drawing of a tabletAncient Roman Tile found at DoverThe letters stamped into this tile, and others like it found elsewhere, are considered to stand for "Classiarii Britannici", i.e. "British troops trained for sea-warfare".
We have now to pass over a gap of several hundred years, during which time there is little or no information available about the ships belonging to these islands, the greater part of which, as a matter of fact, had become a province of the Roman Empire. There seems to have been a "Classis Britannici",or British squadron, but this was entirely a Roman organization, and had as much to do with the north of France—or Gaul—as Britain. The remains of an old ship—just the keel and lower ribs—which were not long ago unearthed on the right bank of the Thames, just below Westminster Bridge, are considered likely to have belonged to a galley of this squadron, and we know that there was a legion of what we may term British Marines, who formed the fighting portion of the fleet. Tiles have been found at Dover and other known stations of the Romano-British Fleet which bear the following inscription: "C.L., B.R.", which the experts in such matters interpret as standing for "Classiarii Britannici"—that is to say, "British troops trained for sea-warfare". We are also told by Vegetius, the old writer I have already quoted, that the badge of these troops was a "circle", which, by the way, is a somewhat curious coincidence, since that of the Marines of our own day is a globe. These were the men who defended the shores of our island against the growing numbers of pirates from northern Europe, for the rowers of the Roman galleys were merely the machinery of propulsion, and were probably much less considered than the steam-engines of a modern battleship. These troops also manned part of the wall built from the North Sea to the Solway in the vain attempt to keep out the Picts and Scots, for traces of themare to be found at Bowness at its western end. The North Sea pirates, then generally referred to as Saxons, became such a menace that the East Coast received the name of "The Saxon Shore", and a "count" or high official was specially appointed to take charge of its defence.
Drawing of a shieldShield carried by the Soldiers of the "Legio Classis Britannici"(From a coloured drawing in the Bodleian Library)The centre of the shield is quartered red and white: the rim is white, and the remainder green.
InA.D.410 the Romans, attacked by the northern nations in their own country, finally abandoned Britain. The British, who had been practically a subject race for nearly 400 years, could make no head against the fierce Picts and Scots, who at once took advantage of the withdrawal of the Roman garrison and swarmed into the North of England. In desperation, the British king, Vortigern, offered to buy the assistance of two Jutish or Saxon pirates—Hengist and Horsa—who were doing a little raiding on their own account on the southern coast. They drove off the northern invaders, in accordance with the bargain that was struck, but, returning home for more of their Danish and Saxon fellow-countrymen, came back and gradually got the country into their own hands. According to another theory, many colonies of Saxons had been established on the East Coast during the time of the Romans, and it was the special business of the "Count of the Saxon Shore" to rule over them. However this may have been, England became a Saxon country, the remnant of the Britons being driven into Wales and Cornwall.
Now the Scandinavian peoples were at this time the finest sailors in the world. The Jutes and Angles from Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein belonged to this race, the whole of which became known as "vikings"—that is to say, "the sons of the creeks", from the Scandinavian wordvik, a bay, creek, or fiord. But though there must have been a strong Viking element among the Saxon conquerors of England—so much so that it became known as Angle-land, or England, from the Angles—yet the Saxons or English do not seem to have taken so enthusiastically to the sea as the Norwegians and Danes, and, except when special efforts to create fighting fleets were made by King Alfred and Edmund Ironside, were never able to prevent the incursions of their Danish and Norse kinsmen, who, in process of time, firmly established themselves in the country. After the Danes came the Norman Conquest, and during all this period there was little, if any, change in the types of the ships in which the northern nations fared the seas.
drawing of Noah's arkNoah's Ark, according to a MS. ofA.D.1000Observe the fullness and apparent capacity of the hull of the dragon-ship on which the Ark proper is erected, and compare it with that of the Nydam ship on the opposite page.
What were these vessels like? As it happens, we really know more about them than we do of any between their time and the days of Henry VIII. For not only have we very definite details of them and their "gear" in the long "sagas" or historical and traditional poems which have come down to us, sculptured pictures of them in stone, engravings on rocks and upon arms and ornaments, but more than one of the actual Viking vessels have been dug out of the big burial-mounds where they had been hidden for centuries. For the Viking chieftain loved his ship: he lavished ornament and decoration upon it, and regarded it almost as a living thing. When, therefore, the time came for him to take the long last voyage, from which no man ever returns, it was quite natural that he should have wished to make it in the cherished "Dragon Ship" or "Long Serpent", which had so often borne him over the waves on his way to those hand-to-hand combats and harryings and plunderings in which his soul delighted.Sometimes a funeral pyre was erected on the ship herself, and with his favourite sword by his side, his shield and his helmet, the dead chieftain set out on his final voyage, his sons and followers watching the well-known long-ship sailing into the west till she, her sails, and her dead captain disappeared in clouds of fire and smoke under the sunset. Or, again, a dying sea-king would elect to be buried in his favourite ship in some spot overlooking the glassy fiord whence he had so often set out on his piratical exploits. The ship was run up on shore over the rollers which all Viking vessels carried to facilitate beaching, the body was laid amidships with his most treasured earthly possessions, a penthouse of timber was built over him, his favourite horses were killed and placed round the hull of the vessel, and the whole was buried in the depths of a huge mound, which was erected over it.
