In the middle chivalry (loose rules of wars, feud and honor) required to spare the enemies that surrendered, but you could take them prisoners for ransoms. It was a totally normal means of financing warfare and profiting from conflicts. Knights were paid using land taxes (not enough) and from loots/randoms (potentially a lot if you were good at it).

I guess it was totally usual back then to expect a letter asking for a random for a nobleman to war. If the dude was dead and a the letter a fake, you had no way to know.

>I guess it was totally usual back then to expect a letter asking for a random for a nobleman to war.

So that's how random number generation worked in the days before computers! :p

Got any good examples of these early scams?

I'm not aware of any good centralized collection of them. But the articles written on the amazing durability of the scam usually include an example or two:

https://priceonomics.com/the-email-scam-with-centuries-of-hi... http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/articles/spanish_prisoner_swin... https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-9-lives-of-the-spa...

Wow, these are very similar to the 'modern' scam emails. Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea how old this scam was.