The British Navy Book

by Cyril Field

But in the Middle Ages there was nothing like this. All decisive fighting was practically hand to hand and man to man, except for the use of the ram by galleys and the exchange of arrows and stones at comparatively close quarters. But victory was only achieved, as a general rule, when the enemy's ship was boarded and her crew defeated in a bloody tussle, at the end of which no one but the victors remained alive, unless, perhaps, some knight or noble who was worth preserving for the value of his ransom. The military portion of the crew, the archers, men-at-arms, and their knightly leaders, carried the usual arms of their day. The seamen, who were in the minority, probably used knives, short swords, and spears, and made themselves very useful in hurling big stones, heavy javelins called "viretons", unslaked lime, and other disagreeable missiles from the "top-castles" at the head of the mast or masts.

We have already mentioned the fore and after fighting-stages, or, as they later on became, poops and forecastles, that were erected when a ship was going on the war-path. We may note, in passing, that in the earlier part of the period we are dealing with, these were so often and so generally required that "castle-building" afloat became a recognized trade, until, in the process of evolution, poops and forecastles became integral parts of the ship.

We may add that, in addition to the fore and after fighting-platforms, special fighting-towers were not infrequently erected, certainly in the Mediterranean, and we may therefore assume that they were not altogether unknown in Northern waters. These towers were generally built up round the mast, and provided with loopholes and battlements, and sometimes protected by iron plates or raw hides.

One account of mediæval war-galleys states that in some cases "a castle was erected of the width of the ship and some twenty feet in length; its platform being elevated sufficiently to allow of free passage under it and over the benches". King John introduced the famous Genoese cross-bowmen—who so signally failed to distinguish themselves at Crécy—into his navy. The reason most probably was that a cross-bow could be fired through a loophole by a man crouching under cover of the bulwarks or shield-row, whereas a long-bow could not be used in this way. Nevertheless the cross-bow did not succeed in ousting the long-bow in the British Navy, since, in 1456, in the course of a public disputation between the heralds of England and France as to the claim of the former country to the domination of the sea, the French herald claimed for his countrymen that they were more formidable afloat because they used the cross-bow. "Our arbalistiers", he asserted, "fire under cover or from the shelter of the fore and after castles; through little loopholes they strike their opponents without danger of being wounded themselves. Your English archers, on the other hand, cannot let fly their arrows except above-board and standing clear of cover; fear and the motion of the ship is likely to distract their aim." But there does not seem to have been much "fear" among the English archers, and as those that were in the habit of serving afloat doubtless had their "sea-legs", it must have taken a good deal to disconcert their aim, world-renowned for its deadliness.

Still, as we shall see in a later chapter, the cross-bow was a most formidable weapon afloat, and the French herald's argument was a sound one. In the place of artillery the ships of the earlier Middle Ages were provided with mangonels, trebuchets, espringalds and other mechanical instruments for hurling heavy projectiles, which, according to some authorities, were made or imported as the result of the experiences of Richard I and his crusading companions in the Mediterranean. Personally, I should say that they had been known long before that time. A contemporary chronicle of the siege of Paris by the Northmen in 885-7 mentions that, to cover the Danish stormers, "thousands of leaden balls, scattered like a thick hail in the air, fall upon the city, and powerful catapults thunder upon the forts which defend the bridge". The knowledge of the heavy war-machines of the Ancients had never died out. The catapult was the old Roman onager, and consisted of a long arm or beam, of which one end was thrust through the middle of a tightly-twisted bundle of hair-ropes, fibres, or sinews stretched across a solid frame. At the other end was either a sling or a spoon-shaped receptacle for the projectile. This end was drawn back by means of levers and winches against the twist of the bundle of sinews and held by a catch. On the catch being released, by pulling on a lanyard attached to a trigger, the long end of the beam was forced violently forward till it struck against a strongly-supported transverse baulk of timber arranged for the purpose. When this occurred the huge stone or other projectile flew on through the air and struck its target with tremendous force.

The trebuchet and the mangonel were very like the Roman ballista, and acted much in the same way as the catapult, except that the motive force was the fall of a heavy counterweight instead of tension. The springald, or espringald, was a large-sized steel cross-bow, mounted on a pivot, hurling heavy iron darts, with great force, which had considerable penetration. In the battle of Zierksee (1304) one of these heavy "garots", as they were called, struck the Orgueileuse of Bruges with such violence that it not only pierced the bulwarks of the forecastle, but took off the arm of one of the trumpeters who were sounding their silver trumpets, transfixed another, and finally embedded itself in the after castle.

One of the most formidable missiles hurled by the mangonels and such machines was the famous Greek fire, knowledge of which had been brought to Europe from the Crusades. Sometimes it was projected through "siphons" or tubes, of which no exact knowledge has come down to us. But it seems to have ignited the moment it came in contact with the air, and was spouted forth with the violence of water from a fire-hose. It destroyed everything that came in its way, and was inextinguishable by water. It could only be smothered by plenty of earth or sand, a material not generally available at sea. The mangonels threw it in barrels.

"This was the fashion of the Greek Fire," says De Joinville, the historian of Louis IX's first Crusade. "It came on as broad in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of Heaven. It looked like a dragon in the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it was day, by reason of the great mass of fire and the brilliance of the light that it shed. Thrice that night they hurled the Greek Fire at us, and four times shot it from the tourniquet[7] cross-bow. Every time that our holy King (St. Louis) heard that they were throwing Greek Fire at us, he draped his sheet round him, and stretched out his hands to our Lord, and said, weeping: 'Oh! fair Lord God, protect my people!'" Such was the terror inspired by this fearful mixture, whose chief ingredient is supposed to have been naphtha. It does not, however, appear to have been used to any considerable extent in Western Europe.

In the latter half of the period we are dealing with, cannon—big, little, and middle-sized—quite superseded the mangonel and other mechanical projectile-throwers. Few large guns were carried, and those mostly fixed rigidly on timber beds and fired over the ship's side—hence the term "gunwale", which we still use in boats, a "wale" meaning a band of timber. Small breech-loading guns were mounted in considerable numbers in the fore and after castles, some of these, generally known as "murderers", being mounted inboard in such a way as to fire at close quarters on any boarding-parties of the enemy who might succeed in gaining possession of the waist of the ship. Others were mounted aloft in the tops, just as they were in our own days until the tops were required for fire-control platforms. But I propose to give the quaint ancestors of our modern monster cannon and rapid-fire guns a chapter to themselves later on.