The most famous "finds" of this kind were at Gokstadt, in south Norway, in 1881, and at Nydam, in Schleswig, in 1863. In the latter case the ship does not seem to have been used as a sarcophagus, but with another, which had almost entirely rotted away, was found in a bog. Possibly if the huge oval mound now utilized as a cemetery at Inverness, and known as "Tom-na-hurich" ("The Hill of the Fairies"), were tunnelled into, another Viking ship might be brought to light. In the case of the Nydam ship, Roman coins found on board fix her date as being somewhere aboutA.D.250. Both from these ships and fragments of others that have been found in various places it is abundantly evident that their builders were as skilled shipwrights as ever existed. Space does not allow us to go into details of their construction, but we may say at once that their finish was perfect, and that their lines were not only beautiful but wonderfully well adapted for contending with the stormy waters of the northern seas. Neither of them appears to have belonged to the largest type of Viking ships, which may be roughly divided into "Dragon Ships" or "Drakkars", "Eseneccas" or "Long Serpents", and "Skutas" or small swift scouting-vessels. It seems just possible, by the way, that our modern slang expression "skoot"—"get away quickly", "clear out"—may be derived from this word. We must try in the next chapter to understand what these Viking ships were like.
drawing of long shipBroadside View of the Nydam Ship now in the Kiel Museum. Observe the horn-like rowlocks and the steer-board
Ancient War-ships
"Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue of the Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their ships, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement."Gibbon.
"Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue of the Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their ships, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement."Gibbon.
"Outlaw and free thief,My kinsfolk have left me,And no kinsfolk need ITill kinsfolk shall need me.My sword is my father,My shield is my mother,My ship is my sister,My horse is my brother."Charles Kingsley.
Ifwe take the dimensions of the actual Viking boats that have been unearthed, as I have related in the last chapter, we shall have an excellent foundation upon which to form an idea of the bigger and more important ones. Now the Gokstadt boat is nearly 80 feet long and 16 feet 6 inches wide at her greatest beam, and carried mast and sail. The Nydam ship is 75 feet in length, with a beam of 10 feet 6 inches, and had no mast. Both are very flat amidships, and have very fine or sharp ends, but it is evident that in proportion to her length the Gokstadt boat had a much greater beam.
drawing of a long shipA Viking Double-prowed "Long Serpent" or "Dragon-ship"Observe the well-supported outer stem, the Dragon Head, the embroidered sail decorated with a variation of the "Swastika" design, which was much used by the Vikings on arms and ornaments; the vane at the masthead, the "shield-row" protecting the rowers, and the steersman guiding the ship by means of her "steer-board".
A Viking Double-prowed "Long Serpent" or "Dragon-ship"Observe the well-supported outer stem, the Dragon Head, the embroidered sail decorated with a variation of the "Swastika" design, which was much used by the Vikings on arms and ornaments; the vane at the masthead, the "shield-row" protecting the rowers, and the steersman guiding the ship by means of her "steer-board".
Observe the well-supported outer stem, the Dragon Head, the embroidered sail decorated with a variation of the "Swastika" design, which was much used by the Vikings on arms and ornaments; the vane at the masthead, the "shield-row" protecting the rowers, and the steersman guiding the ship by means of her "steer-board".
That was because she was a sailing-ship and the Nydam vessel was not. The latter may fairly be assumed to have been a "Skuta", and the Gokstadt ship a rather small "Serpent". Now in all the "sagas" that have come down to us the different war-ships which occupy so prominent a place in them are distinguished as to size by the number of oars they pulled.From the Nydam ship, which had fourteen oars a-side, we are thus able to judge the dimensions of famous Viking war-ships like the "Long Serpent" of King Olaf and others, if we allow for the slightly wider space between the rowers' benches necessitated by the greater length of the oars in the larger vessels. Of course, the whole length of the ship was not occupied by the benches. In the Nydam ship, for instance, they took up 46 feet of her length; the remaining 15 feet at each end were required for fighting- and steering-platforms, stowage of stores, &c. In this way it has been calculated that the "Long Serpent"—you must remember that this was aspecial"Long Serpent", and probably bigger than the usual run of the war-vessels so-called—was 180 feet long, while the still bigger ship belonging to our King Canute works out at no less than 300 feet in length. The beam or width it has not been found possible to estimate exactly, but my own opinion is that the lines, or contour, of these very much bigger ships were much deeper and fuller than in the smaller types.
There is an old manuscript in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, dating from aboutA.D.1000, in which appear three pictures of Noah's Ark (see p. 26). The house part of the design is frankly impossible—it would capsize the ship—but the hull in each case—the boat part—is not at all unlike the well-known Bayeux-tapestry ships, but of a better and more seaworthy shape, though in some of them the big dragon figure-head is unduly exaggerated. The space between the benches was called a "room", and the port and starboard portions of this were known as "half-rooms". The crew were all told off to these half-rooms as their stations, except those quartered forward and aft. Thus the "Long Serpent" had eight men to each "half-room", and from this item of information it has been estimated that she carried a crew of something between six and seven hundred men. Goodness knows how many King Canute's big "Dreadnought" carried.
