Ships and Seafaring (Medieval Studies)

Introduction

This bibliography is intended as an introduction to the study of medieval European ships in the period between the 5th and 15th centuries CE. It lists works that discuss why and how these vessels were designed and built, how they were rigged and equipped, and the ways in which they were used by seafarers and shipowners. Also, because research into medieval ships and seafaring requires the evaluation of often disparate, incomplete, and fragmentary evidence by scholars from different disciplines, this bibliography includes works that explore and evaluate the nature of that evidence. Like many aspects of medieval history, the study of medieval shipping grew over the course of the 20th century from being the preserve of a minority of professional and amateur scholars (often regarded as rather eccentric by their peers) into an international field of academic enquiry. Interest in medieval ships has undoubtedly received an enormous stimulus from the discoveries made by maritime archaeologists in the last half-century or so. Time and again, these discoveries have produced examples of the real thing, and have helped to show how ships were put together and used. This bibliography gives some idea of the great range of work already undertaken in this field, and how interdisciplinary work among historians, archaeologists, and other scholars and scientists has been essential to its development. Most importantly, it is hoped that this introduction will encourage people to want to learn more and to make their own contributions to an exciting area of international research. Despite its international scope, the number of people studying medieval shipping is not large, nor is ever likely to be. That said, the field has the potential to encourage the wider public understanding of medieval history in general. The subject matter can be very dramatic, and it is not difficult to show how the ships and seafaring of the Middle Ages helped to shape the world in which we live now.

General Overviews

The maritime history of medieval northern Europe and western Iberia was very different from that of the Mediterranean. After the end of an intermittent tin trade between the British Isles and the Mediterranean between the 5th and 7th centuries, there do not appear to have been any significant seaborne contacts (apart from occasional crusading voyages) between these regions until Italian galleys started trading to the north in the late 13th century. The construction and rig of northern and southern European ships developed in very different ways, until transfers of technology began in the late 13th or early 14th century. This geographical division is still reflected, to a degree, in the literature. Even now, language barriers and other issues mean that relatively few scholars are able to cover both regions in depth. The list of works below includes some that are regional or national studies, such as Crumlin-Pedersen 2010, Pryor 1988, Rodger 1998, and Friel 2003, while others, such as Mollat du Jourdin 1993, Rose 2007, Scammell 1981, and Unger 1980, bridge the divide. In a world of scholarship where, as has often been said, we tend to know more and more about less and less, there is an even greater need for books that take a step back and look at the big picture.

Crumlin-Pedersen, Ole. Archaeology and the Sea in Scandinavia and Britain: A Personal Account. Roskilde, Denmark: Viking Ship Museum, 2010.
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Based around a series of six lectures, this personal account by one of Europe’s leading maritime archaeologists also offers a clear and well-illustrated overview of the archaeological evidence for maritime activity in Britain and Scandinavia from prehistory and the Middle Ages.
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Friel, Ian. The British Museum Maritime History of Britain and Ireland, c. 400–2001. London: British Museum Press, 2003.
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This book presents a comprehensive overview of the maritime history of the British Isles, covering themes such as trade, shipbuilding and technology, naval developments and warfare, ports and harbors, fishing, and other areas. Each chapter includes a summary of the major developments in maritime technology in the relevant period.
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Mollat du Jourdin, Michel. Europe and the Sea. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1993.
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A wide-ranging study of the social, economic, and political aspects of Europe’s relationship with the sea, from prehistory to modern times, by one of France’s leading maritime historians. Although the book should not be read uncritically, there is much to be learned from its pan-European, multiperiod perspective.
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Pryor, John H. Geography, Technology and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649–1571. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511562501Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This work looks at the geographical, hydrographical, and meteorological context of Mediterranean maritime history in the Middle Ages, as well as politics, trade, warfare, and technology. However, note that Gluzman 2010 (cited under Navigation and Voyages) challenges Pryor’s propositions regarding sailing routes.
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Rodger, N. A. M. The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, 660f–1649. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.
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A massive work that is essential reading for anyone studying British medieval and early modern maritime history. It combines sophisticated modern research with narrative history, covering a vast range of themes and subjects, from the nature of ships and seafaring to the strategy and politics of naval wars.
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Rose, Susan. The Medieval Sea. London and New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2007.
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This scholarly but accessible work provides a good introduction to its subject. It covers the period 1000–1500, and a wide range of themes, including shipbuilding, navigation, life at sea, shipowning, ports, trade, warfare, and many other topics.
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Scammell, Geoffrey V. The World Encompassed: The First European Maritime Empires c. 800–1650. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
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Each chapter in this very wide-ranging book focuses on a different maritime culture or empire: the Vikings, the Hanse, Venice, Genoa, Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, and England. The material covered includes everything from maritime technology and trade to ideology and literature.
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Unger, Richard W. The Ship in the Medieval Economy, 600–1600. London: Croom Helm, 1980.
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Unger’s work takes a pan-European and multiperiod perspective. Although this work has been criticized in some aspects, it firmly relates changes in ship technology to social, economic, and political changes, and draws the sometimes rather cloistered world of medieval and 16th-century ship scholarship into the mainstream of historical debate.
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Reference Works

