Archive Results For: Late Middle Ages
Book Review-‘Roger of Lauria (c. 1250–1305), Admiral of Admirals’ by C. D. Stanton
Roger of Lauria, the commander of the galley fleets of the Kingdom of Aragon in the last years of the thirteenth century, was portrayed as a great hero by many contemporary chroniclers of his exploits. He has also been much lauded by modern historians writing on the naval aspects of the War of the Sicilian […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Biography
Book Review-‘Schifffahrt, Hanse und Europa im Mittelalterby’ R. Paulsen
he Roman historian Tacitus wrote in the preface to his Annales that historians should write sine ira et studio (without anger or zeal). This maxim should be taken seriously even in the twenty-first century. This is what we teach our students in the first term at university. The author of the book under review obviously […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | High Middle Ages
Subjects include: Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Maritime Wales in the Middle Ages: 1039–1542’ by K. Lloyd Gruffydd, ed. M. D. Matthews
The circumstances surrounding the publication of this book are remarkably poignant. The life’s work of Ken Lloyd Gruffydd was centred on the maritime history of medieval Wales; he contributed many articles on the subject to Cymru a’r Môr / Maritime Wales, a journal which deserves to be much better known outside the principality, and these […] Read More
Filed under: Early Middle Ages | Late Middle Ages | High Middle Ages
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review – ‘Henry V’s Navy: The sea-road to Agincourt and conquest 1413–1422’ by Cheryl Fury
Author Ian Friel argues that the king was a medieval monarch who recognized the importance of sea power and utilized it: Henry’s sponsorship produced a ‘shortlived navy, one of England’s most effective, but least-remembered fleets’. Friel believes we should study the brief but important period in England’s naval history for a number of reasons. Henry […] Read More
Filed under: Late Middle Ages | English Channel
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘Political Economies of Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The decline of Venice and the rise of England 1450–1700’ by Benjamin W. D. Redding
England’s emergence as a global maritime power, and the decline of the Venetian Republic, has long been discussed as a single concurrent process. In her latest book Maria Fusaro provides the reader with an innovative and detailed understanding of English activities and general livelihood in the Venetian empire while this transfer of power was taking […] Read More
Filed under: Early Middle Ages | Late Middle Ages | Medieval | High Middle Ages | Early Modern | Mediterranean | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Ports, Piracy and Maritime War: Piracy in the English Channel and the Atlantic, c. 1280– c. 1330’ by Thomas K. Heebøll-Holm
Expressed in a perhaps surprising manner within a scholarly publication, the author’s preface to this book opens thus: ‘I have never been a big fan of pirates.’ Some readers may feel that a strand of surprise threads its way throughout the subsequent pages, published as part of a Brill series that involves various aspects of […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Late Middle Ages | English Channel | Pirates
Subjects include: Pirates, Corsairs & Privateers
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