Some of these Viking ships were very smartly decorated. Armorial bearings had not then been invented, but their sails were worked with the most beautiful emblematic and intricate embroidery, and were not infrequently made of velvet, though generally of a coarse woollen material called "vadmal." Some of the most elaborate ones were actually lined with fur. Not only the ships themselves, but also their sails, like the swords of their warriors, were given poetical sounding names: "The Cloth of the Wind", "The Beard of the Yard", and "The Tapestry of the Mast-head", are some of them. Along their gunwales, above the oars, which worked through holes in the ship's side, ran the "shield-row", composed of circular wooden shields or targets, with big shining bosses of brass or other metal in the middle. Each shield overlapped the next till it touched its boss, and so gave a double protection to the rowers. This was a very ancient custom, as shields were carried in this way by Phœnician ships as far back as 450B.C.As a general rule, the Norsemen's shields were black and yellow, the Danes' red, and the Saxons' white with red or blue edges.
drawing of a dragon figure-headA "Dragon" Figure-headThere was a law that ships must not approach the land with their figure-heads in position with "gaping heads and yawning snouts."
It is rather curious that, with the exception of black, these colours are conspicuous in the flags of the corresponding nations of to-day. But the King of Norway presented ourKing Athelstan, in 931, with a ship fitted with a complete row ofgoldenshields.
A whole chapter might be written about the figure-heads of the Viking ships, for they were much more than mere ornaments. They each had some special signification, and were certainly connected with a most extraordinary superstition which prevailed among the Scandinavian peoples. It is best explained by an example from the saga of which one Egil was the hero. Pursued by a king answering to the suggestive name of Blood-axe, he escaped from Norway and took ship to Iceland. Before he set sail over the North Sea he determined to take it out of his enemy, Blood-axe, by a species of what we may call "wireless" witchcraft. Landing on an islet, he erected what was known as a "Nithstang", a "contraption" considered very pleasing to the Norse gods. The idea probably had something in common with the "lifting up" of the brazen serpent in theBook of Numbers. His installation was a very simple one: a hazel pole with a horse's head stuck on the top. He stuck it up in a crevice of the rocks, saying that he did so "as a curse" on Blood-axe and his Queen. Then he turned it round so as to point to the mainland, and announced that he also "fired off" his curse at the "Guardian Spirits" of the country, who were to get no rest till they had hustled King Blood-axe out of it. Finally he inscribed his curse in Runic characters on the pole, and continued his voyage to Iceland as pleased with himself as a German hero who had dropped a floating mine in the track of passenger vessels.
drawing of a prow of a ship with figureheadA Dragon-head and a Representation of a "Nithstang". From a Saxon MS.
Now it appears that these same guardian spirits were extremely susceptible to this sort of "wireless", not only in Norway, but everywhere. And it also seems that—how or in what way I am unable to explain—the figure-heads of the Viking ships had much the same properties as the "Nithstangs". So it was that in Iceland, at any rate, there was a law that ships must remove their figure-heads before approachingthe land, "and not approach it with gaping heads and yawning snouts", lest they might scare the guardian spirits of the land.[3]Having carried out this regulation, it was customary for the seamen to hoist a polished shield to the masthead and so flash the signal that the guardian spirits need not now be alarmed. That some connection existedbetween these "heads" and the "Nithstang" is further shown by a drawing in an old manuscript of that period, which depicts a human head set on a pole, which is fastened to a dragon figure-head. And again, in a wall-painting in the church of Tegelsmora in Upland, in which the famous King Olaf is seen waging a desperate battle with our old nursery friends the "Trolls", the bowsprit of his ship is adorned with the skull of an ox.
But we must leave the ships and come to their crews. To begin with, they were all "soldiers and sailors too"! They were equally at home on the battle-field ashore and in handling their cherished "long-ships" afloat. The Scandinavians believed that the soul of a warrior killed in battle went at once to Valhalla, which represented their idea of heaven.
There they confidently expected that the brave fighter would spend a happy eternity of fighting and feasting. It is said that their remote forefathers had brought this weird form of belief from the depths of Central Asia—but that must be a very old story. But fighting was the breath of their life. They revelled in it, though they did not despise the plunder which was generally the reward of victory. Many of these fierce warriors were subject to and even cultivated a species of madness, almost amounting to demoniacal possession, which induced them to tear off their clothes and hurl themselves almost naked into the fray, feeling endued with the strength of seven men.
These "Berserkers", as they were called from this custom, were doubtless most dangerous opponents in their "Berserk" fury. Nowadays it is generally accepted that the braver the man the more modest he is about his deeds of valour; the boaster is considered likely to be but a broken reed in the day of battle. But it was quite otherwise with the Viking warriors. They gloried in boasting aloud of their prowess, of the deeds they had done, and of those that they were ready to perform.
The tactics of the Vikings, if they failed to ram their opponents, was to lash the bows of as many friendly and hostile vessels together as possible, so as to form a floating battle-field. The fighting-platforms were not, apparently, raised above the bows, as later on in mediæval times. They were somewhere about the level of the gunwale, and when several ships were lashed together, all these platforms provided a battle-ground upon which the Berserker and his emulators could indulge in the furious hand-to-hand combats which were their delight. If they could do this they were probably more than pleased that they had failed to ram their enemy. I doubt if every ship was built with a ram, but, on the other hand, it is certain that some ships were specially built for use as rams, and even strengthened by iron plating. So that we see that the armour-clad is no new invention.
Drawing of chess piece"Showing his Teeth"Figure of a Berserker from a set of ancient chessmen found in the island of Lewis. The Berserkers always bit their "shield-rims" on going into battle.
