in Italy, especially in Rome. Where this water conduit came into the town, he had it divided and sent pipes into different places, some to the temples, some to the colleges, others to the king’s palace, and the rest into common cisterns throughout the city.

However, after king al-Mansur’s death, this town grew into such decay that scarce the tenth part of it now remains. The water conduit was utterly undone in the war between the Marinid family and the successors of al-Mansur, and the famous town itself decays more every day, so that at present a man can hardly find throughout the whole town four hundred inhabited houses. The rest is all fields and vineyards. The rocky crest on the promontory has only two or three streets with a few shops in them.

They are in continual danger, for they daily fear that the Portuguese will surprise them. The Portuguese king has long wanted their overthrow, thinking that if he could conquer Rabat, the kingdom of Fez could easily to be conquered.

When comparing the former felicity which the inhabitant of this town enjoyed with the present conditions into which they are fallen, I cannot but greatly lament their miserable case.

For those who may be interested…

These two excerpts are taken from a reprint of the 1600 English translation of Leo Africanus’ Della descrittione dell’Africa, titled A Geographical Historie of Africa, written in Arabicke and Italian. Before which is prefixed a generall description of Africa, and a particular treatise of all the lands undescribed, translated from the original by John Pory (London: Bedford Press (Printed for the Hakluyt Society), 1896, Vol. II, Book 3, pp. 401-403 and 407-408). I have modernized the spelling, replaced some of the archaic phrases, and slightly abridged the original to make the text more readily comprehensible.