A significant number of the works in this bibliography could probably be described as reference works. However, encyclopedic projects are relatively rare, a reflection of the small numbers of scholars in the field and the limited size of the market for such productions. Delgado 1997, Hattendorf 2007, and McGrail 2001 represent the archaeological, historical, and ethnographic approaches to medieval maritime studies, although each incorporates information and insights derived from other fields. They show the enormous potential of the encyclopedic form but also some of its difficulties, including the unavoidable problem that any reference source begins to be out of date as soon as it is published. Online encyclopedias and databases may well supplant large printed reference books in the future. At the moment, however, it seems difficult to find any web-based sources to match the works listed here in terms of their range and authority.

Delgado, James P., ed. Encyclopaedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeology. London: British Museum Press, 1997.
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A comprehensive and authoritative survey of world underwater archaeology of all periods, up to and including the 20th century, well indexed and cross referenced. To date, there does not appear to be any online source that combines the scope and reliability of this work. Published in the United States by Yale University Press (1998).
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Hattendorf, John B., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History. 4 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
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Probably the most comprehensive encyclopedia of maritime history available, covering the period from Antiquity to the modern era, and containing a great deal of material relevant to medieval maritime history.
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McGrail, Séan. Boats of the World: From the Stone Age to Medieval Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
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A tour de force, summarizing the history of the development of watercraft in all world cultures from prehistory to the end of the Middle Ages. Among many other things, the work shows that shipwrights in some extra-European cultures came up with constructional ideas similar to those found in medieval Europe.
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Textbooks

Medieval maritime history is not taught widely enough to support a major textbook industry, and as a result, relatively few authors have written works designed to function as textbooks. However, Hutchinson 1994 fills the role admirably, as well as being one of the best available summaries of our knowledge of medieval European ships. Lewis and Runyan 1985, written by university historians with a long experience of teaching maritime history, functions well as an introduction for general readers and undergraduates alike. From the point of view of archaeology, Steffy 1994 is widely regarded as one the best available studies of the complexities of wooden hulls and the ways in which they can be reconstructed.

Hutchinson, Gillian. Medieval Ships and Shipping. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994.
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This work is based primarily on British evidence, though it also incorporates much material from other parts of Europe. It is a thorough study of the archaeological, documentary, and visual evidence for medieval ships; the development of ports and trade; and the use of ships and boats in fishing, trade, and warfare.
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Lewis, Archibald R., and Timothy J. Runyan. European Naval and Maritime History, 300–1500. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.
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Although one might disagree with the distinction between naval and maritime, this book offers a clear and succinct account of European seafaring history over the period.
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Steffy, Richard J. Wooden Shipbuilding and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1994.
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The Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M has been involved, among many other projects, in the excavation of the early medieval wrecks in the Mediterranean. Professor Steffy’s work is a key text for understanding wooden hulls of the prehistoric, ancient, medieval, and postmedieval periods.
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Anthologies

As with reference works, anthologies that relate directly to medieval ships are relatively rare. Rose 2008 is perhaps one of the most wide-ranging and offers a good introduction to the field. Greenhill 1995 is narrower in scope, mainly addressing iconographic issues, but it shows how much enduring value may be learned by looking at the beginnings of this field of research.

Greenhill, Basil, ed. The Evolution of the Sailing Ship 1250–1580: Keynote Studies from the Mariner’s Mirror. London: Conway Maritime, 1995.
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A collection of articles and notes on medieval and 16th-century ship iconography by various early contributors to the British journal Mariner’s Mirror between 1911 and the early 1930s. A useful collection, but also a nagging reminder of just how slowly this field of inquiry has developed in the past century.
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Rose, Susan, ed. Medieval Ships and Warfare. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008.
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A collection of twenty-seven significant papers on different aspects of ships, piracy, fleets, and warfare in medieval northern and southern Europe, published by a variety of scholars since the 1940s. Some of those that focus more particularly on ships and maritime technology are included elsewhere in this bibliography.
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Bibliographies

The rate of research and publication in most academic disciplines means that the traditional printed bibliography soon becomes out of date. Albion 1972 is an example of this kind of high-level bibliographical book: an excellent work that had to go through four editions in its first ten years just to keep up with a burgeoning area of research. Nowadays, the main way to keep up with publications is through annual bibliographies, such as that published by Mariner’s Mirror (Partridge and Partridge 2010), or through online collections, such as that maintained by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.