In the larger "long-ships" a fighting-gangway ran along behind the shield-row, connecting the fore and after platforms. Beneath the latter, which was somewhat elevated so that the steersman could look ahead, was the sleeping-place for the commander of the ship. Other sleeping accommodation was provided under the foremost platform, while, if at anchor, those of the crew who were not on watch slept under awnings or tents, set up on framework which could be erected for the purpose in the centre of the vessel. The men slept in leather bags, which were equally useful either ashore or afloat. In short, these ancient war-vessels were so well and scientifically built, so well arranged and equipped, andso well manned that we cease to wonder at the long voyages they were able to perform by taking advantage of the summer months.
paning of ships at seaA WAR-GALLEY IN THE DAYS OF KING ALFREDThe Dragon or other figure-head has been unshipped, possibly because the galley is going into port.
A WAR-GALLEY IN THE DAYS OF KING ALFREDThe Dragon or other figure-head has been unshipped, possibly because the galley is going into port.
The Dragon or other figure-head has been unshipped, possibly because the galley is going into port.
There is not the slightest doubt that the Vikings discovered the continent of America long before Columbus did. They went by way of Iceland, and so were able to touch land more than once on their journey, but they got there all the same. They established a colony in Greenland aboutA.D.985. From there they made several expeditions to the southward, and discovered a densely wooded country which is supposed to have been some portion of Nova Scotia. The climate of Greenland must have been very different from what it is at present, for the Viking colony lasted for 400 years, till, in the fifteenth century, an enormous mass of ice was swept down by the Arctic current, piled itself up along the coast, and entirely cut off the settlement—which at that time consisted of thirty villages with their churches and monasteries—from the rest of the world, so that before long every trace of it disappeared.
It seems possible that some of you may say: "This is all very interesting, but I thought we were going to read about the British Navy, and it seems to me that the Saxons and their ships represented the British navy of those days". That is a fair argument, but for my part I donotthink that we can accept the Saxon Navy as the ancestor of the British Navy of to-day.
The Saxons were no seamen, and apparently but poor soldiers. When King Alfred built a navy of ships, which are stated to have been superior in every way to those of the Frisians, Scandinavians, and Danes, and by means of which he succeeded in securing more than one victory, he could not provide them with seamen. The Saxons were no good, and he had to hire Frisian pirates to man them. The Saxons fought well at Hastings, but, though there was a strong infusion of the Danish element by this time, they lost the battle through lack of discipline and military experience. It is difficult, therefore, to recognize in these Saxons the progenitors of men like Lieutenant Holbrook, who navigated his submarine through and under rows and rows of deadly mines, knowing that the least touch would bring annihilation, or of Private Pym of the Berkshires, who,aloneand "on his own", rushed into a house held by a detachment of German soldiers and succeeded in killing the whole of them but three, who "made their escape".
No. For the ancestors of the British seamen and sailors of Elizabethan and modern times I think we should rather look to the Danes, who, it must be remembered, between 870 and the Norman Conquest, were not only continually invading England, but established themselves in a great part of it, especially in the east and north, and to those of the Conqueror's followers who traced their descent directly from the Northmen or Vikings. It is their spirit which has brought us victory both by land and by sea, but more especially by sea, and not the spirit of Alfred's Saxon subjects, who had to pay others to fight for them. Again, take such pre-eminent commanders as Drake and Nelson. Is not the former name one which takes us directly back to the "Draakers", the "Dragon-ships" of the Vikings, and has not Nelson a distinctly Danish sound about it?
The ships of King Alfred "were full-nigh twice as long as the others; some had sixty oars, and some had more; they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher, than the others. They were shapen neither like the Frisian nor the Danish; but so it seemed to him that they would be most efficient."
Fighting-ships of the Middle Ages
"With grisly sound off go the great gunsAnd heartily they crash in all at once,And from the top down come the great stones;In goes the grapnel so full of crooks,Among the ropes run the shearing hooks;And with the pole-axe presses one the other;Behind the mast begins one to take coverAnd out again, and overboard he drivethHis foe, whose side his spear-head riveth.He rends the sail with hooks just like a scythe;He brings the cup, and bids his mate be blithe;He showers hard peas to make the hatches slippery.With pots full of lime they rush together;And thus the live-long day in fight they spend."Description of a mediæval sea fight,Legend of Good Women(modernized), fifteenth century.
William the Conqueror, like Cortez, the discoverer of Mexico at a later date, dispelled any thoughts of retreat that might have been lurking in the minds of his followers by destroying the ships which had brought them over. He had come to stay. Now the Normans, though of the same blood as the seafaring Vikings, who had sailed and fought their Dragon-ships to the very ends of the known earth, had been so long settled in France that they had adopted not only the French language, but French ideas, which were not, generally speaking, of a nautical nature.
Among these was the system of feudalism and knight-service. The very word for knight—chevalierin French—signified a horseman; and the Norman and other feudal knights of the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries looked at war and politics from the point of view ofa cavalier armed cap-à-pie seated in his war-saddle. As for ships and sailors, they were merely unpleasant means to necessary ends.[4]But if one wanted to go to fight and plunder and raid across Channel he had to submit himself and his followers to the cramped accommodation of a vessel of some kind, and to the care of the rough shipmaster and his crew—low but necessary persons, in the eyes of the mediæval knight, just as were the experienced "tarpawlins" in the estimate of the scented "gentleman-captains" in the days of the Restoration. So it came about that for some centuries England had no Royal Navy.
