Sailing ships

by E. Keble Chatterton

Touching the size of the Norman ships, they did not exceed thirty tons burthen, and as we have seen from the above illustration they were put together on the beach. We have seen, too, that the mast was lowered forward, not aft, and with the sail and yard fixed to the mast. This practice is confirmed by an illustration shown in an old manuscript, in which the sailors have gone aft for the purpose of either raising or lowering the mast. Hanging on to the stays they are even standing right out on the top of the stern-post. The yard is clearly seen from these illustrations to have been kept fixed to the mast and not lowered separately, so that to furl the sail when the mast was not taken down the sailors climbed the rigging and tied the sail to the yard. In the Brighton—or as this old fishing village was then called, Brighthelmston—font this is shown quite clearly, as also is a figure holding a tiller, which is correctly shown to be on the starboard side. The high bows and stern are typical of the Viking type, while the construction appears to be clinker. As we shall see from seals and other illustrations while we go down through time this may be regarded as the characteristic ship of Northern Europe until the end of the fifteenth century, although the tendency was gradually to get away from the “longship” idea and to develop into a crescent form. In the Winchester font which is about a hundred years later than the Brighton one, this newer shape is most noticeable. Both fonts refer to a scene in the life of St. Nicholas.

Fig. 33. William the Conqueror’s Ships.
From the Bayeux Tapestry.

At the masthead of the ships of this period, the chief ship of the fleet carried a vane or flag. The Bayeux tapestry also shows the Mora, William’s flagship. The truck is surmounted by a cross, and there appears to be a lantern immediately below of somewhat similar appearance to that on the Bœotian ship in Fig. 11. We do not know to what exact knowledge of seamanship the crews of William the Conqueror had attained,[46] but they would, at least some of them, have crossed many times between the two countries before in connection with trade, and they would have been able to acquire by experience and observation, the necessary knowledge of the strong channel tides which, although the coast-line between Pevensey to the eastward has altered since the eleventh century, probably were not much different from what they are to-day. They would have an excellent mark in Beachy Head whereby to make a good land-fall, and a sandy beach further to the eastward on which to disembark in the bay, nicely sheltered from westerly winds. William, having once landed in this country and vanquished Harold, did not neglect the care of the navy. By 1071, or roughly the date when the font was being placed in Brighton church just a few miles to the westward, there was a fleet in being. Trade, too, between France and England would now be even less fettered than before, and this would naturally make for an increase in the merchant shipping. Nevertheless the crews of William’s fleet would be more Norman than English. Nor was shipbuilding neglected in other parts of Great Britain, for Hakluyt gives a chronicle of the Kings of Man, in which we find that Godredus Crovan, who gathered together a fleet of ships and sailed to the Isle of Man, vanquished its people, and subdued Dublin, and “so tamed the Scots that none of them durst build a ship or a boate with above three yron nailes in it.”

Under Henry I. the maritime industry prospered much, and the king collected a squadron of great size. Up to this time it had been the custom that any cargo cast ashore from a wreck became ipso facto the property of the king. But Henry caused a law to be put into force that should any one escape from a wreck alive, the ship should not be treated as lost, and her contents should not have ceased to belong to her owner. In this reign too, we learn of La Blanche Nef, a fifty-oared vessel that had as many as three hundred souls on board when she foundered on the rocks off the race of Catteville in the year 1120.

Portsmouth, even as early as this period, was springing into importance as a naval port, and under Henry II.’s reign, London and Bristol, which in after years were to come into such prominence and to witness so many fine expeditions setting forth to explore all parts of the unknown world, now became the two chief ports of England. Ships were gradually getting bigger and bigger, until we read of one in the year 1170 carrying as many as 400 people. Henry II. contributed his share in encouraging the progress of shipping by good naval legislature, for it was he who enacted that no one should buy or sell any ship that was to be carried away from England.

Fig. 34. Lading Arms and Wine.
From the Bayeux Tapestry.

In the next reign we reach an important stage in the history of sailing ships. Richard I. had set his mind on undertaking a Crusade to the Holy Land, and this expedition had lasting effects on the design of the ships that subsequently were built. Instead of coasting to Ireland or France or the Orkneys, or even to Norway, England now sends her first expedition across the Bay of Biscay to the South, the beginning of that wonderful series of great voyages of the English nation which in Elizabethan times made our country so famous through her enterprising mariners. I have already referred in our first chapter to the influence that was effected by the opportunity afforded to English sailor-folk of seeing the ships of the Mediterranean. The ships of this Sea had developed on two separate lines. There was first the galley type, which had remained wonderfully similar to the galley of Greek and Roman times. She was essentially a rowed vessel, having sails as auxiliaries. In after times all sorts of adaptations resulted from this, which we shall see as we proceed through the Elizabethan period. The root of the word “galley” is found in the various craft designated “galleass,” “galliot,” and “galleon,” but it was the first of these three that represented the rowed ship in her largest dimensions. The other two were sailing ships, although preserving some similarity in name.