A galley slave was a slave rowing in a galley. Usually such slaves were prisoners-of-war or convicted criminals sentenced to work in the galleys. Wiktionary has related dictionary definitions, such as: slave Slave may refer to: Slavery, where people are owned by others, and live to serve their owners without pay Slave (BDSM), a form of sexual and consenual submission Slave clock, in technology, a clock or timer that synchrnonizes to a master clock... A French galley and Dutch men-of-war off a port by Abraham Willaerts, painted 17th century. ... Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ...

For ancient galley designs, with each rower being solely responsible for managing one oar, rowing was a skilled job, performed by trained volunteers. If, in times of need, it became necessary to use slaves, these were typically freed and trained first. However, for later designs, with 3 to 7 people handling one oar, individual skill mattered less, and it became possible to use slaves and even a leash.

It became the custom among the Mediterranean powers to sentence condemned criminals to row in the war-galleys of the state (initially only in time of war). Traces of this practice appear in France as early as 1532, but the first legislative enactment comes in the Ordonnance d'Orléans of 1561. In 1564 Charles IX of France forbade the sentencing of prisoners to the galleys for fewer than ten years. A brand of the letters GAL identified the condemned galley-slaves. King Louis XIV, who wanted a bigger fleet, ordered that the courts should sentence men to the galleys as often as possible, even in times of peace; he even sought to transform the death penalty to sentencing to the galleys for life (and unofficially did so. A letter exists to all French lawyers, that they should, if possible, sentence men to life in the galleys instead of death). The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... Events May 16 - Sir Thomas More resigns as Lord Chancellor of England. ... // Events The Edict of Orleans suspends the persecution of the Huguenots. ... Events March 27 — Naples bans kissing in public under the penalty of death June 22 — Fort Caroline, the first French attempt at colonizing the New World September 10 — The Battle of Kawanakajima Ottoman Turks invade Malta Modern pencil becomes common in England Conquistadors crossed the Pacific Spanish founded a colony... Charles IX (June 27, 1550 – May 30, 1574) born Charles-Maximilien, was a member of the Valois Dynasty, King of France from 1560 until his death. ... Branding persons refers to the use of the same physical techniques as in livestock branding on a consenting or constrained human, a form of body modification (see that article for general considerations) similar to scarification (see that article for technical details). ... A galley slave was a slave rowing in a galley. ... “Sun King” redirects here. ... Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences. ...

By the end of the reign of Louis XIV of France in 1715 the use of the galley for war purposes had practically ceased, but the French Navy did not incorporate the corps of the galleys until 1748. From the reign of Henry IV, Toulon functioned as a naval military port, Marseille having become a merchant port, and served as the headquarters of the galleys and of the convict rowers (galériens). After the incorporation of the galleys, the system sent the majority of these latter to Toulon, the others to Rochefort and to Brest, where they worked in the arsenal. Convict rowers also went to a large number of other French and non-French cities: Nice, Le Havre, Nimes, Lorient, Cherbourg, Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, La Spezia, Anvers and Civitavecchia; but Toulon, Brest and Rochefort predominated. At Toulon the convicts remained (in chains) on the galleys, which were moored as hulks in the harbour. Their shore prisons had the name bagnes ("baths"), a name given to such penal establishments first by the Italians (bagno), and allegedly deriving from the prison at Constantinople situated close by or attached to the great baths there. All French convicts continued to use the name galérien even after galleys went out of use; only after the French Revolution did the new authorities officially change the hated name — with all it signified — to forçat ("forced"). The use of the term galérien nevertheless continued until 1873, when the last bagne in France (as opposed to the bagnes relocated to French Guyana), the bagne of Toulon, closed definitively. In Spain, the word galera continued in use as late as the early 19th century for a criminal condemned to penal servitude. “Sun King” redirects here. ... The French Navy, officially called the National Navy (French: Marine Nationale) is the maritime arm of the French military. ... Events April 24 - A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle with the intent to conclude the struggle known as the War of Austrian Succession - at October 18 - The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is signed to end the war Adam Smith begins to deliver public lectures in Edinburgh Building of... Henry IV of France, also Henry III of Navarre (13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), ruled as King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. ... Panorama of Toulon area Satellite view Coat of Arms of Toulon view of Toulon harbour around 1750, by Joseph Vernet. ... http://www. ... Panorama of Toulon area Satellite view Coat of Arms of Toulon view of Toulon harbour around 1750, by Joseph Vernet. ... Rochefort is the name of several communes in France, of a municipality in Belgium and a commune in Switzerland: Rochefort in the Charente-Maritime département of France Rochefort in the Côte-dOr département of France Rochefort in the Savoie département of France Rochefort, Belgium Rochefort... Brest (lol) is a city in Brittany, or the Bretagne région, north-west France, sous-préfecture of the Finistère département. ... View of the Entrance to the Arsenal, by Canaletto, 1732. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Le Havre is a city in Normandy, northern France, on the English Channel, at the mouth of the Seine. ... Nîmes is a city and commune of southern France, préfecture (capital) of the Gard département. ... This article is about The place Lorient in France. ... Cherbourg-Octeville is a town and commune in Normandy, north-west France. ... Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue is a commune of Normandy, north-west France. ... La Spezia (Spèsa in the local dialect of Ligurian) is a city in the Liguria region of northern Italy, at the head of La Spezia Gulf, and capital city of the province of La Spezia. ... For other uses, see Antwerp (disambiguation). ... Civitavecchia is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the central Italian region of Lazio, a sea port on the Tyrrhenian sea, 50 miles WNW of Rome, 42°06N 11°47E. According to the 2003 census, its population was 50,100. ... A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. ... Bagnios were the slave prisons of Turkey and the Barbary regencies. ... Map of Constantinople. ... The French Revolution (1789–1815) was a period of political and social upheaval in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on... French Guiana (French: Guyane) is an overseas département (département doutre-mer, or DOM) of France, located on the Caribbean coast of South America. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Penal labour is a form of the unfree labour. ...

