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«No great glory in chasing a pirate». The manipulation of news during the 1535 419

materials produced . Others have cautioned against the seductive
4
narratives offered by the chroniclers, without undermining their
influence .
5
Yet there is a general agreement that the political, military and
pragmatic consequences of the campaign were limited, even negligible,
which is one reason it has left such faint traces in general histories.
For recent historians of England and the German lands the conquest
of Tunis appears distant and irrelevant, and if mentioned at all, it is
dealt with briefly . There is little inducement to include the defeat of
6
two Muslim powers by a Christian-Muslim coalition in recent histories
of the Maghreb and the Ottoman empire . As for France, despite the
7
acceptance of Ursu’s 1908 statement that the Tunis campaign of 1535
led French diplomacy to take «the decisive step» to forge an alliance
with the Ottomans, it has not figured significantly in recent
biographies of Francis I. Only the nature of the 1535-6 agreement
remains a matter of debate . None the less, the impression endures
8

4 Sylvie Deswarte-Rosa includes it in an article devoted to the heroic themes used
for Charles V: L’expédition de Tunis (1535): images, interprétations, répercussions
culturelles, in B. Bennassar, R. Sauzet (eds.), Chrétiens et Musulmans à la Renaissance,
Honoré Champion, Paris, 1988, pp. 75-132, this at p. 96.
5 C. Isom-Verhaaren, Allies with the Infidel. The Ottoman and French alliance in the
sixteenth century, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 2011, blames Paolo Giovio, pp.
144-145, 182, but as Bunes and Falomir pointed out – Carlos V, Vermeyen y la conquista
de Túnez cit., p. 255 – the imperialists rejected Giovio’s account. M.Á. de Bunes Ibarra,
Charles V and the Ottoman war from the Spanish point of view, «Eurasian Studies», 1
(2002), pp. 161-182.
6 H. Duchhardt, Das Tunisunternehmen cit., p. 35, begins citing Bernd Moeller’s
comment from Deutschland im Zeiltalter der Reformation, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
Göttingen, 1977, p. 140: «Für den Türkenkrieg… hatte das Jahr 1535 keine
hervorgehobene Bedeutung». It scarcely figures in R.B. Wernham, Before the Armada.
The growth of English foreign policy 1485-1588, Jonathan Cape, London, 1966, or in
J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1968.
7 For example J.M. Abun-Nasr, A history of the Maghrib in the Islamic period,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 150 and 169; A.C. Hess, The
Forgotten Frontier, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978, pp. 72-73. H. Inalcik,
The Ottoman Empire. The classical age 1300-1600, Phoenix, London, 1994, p. 36, and
S.N. Faroqhi, K. Fleet (eds.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. II. The Ottoman
Empire as a World Power, 1453-1603, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013,
include it indirectly with Barbarossa.
8 Brief references in R.J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and patron. The reign of
Francis I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 234, 276 and 299; La
Forêt’s mission in pp. 329-330. C. Isom-Verhaaren, Allies with the Infidel cit., mainly
challenges the negative vision of the 1543-4 campaign. I. Ursu, La Politique Orientale de
François Ier (1515-1547), H. Champion, Paris, 1908, pp. 83-96: «la politique française
se décida à faire le pas décisif en faveur de l’alliance franco-turque» (p. 87). This and
Charrière remain essential reading. References to the 1535-6 treaty debate in D.
Nordman, Tempête sur Alger, L’expédition de Charles Quint en 1541, Editions Bouchene,
Condé-sur-Noireau, 2011, pp. 46-47.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Agosto 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)