Ships & Ways of Other Days

by E. Keble Chatterton

The Fleet of Richard I setting forth from Dartmouth bound for the Crusades

If ever a fleet of ships was tried it was this expedition from the Devonshire village. They were not many days out and had not yet said farewell to the Bay of Biscay before they were caught in bad weather and the fleet scattered. But it is certain that this fleet accomplished what it did partly owing to the fact that every day at sea gave them greater experience, and partly because they were well found, or as well found as ever ships of that period could be. We can note the mind of a far-seeing man in the care with which these craft were fitted out. Thus, for example, in bad weather there was every chance of the steering oar being carried away or being broken into half. To guard against such an awkward possibility each ship went forth from the cliffs of Dartmouth with a number of spare steering oars. Another very likely article to carry away on a long voyage, involving bringing-up in all sorts of places, was the anchor. Each principal ship, therefore, carried no less than thirteen of such, though it should be added that of these some consisted of grapnels used in getting alongside the enemy and fighting hand to hand. There were spare oars also, two spare sails, three sets of halyards, stays, and other ropes—everything, in fact, except the mast and the ship’s boat was carried in duplicate. There were knights in armour, infantry, horses, and victuals for a whole year to be stowed away in these ships, so a great deal of thought had to be expended.

If we had been able to look down on to the harbour of one of the Cinque Ports of the thirteenth century and watched some of the contemporary ships getting under way, we should have been struck with the extreme simplicity of their seamanship. And in the fewest words I propose now to sketch very roughly the manner in which such craft would put to sea. I am assuming nothing which cannot be verified by actually existing historical data. Picture, then, a modified Viking type of ship with good freeboard, high stem- and stern-posts, with a castellated structure at each end, and a mast stepped about midships and supported by shrouds and backstays. The crews go on board. These consist of the masters or “rectores.” Under them come the steersmen or “sturmanni,” who were responsible for the piloting of the ship. They would possess more knowledge than anyone else of their own waters and adjacent havens.

The crew consisted of three classes. First of all were the “galiotæ” or galley-men. These I understand to be the men who did the rowing as in the Viking ships. The second class consisted of “marinelli,” who may have been the fighting men of the ship; and the third division was found in the “nautæ” or sailors, who were obviously the men that went aloft, got up anchor, set and furled sail, worked the sheets, and did the deck work. On these ships there were usually about forty hands carried; but there are instances of seventy being the full complement. In such cases as the last-mentioned there was a superior officer carried in addition to the usual officers and crew. Life on board these ships was certainly very different from that which the modern seaman finds on the sail-less steamship. But these rude, virile seamen were well paid for their work; they had plenty of excitement to keep up their spirits, they were given their food and wine, even though their clothes were scanty and probably had to be found by themselves. But when they were wounded they had the satisfaction of being pensioned off.

Having repaired on board, then, we see the “rector” at the helm, while some of the crew are forward hauling up the ship’s cable by the bows. This cable leads aft, where it passes round a windlass that is turned by other members of the crew with handspikes. Meanwhile one of the crew by the aid of his hands and knees climbs up the backstays to let loose the lashing which keeps the squaresail furled to the yard. Note that the sail is not lowered or raised to or from deck, but kept permanently aloft. Before he has allowed the canvas to be unfurled, and before the anchor has been broken out from the ground, a couple of trumpeters mount the top of the stern-castle and blow their notes to warn any incoming craft that they are emerging. It is exactly analogous to the blowing of a modern steamship’s syren when the big liner is clearing from her port.

The thirteenth-century ship, then, puts to sea. She has both oars and a sail, she has an able crew, she has a good, strong hull of a healthy seaworthy type. She is ready for anything that comes along. If the wind fails, then she can send a man aloft to furl the sail and her crew can get out their oars. If it comes on to blow very hard indeed, she can take in one, two, or three reefs by means of reef-points as to-day. And then when the enemy is espied and the time comes for battle, the fighting men can prepare swords, axes, bows and arrows, lances, and engines for throwing heavy stones, while some of the men go aloft and climb into the fighting top, from which they are ready to hurl down those heavy stones which crashed through an enemy’s decks. For it is certain from contemporary illustrations that these ships were now no longer mere open craft.

