Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

By the eleventh century the Norsemen had taken to painting their vessels externally, besides making them larger and giving them decks. The stempost and sternpost were more ornately decorated, gilded copper being the material used for this purpose. Svend Forkbeard’s own ship, the Great Dragon, is said to have been in the form of this legendary beast, but what the historian most likely meant is that the stern decoration or the design on the sail may have shown a fantastic representation of the fearsome animal; the Vikings were too good seamen to have built the ship in any form likely to be inferior to the shape they had learned to appreciate so highly. The Long Serpent, which appeared in that century, is said to have been 117 feet in length, and decked, and to have carried six hundred men. This is the first war vessel in the Western seas known to have been decked throughout,[7] and in which cabin accommodation was provided for the principal fighting men. Beneath the deck the hull was divided into five cabins or compartments; the foremost was the lokit, in which, in a royal vessel, the king’s standard bearers were quartered; next, the sax or storeroom; then the kraproom, where sails and tackle were kept; the foreroom, containing the arms chest, and forming the living room of the warriors; and astern of all was the lofting, or great cabin, devoted to the commander. For the comfort of the rank and file of the fighting men at night in port an awning was spread, supported by a ridge pole on pillars. At other times they would seem to have had to put up with sleeping on deck and making the best of it; they would certainly be no worse off than in the old days of the open ships, and being somewhat higher above the water would be less exposed to the spray. At the end of the twelfth century King Sverre Sigurdsson had some merchant ships cut across amidships and lengthened, and then used them as war ships.

FLEET ATTACKING A FORTIFIED TOWN.

MS. Harl. 326.

William the Conqueror’s fleet in the eleventh century is estimated at anything between six hundred and ninety-six vessels and three thousand; a manuscript in the Bodleian Library gives the number as one thousand. Most of the vessels were small, if the illustrations on the Bayeux tapestry are to be accepted. The type of ship is no doubt represented with a fair amount of accuracy, but in certain other respects the efforts of the weavers of the tapestry are only less grotesque than the so-called ships which appear on some of the medals of the ports, but which nevertheless have been accepted as correct representations of the ships of the times, whereas they should be regarded as indicating approximately the type of vessel then in vogue. With the exception that a few ships were built of rather greater dimensions—the largest in the invading fleet can hardly have been more than 80 tons burthen—shipbuilding shows but little development on the Atlantic coast until after the introduction of artillery.

WARSHIPS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

(After Harleian MS.—1319. fol. 18.)

A battle between a Cinque Ports fleet under Hubert de Burgh and a French fleet under Eustace is chiefly remarkable by reason of the English manœuvring to secure the windward position, this being the first occasion on which this manœuvre is recorded, and the attack on the French rear ended in a signal English victory. The fame of the English archers was great, and they added to their laurels by playing no small part in the battle. From their positions in the tops and on the forecastles they kept up a steady flight of arrows upon the French. The arrows carried flasks of unslaked lime which broke on striking the French ships, and the lime dust, borne on the wind, entered the eyes of the enemy and blinded them, the defeat of the French following. The ships of that period were provided with platforms, elevated on wooden pillars, at the bow and stern. The erections were the forerunners of the immense structures which were added in later years and did so much to render ships unstable.

A Venetian ship constructed for Louis IX. of France in 1298, and named the Roccafortis, was 70 feet long on the keel and 110 feet over all, with a width at prow and poop of 40 feet. She is stated to have had two decks and a fighting castle at each end. Possibly the weight of the bellatorium, as the castle was called, may have necessitated such an extraordinary beam near the bows and stern, but she could never have been built with such dimensions to be other than a floating fortress.