The king and his principal nobles had at times a few galleys or sailing-vessels of their own—almost, if not entirely, their personal property—and these they made use of for purposes of transportation or fighting when required; but during this period the maritime defence of the realm was carried out—on the whole inefficiently—on the hire system. The money for this purpose was forthcoming, since William revived a tax for defence purposes, called the "Heregeld", which had been not long before abolished by Edward the Confessor, on the pretext that by it "the people were manifoldly distressed". Had he not listened to the "little navyites" of his day, perhaps the Norman Invasion would not have succeeded. In addition to this, William placed the five principal ports commanding the narrowest part of the Channel on a special footing, under which, in return for certain privileges, they were to supply him or his successors with a fleet of fifty-two ships in cases of emergency. They could only be retained for fifteen days, however. These ports—Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich—were then, and for ever afterwards known as the "Cinque Ports", though Dover is the only one which can still be regarded as a port at all. Rye, Winchelsea, and Pevensey also became "Cinque Ports" later on.
William's idea with regard to the Cinque Ports was probably not so much the general defence of the kingdom as the defence of his communications with Normandy. With their assistance he could be sure of always being able to move troops either way across Channel as his exigencies required. Thus, when in 1083 William, who was then in Normandy, heard rumours of the intention of the Kings of Denmark and Norway and the Count of Flanders to invade England with a great fleet, he hurried over-Channel with so great an army that "men wondered how this land could feed all that force". Without the assistance of the Cinque Ports he might have had some difficulty in doing this.
Although we really know a great deal about the ships of the Saxon and Danish periods of our history, we know comparatively little about those which were built between the Conquest and the accession of Henry VII. For, while we have had specimens of the actual Viking ships to work upon, we have for this long period, of over 400 years, little information beyond that afforded by the seals of maritime towns, the ships depicted by monkish chroniclers and romancists in their illuminated manuscripts, and in a few cases old stained-glass windows and decorative carvings.
Now, to begin with, it is obvious that in each of these cases the artist was cramped for space. He had to decide between the calls of accuracy and of decorative effect, and almost invariably he gave way to the latter.
In seals, especially, he was tempted to make the curves of the ship's hull run parallel to the circumference of the seal. In that which belonged to the master of theSainte Catherine de Cayeux, which fought at Sluys in 1340, the exterior curve of the hull of the ship represented upon it is really concentric with the seal itself. In almost every other case—up to the fifteenth century at any rate—the hulls of the ships shown on seals of this description approximate to this shape, and, generally speaking, are of crescent form, with fighting-stagesor "castles" at the bow and stern. There are a few exceptions, which are more likely to be correct, as their designers evidently made up their minds not to be led away from the truth.
In the rather fascinating pictures that appear in mediæval manuscripts, too, the monkish artists had to work in a small space, in which they wanted to put a great deal of ornamental and other detail. They probably knew little or nothing about nautical affairs into the bargain. In the result their ships present the same crescent-shaped hulls as those in the seals of the period, and give the impression of being very small affairs indeed, thanks to the large-sized nobles and men-at-arms with which they are densely packed.
drawing of a seal with a half-circular shipSeal of Demizel, master of the barqueSainte Catherine de Cayeux, 1340(FromHistoire de la Marine Française, by kind permission of the author, Monsieur C. de la Ronière.)An example of the impossible ship. Note how the engraver has made the keel exactly parallel to the circumference of the seal. It makes a handsome and effective seal, but can hardly be accepted as a picture of a ship of 1340.
Seal of Demizel, master of the barqueSainte Catherine de Cayeux, 1340(FromHistoire de la Marine Française, by kind permission of the author, Monsieur C. de la Ronière.)An example of the impossible ship. Note how the engraver has made the keel exactly parallel to the circumference of the seal. It makes a handsome and effective seal, but can hardly be accepted as a picture of a ship of 1340.
An example of the impossible ship. Note how the engraver has made the keel exactly parallel to the circumference of the seal. It makes a handsome and effective seal, but can hardly be accepted as a picture of a ship of 1340.
The reason of this quaint method of representing ships and their crews or passengers is not far to seek. Who has not seen a child's first attempts to draw the human face in profile? He outlines the forehead, the nose, and chin, and puts in the back of the head easily and to his own satisfaction. Then he pauses and deliberates. The eyes are what he is puzzling over. He knows that, though everybody has one nose, one forehead, and one chin, he hastwoeyes. What about them? He may think that one eye looks most suitable, but still he doesn't like to leave the other one out. So, as often as not, he puts in a couple, one about theright place and the other somewhere towards the back of the head.
ship wth four people filling itWreck of the White Ship, 1120Another example of the impossible-ship picture. There were said to be 300 souls on board! Observe the rudder, which proves the date of the original drawing to be much later than 1120—probably 100 or 150 years.
Wreck of the White Ship, 1120Another example of the impossible-ship picture. There were said to be 300 souls on board! Observe the rudder, which proves the date of the original drawing to be much later than 1120—probably 100 or 150 years.
Another example of the impossible-ship picture. There were said to be 300 souls on board! Observe the rudder, which proves the date of the original drawing to be much later than 1120—probably 100 or 150 years.
The tonsured artist argued very much on the same lines. If he painted a ship it was not a picture of a special ship. What he wanted to portray was the saint or hero of his manuscript—very often Alexander the Great—on a voyage or crossing a river. If he drew him on the same scale as his vessel he would be a mere dot or blob of paint. He wanted to show his face, his armour, robes, crown, halo, or what-not. So, though he could not help knowing that it was inaccurate, he drew him—and, generally speaking, his companions—on a scale about 500 per cent larger than that of the ship in which he was depicted as performing a most cramped and uncomfortable voyage.