In their fighting methods brute force was chiefly relied upon; but not always. That deadly mixture known as Greek fire, which was some sort of mixture containing principally pitch and sulphur, was a very efficacious method of routing the enemy when the methods of grapnels, swords, arrows, and stones were not all-availing. As soon as this Greek fire was exposed to the air it became ignited, and there flowed a stream of fire over ships and sea creating wholesale panic. It could not be extinguished by water; only vinegar or sand or earth could put it out. Wherever it went it burnt up hulls, spars, and sails, suffocating the terrified crews in a very short time. Ramming, as a naval manœuvre, was far from obsolete in the Middle Ages, as we know from actual incidents in literature and pictorial representation.

It would not be correct to assert that there was a total disregard of tactics in medieval times. When Richard was cruising with his fleet in the Mediterranean at the time of the Crusades, he caused his ships to sail in eight separate lines, each line being within trumpet call of the other. Richard himself was in the eighth line as commander-in-chief. Treatises on naval tactics had been written by Mediterranean experts, but I do not think that there is any evidence for supposing that the English seamen ever learnt such a thing until Richard’s ships went to the Mediterranean. So much happened for improving maritime matters subsequent to that Crusade that we need not be surprised to find, less than thirty years later, the English seamen for the first time in northern waters exhibiting an appreciation of all that tactics meant in battle. We have not space here to go into the battles, but you will find the first instance of this new knowledge in that naval encounter which took place in August of 1217 off the South Foreland. Notwithstanding that the fleet of Eustace the Monk was numerically far stronger than ours, yet by clever tactical manœuvres our ships and men not only prevented his from landing, but inflicted a heavy slaughter and defeat upon the invaders. The English commander was Hubert de Burgh, and to his cleverness the success was due. Sixteen large, well-armed craft were his ships, with twenty smaller ships; or a total of thirty-six. Eustace had eighty, or more than twice as many. The key to the victory was simply this. When the enemy’s ships were seen to be sailing with a fresh southerly breeze from the French coast, the English fleet put to sea, stood on till they were well to windward, and then easing their sheets bore down on to the invaders with a fair wind, hooked on to them with grapnels, shot at them with arrows and threw unslaked lime at the Frenchmen, with the result that the breeze carried both arrows and lime exactly where the English had wanted—to leeward. With this confusion the English boarded them and hacked away at the halyards so that mast and sail came down, burying many on the confused deck. After that the victory was easy.

Now such a well-thought-out plan of fighting shows that naval warfare had in England already reached the scientific stage. If the reader will take his chart of the Straits of Dover and work out the manœuvres which I have given in greater detail elsewhere,[22] he will see that the English admiral displayed a perfect knowledge of the Channel tides, seamanship, and naval tactics in thus outwitting a force twice his own strength. And again, at the battle of Sluys, the victory was won by the superior tactics of the English, which showed excellent seamanship, perfect knowledge of the Flemish tides, and sound judgment in the problems of the sea. The English in 1340 played the same game as they had in 1217. They confused the enemy, who wondered why the English fleet were apparently going away from them. They wondered still more when, after standing out to sea, the English went about and came down on them like a pack of sea-monsters eager to devour them and successful in the attempt. So also exactly ten years later, in that very interesting battle of Les Espagnols sur Mer, which is unknown to many a modern layman, when Edward II commanded in person, we find everything being done by system and plan. He comes down with his Court to lodge near the sea. He himself goes afloat, spends a long time in training manœuvres, keeps a look-out man at the masthead who suddenly spies the enemy coming down Channel, when, to quote the words of Froissart, he ordered the trumpets to be sounded and the ships “to form a line of battle.” The rest is merely a narrative of collisions between ship and ship, with masts and sails falling, chains and grapnels straining, the hurling of stones and iron bars from the castle at the masthead, the felling of one another’s masts, the cutting adrift of the enemy’s halyards and shrouds, the heaving overboard (a favourite and regular habit in war) of every man and boy of the enemy they could lay their hands on, and finally victory to the English.