Turks. Parrino cites the severe enactments which were issued in the
sixteenth century against Christian sailors who decoyed children on
board their boats and sold them as slaves to the Moslem. I question
whether the Turks were ever guilty of a corresponding infamy.

This Parrino, by the way, is useful as showing the trouble to which the
Spanish viceroys were put by the perpetual inroads of these Oriental
pests. Local militia were organized, heavy contributions levied, towers
of refuge sprang up all along the coast--every respectable house had its
private tower as well (for the dates, see G. del Giudice, _Del Grande
Archivio di Napoli,_ 1871, p. 108). The daring of the pirates knew no
bounds; they actually landed a fleet at Naples itself, and carried off a
number of prisoners. The entire kingdom, save the inland parts, was
terrorized by their lightning-like descents.

A particular literature grew up about this time--those "Lamenti" in
rime, which set forth the distress of the various places they afflicted.

The saints had work to do. Each divine protector fought for his own town
or village, and sometimes we see the pleasing spectacle of two patrons
of different localities joining their forces to ward off a piratical
attack upon some threatened district by means of fiery hail, tempests,
apparitions and other celestial devices. A bellicose type of Madonna
emerges, such as S. M. della Libera and S. M. di Constantinopoli, who
distinguishes herself by a fierce martial courage in the face of the
enemy. There is no doubt that these inroads acted as a stimulus to the
Christian faith; that they helped to seat the numberless patron saints
of south Italy more firmly on their thrones. The Saracens as
saint-makers. . . .