We must not therefore accept these brilliantly coloured works of art as corroborative of the accuracy of the figures of ships appearing on the seals of Dover, Yarmouth, Poole, and other English and foreign ports, and in the fifteenth century of various noblemen who held the appointment of Admiral of England or France. But there are, nevertheless, a great many useful details to be learned from these sources of information. From seals we can trace the gradual evolution of the poop and forecastle from the early platforms or fighting-stages, the supersession of the steering-oar or "steer-board" by the rudder, the beginning of cabins, the progress of fighting-tops and action aloft. We see, too, the mode of wearing banners, streamers, and flags, and gain some idea of the gradual growth of sail-power, which culminated, we may say, in the sailing battleship of Trafalgar days.
If we consider the question of mediæval shipbuilding as a whole, we shall find it difficult to believe that the scientific methods of construction which distinguished the Viking ships, and the improvements on them which were made by Alfred the Great, had all been forgotten and thrown on one side, and that these fine specimens of the shipbuilder's art had been replaced by anything like the ridiculous little "cocked hats" that are supposed to represent the shipping of the British and other Northern nations between 1066 and 1450.
The sea-going ships of these peoples, intended especially for sailing, would naturally be considerably shorter and broader in the beam than the Viking class of ship, which relied principally on oars for propulsion, and was rather too long and narrow to sail well under ordinary conditions of weather. Moreover, though they carried a single sail, they were not intended to contend with heavy winter weather.
We have a description of theMont-Joie, in which Louis IX of France sailed on his last crusade. She was built at Genoa, which then and for long after shared with Venice the distinction of being the birthplace of the largest and finest shipsin the world. She is worth describing, for she was one of the precursors of the big Spanish and Genoese carracks that our fleets encountered off the coasts of France and Flanders from time to time during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and which stimulated us to buy or build big ships of our own.
TheMont-Joiewas 80 feet long on the keel, but over all, measuring from the extremity of the forecastle to the highest point of the stern, she had a length of 120 feet. She is said to have been 26 feet deep amidships. Twelve feet above the keel was a deck running from right forward to right aft. Below this was the hold, where lay the ballast, and in which were stowed water, provisions, and various war materials. Six feet above the lower deck was another similar deck, which we may call the upper deck, while above this again a gallery or gangway, six or seven feet wide, ran along each side of the ship, between the fore and after castles. The ship's side rose 3½ feet above these fore and aft bridges and was pierced with loopholes for archery. In action the bulwarks would be heightened and further protected by shields orpavises.[5]Below the upper deck, aft, was situated the "paradis" (chambre de parade), or state cabin, which in this case was, of course, occupied by St. Louis himself.
There was other accommodation provided forward for the rest of theMont-Joie'spassengers, with the exception of the Queen, who occupied another "paradis" on the upper deck, immediately over the King's. These cabins were lighted by ports or scuttles cut in the sides of the ship. Forward there was further shelter provided under the forecastle, and both it and the after part of the ship were surmounted by abellatorium, or fighting-platform, with bulwarks 4 feet in height. The ship was equipped with two tall masts raking forwardand carrying large lateen sails. At the summit of each was agabieor fighting-top. Altogether it will be seen at once that here was a real sea-going ship, very different from the open boats, manned by giants, of the seals and manuscripts illustrations.
It is not always easy to convey the impression of size by mere figures, but if we bear in mind that the famous oldVictory, now lying in Portsmouth Harbour, and which many of us have seen at least once, is only about twice the length of those thirteenth-century ships, we shall be able to form some idea of their not unimportant dimensions.
Many of the mediæval ships were most gorgeously painted and decorated. When the French king Charles VI fitted out a great naval armament at Sluys, in 1386, for the invasion of England—which did not come off, by the way—Froissart tells us that "gold and silver were no more spared than though it had rained out of the clouds or been scooped out of the sea". One young noble covered his mast with gold-leaf. "They made banners, pennons, and standards of silk, so goodly that it was marvel to behold them; also they painted the masts of their ships from the one end to the other, glittering with gold and devices and arms: and specially it was shewed me", says old Froissart, "that the Lord Guy de la Tremouille garnished his ship richly; the paintings that were made cost more than ten thousand francs. Whatsoever any lord could devise for their pleasure was made on the ships: and the poor people of the realm paid for all; for the taxes were so great, to furnish this voyage, that they which were most rich sorrowed for it, and the poor fled for it."
Our own Henry V had rather "loud" tastes in his ship decoration. In the year 1400 he had a ship painted red, decorated with collars and garters of gold surrounding fleur-de-lis and leopards, as well as gilded leashes looped round white greyhounds with golden collars. All these were selections from the royal badges. Her mast was red also. TheGoodPace of the Tower[6]was red too, but her upper works and stern were of a different colour, and she carried a gilded eagle with a crown in its mouth on her bowsprit.
TheTrinity of the Towerwas another red ship, elaborately adorned with coats of arms, while theNicholas of the Towerwas black, "powdered" with "Prince of Wales's Feathers", with quills and scrolls in gold. The King's own particular ship, the "cog"John, carried the royal crest, "the Lion standing on the Crown", at her masthead, besides other decorations. The Genoese in 1242 painted their war-ships white, spotted all over with red crosses, so Henry perhaps only followed the fashion after all; but, generally speaking, red was the favourite colour, though black at times ran it pretty close in favour as groundwork for various patterns of ornamentation.
But the continually growing decoration in the way of flags, standards, pennons, and streamers must by no means be overlooked. They were, perhaps, the most striking characteristic of the mediæval war-ship.
