Fifteenth-century Ship
(From a painting by Carpaccio)
Observe the capacious hull, the heavy mast, the way the sail is made fast in the middle as well as by the sheets at the corners, the crane for hoisting missiles to the top, and the darts ranged round it; also the way the main-yard is spliced in the middle.
Nor must we overlook the ornamental nature of the sails in the times of which we are writing. It was no uncommon thing for the whole of the big square mainsail of a "cog" to be decorated with the arms of her owner. This is clearly shown in the well-known manuscript Life of the Earl of Warwick, by John Rous. Generally sails, often themselves of the richest colouring and material, were adorned with badges or devices, but sometimes merely with stripes of different colours. Colour ran riot in the war-vessels of our mediæval ancestors—how different from the sombre grey war-paint of our modern Leviathans!
Ship of the latter half of the Fifteenth Century
(From an illuminated MS. of 1480)
Note the diminutive figure-head, the two shields amidships—probably placed there for decorative purposes, as the ship appears to be "dressed" with many pennons and streamers. The smallness of the tops is unusual, also the square port-hole and the double-gabled cabin.
The end of the fifteenth century saw the development of the carrack into the caravel, such a ship as the Sancta Maria, in which Columbus sailed to the West Indies in 1492. As her original plans were found in the dockyard at Cadiz, and a replica of the famous original was built from them by Spanish workmen in the arsenal of Carracas in 1892 for the Chicago Exhibition, which took place in the following year, we know exactly what she was like. She was just over 60 feet long on her keel, and had a length over all of 93 feet, with a beam of nearly 6 feet. She had a displacement of 233 tons when fully laden and equipped. She had three masts, but only the mainmast had a top-sail. The mizzen carried a lateen sail. She was considerably smaller than many ships of her day, but in general appearance and rig she approximated to the smaller ships of the Elizabethan epoch, and she and her class may well be considered as forming a connecting-link between the old single-masted "round ships" and the square-rigged, many-gunned line-of-battleship, which from the time of Henry VIII to Queen Victoria formed the mainstay of our battle fleets. There were, of course, many developments and improvements during this long period, but the type persisted throughout, just as did that of the modified Viking ship in mediæval ages.
So much for the ships of the Middle Ages. But before we go on to take stock of their crews it will be as well to attempt some description of the way they were fought. Nowadays the ship armed with the heaviest and longest-ranged guns—if her gunners know their work—seems to be able to "knock out" a slightly less powerfully gunned opponent before she can get in any effective reply. The present war has given us many illustrations of this fact. The Scharnhorst—a crack gunnery ship—with her heavier broadside, was able to sink the Good Hope with little or no damage to herself, and in her turn she was simply demolished by the heavy guns of the Inflexible and the Invincible off the Falkland Islands.