A vivid account of the life of galley-slaves in France appears in Jean Marteilhes's Memoirs of a Protestant, translated by Oliver Goldsmith, which describes the experiences of one of the Huguenots who suffered after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Galley-slaves lived in unsavoury conditions, so even though some sentences prescribed a restricted number of years, most rowers would eventually die, even if they survived the conditions, shipwreck and slaughter or torture at the hands of enemies or of pirates. Also, nobody controlled that prisoners were freed after having completed their sentences, so imprisonment for some time could still mean imprisonment for life and nobody except the prisoner would notice. All naval forces often turned 'infidel' prisoners-of-war into galley-slaves. Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (November 10, 1730 or 1728 – April 4, 1774) was an Irish writer and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770) (written in memory of his brother), and his plays The Good-naturd Man (1768) and... In the 16th and 17th centuries, the name Huguenot was applied to a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, historically known as the French Calvinists. ... The Edict of Nantes was issued on April 13, 1598 by Henry IV of France to grant French Calvinists (also known as Huguenots) substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic. ... Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ...

In fiction

In one of the his ill-fated adventures, Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote frees a row of prisoners sent to the galleys, including Ginés de Pasamonte. The prisoners, however, beat him. Don Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (IPA: in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 – April 23, 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. ... (IPA: , but see spelling and pronunciation below), fully titled (The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha) is an early novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. ...

Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur is sent to the galleys as a murderer but manages to survive a shipwreck and save the fleet leader, who frees and adopts him. Lewis Lew Wallace (April 10, 1827 – February 15, 1905) was a lawyer, governor, Union general in the American Civil War, American statesman, and author, best remembered for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. ... Ben-Hur is the fictional story of Judah Ben-Hur, a Judean aristocrat who, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus, is enslaved through the betrayal of his Roman friend Messala. ... Possibly the most famous Roman adoptee, Augustus Caesar In ancient Rome, adoption of boys was a fairly common procedure, particularly in the upper senatorial class. ...

In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Jean Valjean spends nineteen years in the bagne at Toulon, and is later made into a galley-slave there. Victor-Marie Hugo (pronounced in French) (26 February 1802 — 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France. ... Les Misérables (translated variously from French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims) (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo, and among the best-known novels of the 19th century. ... Jean Valjean - illustration from original publication of Les Misèrables, after a painting by Gustave Brion (1824-1877) Jean Valjean is a fictional character and the protagnost of Victor Hugos classic novel Les Misèrables. ...