Peter Nolasco, O. de M. (Pere Nolasc in Catalan, Pierre Nolasque in French and Pedro Nolasco in Spanish; 1189 – 6 May 1256) was a Catholic nobleman known for founding the Royal and Military Order of Our Lady of Mercy of the Redemption of the Captives (the Mercedarians) with approval by Pope Gregory IX on 17 January 1235.

Though there is debate about whether Nolasco was born in France or Spain, it is clear that he was in Barcelona when he was a teenager and became part of an army fighting the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula and was appointed tutor to the young king, James I of Aragon.

[2] Alfonso VIII's incursions into Andalusia in 1182 are said to have brought him over 2,000 captives and thousands in ransom,[3] while in 1191 the governor of Córdoba, took 3,000 prisoners and 15,000 head of cattle in an attack on Silves.

In the thirteenth century, in addition to spices, slaves constituted one of the goods of the flourishing trade between Christian and Moslem ports.

The two earliest accounts, those written by the mid-fifteenth-century Mercedarian chroniclers Nadal Gaver and Pedro Cijar, declare the founder, the son of a merchant, to be from the French village of Mas-Saintes-Puelles, near the town of Castelnaudary,[6] in the modern department of Aude.

Nolasco became concerned with the plight of Christians captured in Moorish raids and decided to establish a religious order to succor these unfortunates.

[7] The founder required of himself and his followers a special vow in addition to the usual three, to devote their "whole substance and very liberty to the ransoming of slaves", even to the point of acting as hostages in order to free others.

According to records, the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the Ransom of Captives accomplished approximately 70,000 rescues-some 2,700 during the founder's lifetime.