Archive Results For: Late Middle Ages
Book Review – ‘Poxed & Scurvied: The story of sickness and health at sea’ by Kevin Brown
Kevin Brown’s book is the latest, and most ambitious, example of the growing interest in maritime disease and medicine. Its purpose, as demonstrated in the sub-title – forget the ‘sexed up’ references to pox and scurvy – is to tell ‘the Story of Sickness and Health at Sea.’ Inevitably, the need to cover a period […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | Early Modern | Eighteenth Century | Nineteenth Century | Health at Sea | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea
Maritime Logistics and Edward I’s Military Campaigns: what can be Learnt from the Surviving Documentation?
This article examines the use made of shipping to support Edward I’s military campaigns. It concentrates particularly on the period 1299-1301 looking in detail at fleets assembled on the west coast in 1299-1300 and the east coast in 1300-1 to provide logistical support to English armies fighting in Scotland. The evidence relating to these fleets […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | English Channel | North Sea
Subjects include: Administration | Manpower & Life at Sea | Navies | Shipbuilding & Design
Between Venice and the Levant: Re-evaluating Maritime Routes from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century
John H Pryor in Geography, Technology and War in 1988 claimed that technological constraints and weather patterns led medieval seaman to choose narrow coastal routes following the Northern Shore in the Eastern Mediterranean between Venice and the Levant. Braudel takes a similar view of 16th and 17th century routes albeit for different reasons. These conclusions […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | High Middle Ages | Other (Early Modern) | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Ship Handling & Seamanship
Shipbuilding and Nautical Technology in Japanese Maritime History: Origins to 1600
Sources relating to developments in Japanese ship building and maritime practices are sparse before 1600, although evidence does exist in the form of archaeological artefacts, artistic representations and written descriptions. Traditional Japanese ship design and nautical methods had assumed their fundamental shape by 900 AD. This was to change from 1300 AD onwards with Japan […] Read More
Filed under: Early Middle Ages | Late Middle Ages | High Middle Ages | Other (location)
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design | Strategy & Diplomacy
Ship Graffiti from Akko (Acre)
Graffiti of several vessels, dated to the second half of the thirteenth century, were found on a wall of the Hospitaller Compound at Akko (Acre) in the north of Israel. Three of the most complete and clearest depictions are presented in this article. The graffiti represent small warships equipped with one mast and a lateen-rigged […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Archaeology | Art & Music | Shipbuilding & Design
The Use of Quicklime in Medieval Naval Warfare
Whether medieval navies used quicklime to incapacitate enemy sailors and to render their decks treacherous has not been satisfactorily answered. Drawing on the accounts of numerous medieval authors, including literary figures, this article proposes that quicklime was seen as a potential weapon. Evidence from actual sailors is admittedly scant, but observers described its use in […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | English Channel | High Middle Ages | North Sea | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Weapons
Grapnel Stone Anchors from Saurashtra: Remnants of Indo-Arab Trade on the Indian Coast
Medieval stone grapnel anchors on the coast of Gujarat on the Arabian Sea were investigated from 1991 to 2001. These stone anchors probably originated between the eight and fourteenth centuries AD during an upsurge of Arab maritime activity starting in the second century AD which ended gradually after the arrival of the Portuguese. Generally long […] Read More
Filed under: Early Middle Ages | Late Middle Ages | Indian Ocean
Subjects include: Archaeology
The Early Medieval Seaman and the Church: Contacts Ashore
This article highlights the interaction of the Church as an institution with its ‘Roving Parishioners’ and deals with the early years of the High Middle Ages (c.1000-1250.) The religious connection with trade is accepted and there are examples of the Royal Permissions given to religious houses in regard of the control of specific ports, collection […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | Health at Sea | Other (location)
Subjects include: Miscellaneous
Dikes, Dockheads and Gates: English Docks and Sea Power in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
English docks at the close of the fifteenth century were the primitive structures of the Late Middle Ages. It took six months to build a dockhead and a further month to dismantle it for the ship to be moved. In 1578 funding was provided for a dock rebuild which included the installation of a gate, […] Read More
Filed under: Tudors | Late Middle Ages
Subjects include: Harbours & Dockyards
The Galleys of Argyll
Galleys, similar in design to those of the Viking era, played an important role in trade, policing and warfare in the Scottish highlands and Islands, especially Argyll. To date no wrecks have been discovered, though there is evidence for how they looked and were operated from stone carvings and poetry. The last galley was sold […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Late Middle Ages
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design