more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules

Wonder when pirates entered the popular imagination? Earlier than you might think - and in much the same way as we view them now. The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is not so far off, says piratologist Colin Woodward in the CS Monitor. Of course, his histories haven't turned up Davy Jones or the rest of the supernatural, but he presents the Golden Age of pirating, which really does sound golden:

Virtually all of our pirate imagery comes from a single circle of pirates who knew one another, shared a common base in the Bahamas, and operated for a very brief period: 1715 to 1725. This gang – including Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy of Whydah fame, the female pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny, and the gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet – provided the inspiration for the great pirates of fiction, from Long John Silver and Captain Hook to Captain Blood and Jack Sparrow...

At their zenith, Blackbeard and his colleagues had not only disrupted the commerce of three empires, they'd graduated to terrorizing warships and the colonies themselves. Britain's Royal Navy went from not being able to catch the pirates (who initially favored swift, agile sloops) to being afraid to encounter them at all (after they captured large, heavily armed vessels capable of overpowering any frigate stationed in the Americas at the time). In May 1717, the captain of the 22-gun HMS Seaford reported having abandoned a patrol of the British Leeward Islands because he was "in danger of being overpowered by the pirates."...

They were motivated by more than simple banditry. Indeed, many were former sailors who saw themselves in a social revolt against shipowners and captains who'd made their lives miserable. Bellamy's crew referred to themselves as Robin Hood's men. "They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference: They plunder the poor under the cover of law ... and we plunder the rich under the cover of our own courage," Bellamy told a captive.

On seizing a vessel, they turned its government upside down. Instead of using whips and other violence to enforce a rigid, top-down hierarchy, the pirates elected and deposed their captains by popular vote. They shared their treasure almost equally, at a time when captains aboard privateers (private, legally sanctioned warships) typically got 14 times more than a crewman, according to surviving ship contracts. Many pirate crews didn't allow the captain his own cabin – he had to share it with the crew...

Most surprising: Popular opinion was on the pirates' side. Authorities regularly complained to their superiors in London that many of their subjects regarded the pirates as heroes. Virginia Gov. Alexander Spotswood fumed that his citizens had "an unaccountable inclination to favor pirates," while his counterpart in South Carolina weathered a pro-pirate riot in which Charleston narrowly avoided being burned to the ground.

Read the rest.