The standard or pennon of the owner or commander of the ship—and it must be remembered that he was in those days not a seaman, but always a soldier—was planted at the foremost corner of the poop or after-castle, on the starboard side. A ship called after a saint would have, in addition, the banner of that saint, and in the case of the Cinque Ports we may be sure that their arms, "three lions with half a galley in place of tail and hind legs", were displayed on some portion of the vessel. In royal ships there were other banners with the various royal badges, and there were hosts of streamers, pendants, and guidons as well. When fully "dressed", with all her flags flying, the mediæval war-ship must have made a brave display. Galleys, in addition, had a small staff with a pendant attached to the loom of every oar on such occasions.
another ship at seaFifteenth-century Ship(From a painting by Carpaccio)Observe the capacious hull, the heavy mast, the way the sail is made fast in the middle as well as by the sheets at the corners, the crane for hoisting missiles to the top, and the darts ranged round it; also the way the main-yard is spliced in the middle.
Fifteenth-century Ship(From a painting by Carpaccio)Observe the capacious hull, the heavy mast, the way the sail is made fast in the middle as well as by the sheets at the corners, the crane for hoisting missiles to the top, and the darts ranged round it; also the way the main-yard is spliced in the middle.
Observe the capacious hull, the heavy mast, the way the sail is made fast in the middle as well as by the sheets at the corners, the crane for hoisting missiles to the top, and the darts ranged round it; also the way the main-yard is spliced in the middle.
Nor must we overlook the ornamental nature of the sails in the times of which we are writing. It was no uncommon thing for the whole of the big square mainsail of a "cog" to be decorated with the arms of her owner. This is clearly shown in the well-known manuscriptLife of the Earl of Warwick, by John Rous. Generally sails, often themselvesof the richest colouring and material, were adorned with badges or devices, but sometimes merely with stripes of different colours. Colour ran riot in the war-vessels of our mediæval ancestors—how different from the sombre grey war-paint of our modern Leviathans!
drawing of shipShip of the latter half of the Fifteenth Century(From an illuminated MS. of 1480)Note the diminutive figure-head, the two shields amidships—probably placed there for decorative purposes, as the ship appears to be "dressed" with many pennons and streamers. The smallness of the tops is unusual, also the square port-hole and the double-gabled cabin.
Ship of the latter half of the Fifteenth Century(From an illuminated MS. of 1480)Note the diminutive figure-head, the two shields amidships—probably placed there for decorative purposes, as the ship appears to be "dressed" with many pennons and streamers. The smallness of the tops is unusual, also the square port-hole and the double-gabled cabin.
Note the diminutive figure-head, the two shields amidships—probably placed there for decorative purposes, as the ship appears to be "dressed" with many pennons and streamers. The smallness of the tops is unusual, also the square port-hole and the double-gabled cabin.
The end of the fifteenth century saw the development of the carrack into the caravel, such a ship as theSancta Maria, in which Columbus sailed to the West Indies in 1492. As her original plans were found in the dockyard at Cadiz, and a replica of the famous original was built from them by Spanish workmen in the arsenal of Carracas in 1892 for theChicago Exhibition, which took place in the following year, we know exactly what she was like. She was just over 60 feet long on her keel, and had a length over all of 93 feet, with a beam of nearly 6 feet. She had a displacement of 233 tons when fully laden and equipped. She had three masts, but only the mainmast had a top-sail. The mizzen carried a lateen sail. She was considerably smaller than many ships of her day, but in general appearance and rig she approximated to the smaller ships of the Elizabethan epoch, and she and her class may well be considered as forming a connecting-link between the old single-masted "round ships" and the square-rigged, many-gunned line-of-battleship, which from the time of Henry VIII to Queen Victoria formed the mainstay of our battle fleets. There were, of course, many developments and improvements during this long period, but the type persisted throughout, just as did that of the modified Viking ship in mediæval ages.
So much for the ships of the Middle Ages. But before we go on to take stock of their crews it will be as well to attempt some description of the way they were fought. Nowadays the ship armed with the heaviest and longest-ranged guns—if her gunners know their work—seems to be able to "knock out" a slightly less powerfully gunned opponent before she can get in any effective reply. The present war has given us many illustrations of this fact. TheScharnhorst—a crack gunnery ship—with her heavier broadside, was able to sink theGood Hopewith little or no damage to herself, and in her turn she was simply demolished by the heavy guns of theInflexibleand theInvincibleoff the Falkland Islands.
But in the Middle Ages there was nothing like this. All decisive fighting was practically hand to hand and man to man, except for the use of the ram by galleys and the exchange of arrows and stones at comparatively close quarters. But victory was only achieved, as a general rule, when theenemy's ship was boarded and her crew defeated in a bloody tussle, at the end of which no one but the victors remained alive, unless, perhaps, some knight or noble who was worth preserving for the value of his ransom. The military portion of the crew, the archers, men-at-arms, and their knightly leaders, carried the usual arms of their day. The seamen, who were in the minority, probably used knives, short swords, and spears, and made themselves very useful in hurling big stones, heavy javelins called "viretons", unslaked lime, and other disagreeable missiles from the "top-castles" at the head of the mast or masts.
We have already mentioned the fore and after fighting-stages, or, as they later on became, poops and forecastles, that were erected when a ship was going on the war-path. We may note, in passing, that in the earlier part of the period we are dealing with, these were so often and so generally required that "castle-building" afloat became a recognized trade, until, in the process of evolution, poops and forecastles became integral parts of the ship.
