All the seals, save this last, show the forms of “cogs”, which proves once more the identity of the types of ships of the North-West of Europe. (Holmes states, on page 70 of his work, that the Poole seal gives the oldest English reproduction of a ship with a rudder, 1325.)
As has been said already, the adoption of the compass was the signal for cutting loose from the coast and for undertaking more distant voyages. We learn, especially in the Reygersbergh Chronijk van Zeelant (published by Boschhorn) Vol. II, p. 212, that about 1440, when the use of the compass had scarcely become general, the Zeelanders worked more and more toward the South, making toward Portugal and Spain.
Before then, these countries seemed so far away that, when starting on a voyage thither, the seamen went to confession and the Holy Sacraments were received.
At the same time with the invention of the compass, another event came to produce a great influence on shipbuilding; it was the invention of gunpowder, with the consequent adoption of artillery.
The history of the Netherlands speaks for the first time of the use of artillery in connection with the expedition of Duke Albert against the Frisians in 1396. It seems, however, to have been used at the siege of the castle of Rozenburg-lez-Voorschoten, in 1351 (M. DE JONGE, Vol. I, p. 28).
Cannon were not used either at the battle of the Sluis or in the maritime expeditions of King Richard III. But they were in general use on board ship in the XIVth century. (HOLMES, p. 71.) The Genoese and the Venetians in the South, and the Hanseatic cities in the North, who were the masters of all peoples in commerce and navigation, were the first to adopt them. (M. DE JONGE, Vol. I, p. 29.)
It was natural that artillery should modify war tactics and it can be said that the military value of ships depended on the number of guns which they carried. Finally, ships were built exclusively for war, and the practice of the Middle Ages, which was to utilize merchantmen for this purpose, must needs be abandoned.
The United Provinces did not decide at once to build special ships. Hence the dimensions of existing types had to be increased, in order that a larger number of guns could be mounted. The difference between sea-going ships and inland vessels became more and more marked. The war ship was evidently the one which departed the most from the old forms, for the reason that it had to undergo every change which had been advantageously adopted by the enemy.
The earliest guns were not greatly to be feared. The proof of this is found in the fact that the coverings of staterooms and castles were sloped, like roofs, so as to make the bombs thrown by the foe roll off more easily.