Part 3 (1/2)
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 mediaeval war-s.h.i.+p.
The standard or pennon of the owner or commander of the s.h.i.+p--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 p.o.o.p or after-castle, on the starboard side. A s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 mediaeval war-s.h.i.+p 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fifteenth-century s.h.i.+p
(_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.]
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 ma.n.u.script _Life of the Earl of Warwick_, by John Rous. Generally sails, often themselves of 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 mediaeval ancestors--how different from the sombre grey war-paint of our modern Leviathans!
[Ill.u.s.tration: s.h.i.+p of the latter half of the Fifteenth Century (_From an illuminated MS. of 1480_)
Note the diminutive figure-head, the two s.h.i.+elds amids.h.i.+ps--probably placed there for decorative purposes, as the s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p as the _Sancta 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 a.r.s.enal of Carracas in 1892 for the Chicago 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 s.h.i.+ps of her day, but in general appearance and rig she approximated to the smaller s.h.i.+ps of the Elizabethan epoch, and she and her cla.s.s may well be considered as forming a connecting-link between the old single-masted ”round s.h.i.+ps”
and the square-rigged, many-gunned line-of-battles.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p in mediaeval ages.
So much for the s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+p 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 ill.u.s.trations of this fact. The _Scharnhorst_--a crack gunnery s.h.i.+p--with her heavier broadside, was able to sink the _Good Hope_ with little or no damage to herself, and in her turn she was simply demolished by the heavy guns of the _Inflexible_ and the _Invincible_ off 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 the enemy's s.h.i.+p was boarded and her crew defeated in a b.l.o.o.d.y tussle, at the end of which no one but the victors remained alive, unless, perhaps, some knight or n.o.ble 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, p.o.o.ps and forecastles, that were erected when a s.h.i.+p was going on the war-path. We may note, in pa.s.sing, 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, p.o.o.ps and forecastles became integral parts of the s.h.i.+p.
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 a.s.sume 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 mediaeval war-galleys states that in some cases ”a castle was erected of the width of the s.h.i.+p and some twenty feet in length; its platform being elevated sufficiently to allow of free pa.s.sage under it and over the benches”. King John introduced the famous Genoese cross-bowmen--who so signally failed to distinguish themselves at Crecy--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 s.h.i.+eld-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 a.s.serted, ”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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 b.a.l.l.s, scattered like a thick hail in the air, fall upon the city, and powerful _catapults_ thunder 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 a long 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 the _Orgueileuse_ of 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 ma.s.s 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 G.o.d, 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 s.h.i.+p'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 s.h.i.+p. 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] ”No doubt the n.o.blemen of France prefer land to sea warfare, so hard and so little in accord with n.o.bility ”, stated a French Herald in 1456.
[5] Pavises, plural of Pavois. The ”Pavois”, or ”Pavise” as it was generally termed in English, was a big round-topped s.h.i.+eld like a tombstone. It was set up with a prop on sh.o.r.e or fastened to a s.h.i.+p's bulwarks, either on going into action or as a decoration. This is why to this day a French man-of-war when ”dressed” with all her colours at a review, for instance, is said to be ”_en grand pavois_”.
[6] ”Of the Tower”: this signifies that she was a royal s.h.i.+p, like ”H.M.S.” of to-day.