We may add that, in addition to the fore and after fighting-platforms, special fighting-towers were not infrequently erected, certainly in the Mediterranean, and we may therefore assume that they were not altogether unknown in Northern waters. These towers were generally built up round the mast, and provided with loopholes and battlements, and sometimes protected by iron plates or raw hides.
One account of mediæval war-galleys states that in some cases "a castle was erected of the width of the ship and some twenty feet in length; its platform being elevated sufficiently to allow of free passage under it and over the benches". King John introduced the famous Genoese cross-bowmen—who so signally failed to distinguish themselves at Crécy—into his navy. The reason most probably was that a cross-bow could be fired through a loophole by a man crouching under cover of the bulwarks or shield-row,whereas a long-bow could not be used in this way. Nevertheless the cross-bow did not succeed in ousting the long-bow in the British Navy, since, in 1456, in the course of a public disputation between the heralds of England and France as to the claim of the former country to the domination of the sea, the French herald claimed for his countrymen that they were more formidable afloat because they used the cross-bow. "Our arbalistiers", he asserted, "fire under cover or from the shelter of the fore and after castles; through little loopholes they strike their opponents without danger of being wounded themselves. Your English archers, on the other hand, cannot let fly their arrows except above-board and standing clear of cover; fear and the motion of the ship is likely to distract their aim." But there does not seem to have been much "fear" among the English archers, and as those that were in the habit of serving afloat doubtless had their "sea-legs", it must have taken a good deal to disconcert their aim, world-renowned for its deadliness.
Still, as we shall see in a later chapter, the cross-bow was a most formidable weapon afloat, and the French herald's argument was a sound one. In the place of artillery the ships of the earlier Middle Ages were provided with mangonels, trebuchets, espringalds and other mechanical instruments for hurling heavy projectiles, which, according to some authorities, were made or imported as the result of the experiences of Richard I and his crusading companions in the Mediterranean. Personally, I should say that they had been known long before that time. A contemporary chronicle of the siege of Paris by the Northmen in 885-7 mentions that, to cover the Danish stormers, "thousands of leaden balls, scattered like a thick hail in the air, fall upon the city, and powerfulcatapultsthunder upon the forts which defend the bridge". The knowledge of the heavy war-machines of the Ancients had never died out. The catapult was the old Roman onager, and consisted of along arm or beam, of which one end was thrust through the middle of a tightly-twisted bundle of hair-ropes, fibres, or sinews stretched across a solid frame. At the other end was either a sling or a spoon-shaped receptacle for the projectile. This end was drawn back by means of levers and winches against the twist of the bundle of sinews and held by a catch. On the catch being released, by pulling on a lanyard attached to a trigger, the long end of the beam was forced violently forward till it struck against a strongly-supported transverse baulk of timber arranged for the purpose. When this occurred the huge stone or other projectile flew on through the air and struck its target with tremendous force.
The trebuchet and the mangonel were very like the Roman ballista, and acted much in the same way as the catapult, except that the motive force was the fall of a heavy counterweight instead of tension. The springald, or espringald, was a large-sized steel cross-bow, mounted on a pivot, hurling heavy iron darts, with great force, which had considerable penetration. In the battle of Zierksee (1304) one of these heavy "garots", as they were called, struck theOrgueileuseof Bruges with such violence that it not only pierced the bulwarks of the forecastle, but took off the arm of one of the trumpeters who were sounding their silver trumpets, transfixed another, and finally embedded itself in the after castle.
One of the most formidable missiles hurled by the mangonels and such machines was the famous Greek fire, knowledge of which had been brought to Europe from the Crusades. Sometimes it was projected through "siphons" or tubes, of which no exact knowledge has come down to us. But it seems to have ignited the moment it came in contact with the air, and was spouted forth with the violence of water from a fire-hose. It destroyed everything that came in its way, and was inextinguishable by water. It could only be smothered by plenty of earth or sand, a material not generally available at sea. The mangonels threw it in barrels.
"This was the fashion of the Greek Fire," says De Joinville, the historian of Louis IX's first Crusade. "It came on as broad in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of Heaven. It looked like a dragon in the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it was day, by reason of the great mass of fire and the brilliance of the light that it shed. Thrice that night they hurled the Greek Fire at us, and four times shot it from the tourniquet[7]cross-bow. Every time that our holy King (St. Louis) heard that they were throwing Greek Fire at us, he draped his sheet round him, and stretched out his hands to our Lord, and said, weeping: 'Oh! fair Lord God, protect my people!'" Such was the terror inspired by this fearful mixture, whose chief ingredient is supposed to have been naphtha. It does not, however, appear to have been used to any considerable extent in Western Europe.
In the latter half of the period we are dealing with, cannon—big, little, and middle-sized—quite superseded the mangonel and other mechanical projectile-throwers. Few large guns were carried, and those mostly fixed rigidly on timber beds and fired over the ship's side—hence the term "gunwale", which we still use in boats, a "wale" meaning a band of timber. Small breech-loading guns were mounted in considerable numbers in the fore and after castles, some of these, generally known as "murderers", being mounted inboard in such a way as to fire at close quarters on any boarding-parties of the enemy who might succeed in gaining possession of the waist of the ship. Others were mounted aloft in the tops, just as they were in our own days until the tops were required for fire-control platforms. But I propose to give the quaint ancestors of our modern monster cannon and rapid-fire guns a chapter to themselves later on.