Download PDF | (Warfare and History) Susan Rose - Medieval Naval Warfare 10001500- (2001).
172 Pages
Preface
In the period with which this book deals, 1000–1500 AD, the peoples of Western Europe had little if any contact with those of both the Far East and the Americas. As every schoolboy used to know, Columbus did not sail the ‘ocean blue’ until 1492 while da Gama did not reach India and the port of Calicut by the Cape route until 1498. On the east coast of the Americas there were no indigenous craft capable of a long sea voyage and the use of watercraft in warfare was confined to the transport of warriors from one island to the next on raiding expeditions. In the East, there were large and highly successful ships in the service of the Emperor of China but no interactions between Chinese and western sailors.
Even the mainly Arab trading vessels of the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and Indian Ocean were little known to Mediterranean seafarers from the Christian states. The infamous Crusader Baron Raymond de Chatillon in the late twelfth century is one of the few medieval Europeans who certainly attempted to use ships on the Red Sea. It therefore seems justifiable for this work to concentrate on events in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the so-called Western approaches and the North Sea. To most European sailors, even at the end of our period, the maritime world of which they had knowledge, was that shown on Ptolemy’s world map from his Cosmographia with no hint of the existence of the Pacific Ocean or the Americas and a landlocked Indian Ocean.
The routes which they travelled, the ports where they sought shelter, the enemies whom they feared, were all to be found in the familiar waters of the seas stretching from Iceland in the North to the coasts of North Africa in the South. Stories of the East were avidly read but it is doubtful if the fantastic voyages of Sir John Mandeville were clearly differentiated from the more soundly based stories of Marco Polo.1 Any discussion of naval warfare must necessarily take some account of the construction and design of the ships in use at the time. This book, however, is not primarily concerned with this aspect of maritime history. Both the documentary and archaeological evidence for the details of the design of medieval ships in Western Europe can be found in the works of, among others Ian Friel, Gillian Hutchinson and Sean McGrail.2 Our chief concern here is the way in which ships and mariners were drawn into the service of rulers, to serve their ends in war. This involves an attempt not only to investigate the strategy and tactics used in any battle but also to try and understand the degree to which the possibilities of seapower were understood and exploited.
This concern has also been informed by an attempt to bear in mind the limitations imposed on mariners by the nature of the element in which they operate. Ships at sea, even in coastal waters, are always subject to the forces of wind, tide and current. These forces may limit the way in which ships can operate quite as much as their design. I have in the course of writing this book received much help and encouragement both from fellow historians and from the staff in libraries and archives. I would like to thank particularly my former supervisor Dr Alwyn Ruddock, who first suggested that I should work on Henry V’s navy, and Professor Nicholas Rodger who has been an inspiration to all writers on naval history. Professor Jeremy Black sowed the seed which resulted in this book by suggesting a topic for a paper read to the Anglo-American conference in 1997. My colleagues at the University of Surrey Roehampton have been a source of intellectual stimulation and encouragement and also most generously allowed me a semester’s study leave in which to write and pursue research in Venice.
The staff in the Reading Rooms in the old Public Record Office in Chancery Lane were a great source of encouragement and help in the early stages of my research, as also at a later stage were the staff of the British Library, the Biblioteca Marciana and the Archivio di Stato in Venice. I also owe a great deal to all those who have sailed with me on expeditions to the Western Isles, in the Channel and in the Mediterranean thus allowing me to understand much more about the possibilities and difficulties faced by those who ‘go down to the sea in ships’. Lastly my husband and my children have offered endless support and encouragement without which this project would never have been finished. Susan Rose, London, 2001
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