These few denominations suffice to prove that, even at so early a period, there were different kinds of boats and that alongside of the “cog” there were other vessels of smaller size.
In the beginning, the “cog” was guided by oars, as were other ships; this method was abandoned gradually in the XIIIth century and the steering oar gave place to the rudder.
It is not possible to determine, for Holland, the time when this change occurred; the various coats of arms of Amsterdam can throw no light on this subject. The ship, on many of them, has no rudder, symbolical, doubtless of the fact that people could sail for all parts of the globe (WITSEN, p. 634), and that vessels started from Amsterdam bound to all the countries upon earth.
It is to be assumed, nevertheless, that it was also in the XIIIth century that the rudder was introduced into Holland. Some persons have tried to make out that there was a certain connection between the adoption of the compass and that of the rudder; this latter became forced, they say, when, thanks to the compass, more and more distant expeditions could be undertaken.
For my part, I do not think that there can be the slightest connection between the two events; the Norsemen, in fact, crossed the North Sea before the rudder was known.
The oldest reproductions of the “cog”, however primitive they may be, have a mast with the sails and rigging of the boat at the centre. I know of no reproduction showing oars. Hence it can be deduced that the sails and rigging formed the main outfit and that the oars, of which the number, even on the largest “cogs”, was limited to a maximum of 32, or 16 on each side, were used only in calm weather. This is what is done at the present time for vessels of less importance, such as the “hoys”.
Hence the oars were only an accessory, the reverse of what was seen for the galleys, where the oars were the main feature and the sails and rigging were secondary. That is why, contrary to what is seen for the “cog”, no reproduction of a galley without oars has been met with.
It is therefore wrong that the name of galleys should be given sometimes to “cogs”. The former were never implanted in the Netherlands, Mr. de Jonge has already pointed out the inaccuracy of the passage of the Annexes of Wagenaar, vol. 3, p. 50, where that author relates that the eleven hundred ships sent against Antwerp by Count William III were almost exclusively galleys.
However, there is a question of galleys in the history of the Netherlands; but it is not a question of the Mediterranean type. Their number was limited and they were used only on rivers.