The Vikings, with their open boats, propelled by oars and sometimes aided by great square sails, terrorized Britain and northern Europe for a time, even driving their boats up the Seine to the walls of the city of Paris, which was then built on a tiny island in the river. But at last the Saxons, under Alfred the Great, with the first ships of the long series of ships that were built to protect England, drove the wild sailor warriors away, and a new epoch had begun.
During this time Venice and Genoa had developed, and the ships that sailed from those two cities were for a time the proudest of the world.
But their development was so largely commercial that it was only with difficulty that they could maintain navies capable of protecting their vast fleets, which were attacked by pirates, by the ships of other cities, and by each other so constantly that sea-going was a hazardous occupation, and ships perforce sailed always in convoys, or at least in the company of other ships, for protection. Then in the north William the Conqueror crossed the English Channel, defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and the foundations for the present British Empire were laid. If the Saxons had developed a navy with which they could have met and defeated the Norman conqueror on the sea, think of the enormous difference it would have made in the history of Britain.
A GREEK TRIREME
These warships were about 120 feet in length, and the sails and spars were taken down and sent ashore if battle was expected. The oars were operated by slaves.
During the Middle Ages following the conquest of Britain, an association of northern European cities, called the Hanseatic League, was formed in order to protect their trade, and for a time proved to be a very important factor in the maritime development of the north of Europe. Had Venice and Genoa formed such a coöperative association instead of frittering away their strength, bickering and fighting, another story would have been written in the Mediterranean.
During all this time ships had been changing gradually in design. Oars still drove the fastest ships of war in the Mediterranean, but sails had taken a more important place, and now whole voyages were made by means of sails alone.
The 15th Century came, and with it the fall of Constantinople; and with it, too, in Genoa, that nautical city of Italy, the birth of a child named Christopher Columbus. He grew to manhood and became a sailor, and sailed on voyages here and there, and was wrecked finally on the coast of Portugal. But here was no ordinary man. Thousands of other sailors had had his opportunities, but none of them took so seriously the idea that the world was round. The idea, of course, was not Columbus’s own. It had received some attention for centuries among a few great minds. But Columbus, not content with accepting the shape of the world as a theory, wanted to make the voyage that would prove it. Already, in the previous century, a great stride had been made in seamanship by the introduction of the compass. This appeared mysteriously in Mediterranean waters, from no definitely known direction, but it seems probable that it came, by a very indirect route, from China, where it had been known and used for many years. Probably this introduction of the compass to the Western world was made by the Mohammedans, for they traded as far east as the Persian Gulf—perhaps farther—and natives of India, with whom the Chinese came into occasional contact, often made the voyage from India to Muscat, so that it seems likely that the compass came to Europe by this route.
But to return to Columbus. He took his idea to the King of Portugal, and was turned away. From Portugal the penniless sailor turned to Spain, and many times was refused by the monarchs of that country, for they were busy at the time with the final expulsion of the Moors. After several years of unsuccessful petitioning at the Spanish Court, Columbus gave up and started on his weary way to France. But Queen Isabella sent a messenger after him, and he was recalled and told that he could make the attempt to discover the westward route to India with the aid and under the flag of Spain.