Piracy was certainly prevalent. However, it wasn't so much practiced by nobles.
Tom has explicitly voiced his disapproval of anyone attempting to play their nobles as pirates.
Uh, that rather depends how you define piracy. Small scale raiding (on land and sea) was more or less constant around the border regions and nobody was going to know if you happened to loot a "friendly" ship or two. That's even before you get onto the Corsairs.
In a similar vein, aren't things like 'separation of church and state' a post medieval idea? Seeing so many people supporting more modern ideas like this is one of the exotic things that annoys me. But I could be wrong.
It was more or less unknown during medieval Europe. Some bits of the ancient world came close though (the Diadochi during the Hellenistic period come to mind).