Albion, Robert Greenhalgh, ed. Naval and Maritime History: An Annotated Bibliography. 4th ed. Mystic, CT: Munson Institute of American Maritime History, 1972.
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The work is arranged thematically, with each section broken down in terms of chronology and other topics. Once a standard source, the work is now inevitably very dated, although still useful for material published before 1972.
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Partridge, M. S., and K. Partridge, comps. The Mariner’s Mirror: The International Journal of the Society for Nautical Research, Bibliography for 2008. London: Society for Nautical Research, 2010.
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The latest edition of a valuable work, published annually since 1984. The larger part of the bibliography is arranged according to the date of the subject, the Middle Ages being covered by the 400 to 1500 period, but there are also sections for general works and for maritime accessions to UK archives.
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Maritime Etymology

Anyone studying original written sources for medieval ships will come across a great number of technical terms. Many may appear to be fairly straightforward, but others are more difficult and some defy any agreed interpretation. The primary role in investigating medieval terminology has to be undertaken by philologists, because the forms and histories of words are a key to understanding them, and amateur etymology is as reliable as amateur brain surgery, if with less serious consequences. Fennis 1978 and Sayers 2002 illustrate the complex challenges of interpreting maritime phraseology, particularly because seafaring words, like the seafarers who used them, traveled between different cultures. However, once the philologists have published their work, historians, archaeologists, and others are perfectly at liberty to debate these interpretations and offer alternatives, if possible. Anyone studying medieval shipping owes a great debt to Augustin Jal (see Jal 1848) and the great French continuation of his work by Michel Mollat du Jourdin (Mollat du Jourdin 1970–), Bertil Sandahl (see Sandahl 1951), and their colleagues. Their work, however, like that in any specialist area, may be seen in a different light when viewed in relation to the results of studies in other fields. Thier 2002 may be an example of the way ahead in this field, combining etymology with archaeological and iconographic evidence, although the outlines of such an approach can also be found in earlier works, such as Sandahl 1951.

Fennis, Jan, ed. La Stolonomie et son vocabulaire maritime marseillais: Edition critique d’un manuscrit du XVIème siècle et etude historique, philosophique et etymologique de termes de marine levantins. Amsterdam: APA-Holland University Press, 1978.
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Edition of a mid-16th-century French treatise on galleys and galley fleets, with a detailed discussion of Marseillais seafaring terminology.
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Jal, Augustin. Glossaire nautique: Repetoire polyglotte de termes de marine anciens et modernes. 3 vols. Paris: Didot Frères, 1848.
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The work of an extraordinary French polymath, the Glossaire Nautique still has value as an etymological source, at least until its revision by the CNRS (by Mollat du Jourdin, et al.) is complete. Jal was perhaps the first person to undertake the serious scholarly study of medieval ships from original sources.
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Mollat du Jourdin, Michel, et al. Nouveau glossaire nautique d’Augustin Jal: Dictionnaire des termes de la marine à voile. Rev. ed. Paris: CNRS Editions, 1970–.
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The ongoing project by a multigenerational team of scholars is a valuable source for the study of French maritime terminology from the Middle Ages onwards, and is of great use to those working in Norman French or other Romance-language sources.
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Sandahl, Bertil. Middle English Sea Terms. Vol. 1, The Ship’s Hull. Uppsala, Sweden: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1951.
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Continued in Vol. 2: Masts, Spars and Sails (Uppsala, Sweden: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1958), and Vol. 3: Standing and Running Rigging (Uppsala, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1982). These three works are essential sources for understanding the technical terminology of medieval ship construction and equipment in late medieval England. Although some of his interpretations have been challenged, Sandahl’s work remains the only detailed, wide-ranging study of Middle English seafaring terminology, and is of enduring value.
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Sayers, William. “Some International Nautical Etymologies.” Mariner’s Mirror 88.4 (2002): 405–422.
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Paper discussing a number of seafaring terms of Norse origin used in medieval Britain and France.
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Thier, Katrin. Altenglische Terminologie fur Schiffe und Schiffsteile: Archäologie und Sprachgeschichte 500–1100. BAR International Series 1036. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2002.
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This work offers detailed interpretations of the Old English terminology for ships and seafaring but also integrates them with evidence from archaeological and iconographic sources, considerably deepening our ability to understand Anglo-Saxon ships and seafaring.
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Maritime Iconography

Images of medieval ships and boats survive in great numbers, and in a vast range of media. However, none of this great legacy was conceived as marine art in the way it has been understood since the 17th century: as accurate representations of real ships in realistic settings. The traditions of medieval art militated against accurate representation in the modern sense, and such evidence needs to be used with great care. Medieval maritime iconography has been studied for over a century, but the field has been slow to develop. The references below should help introduce students to this area of study, and to some of its controversies, as well as to the sheer delight of studying the visual sources. Ewe 1972 and Flatman 2009 are examples of image collections based on particular media, although both also use an analytical approach. More purely analytical studies are represented by Friel 2011, Kahanov and Stern 2008, Nance 1955, and Unger 1991. Princeton University’s Index of Christian Art is an example of a key online source of imagery, while Landstrom 1961 shows how careful reconstruction can help to turn such images into credible representations of ships.

Ewe, Herbert. Schiffe auf Siegeln. Berlin: Verlag Delius, Clasing, 1972.
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A very useful scholarly collection of nearly 250 images of ships on seals, ranging in date from the 11th to the 17th centuries, and covering northern Europe. The line drawings need to be checked against photographs before interpreting some details, but the book also contains many clear photos of the original seals.
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Flatman, Joe. Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts. London: British Library, 2009.
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Profusely illustrated collection of manuscript illustrations of ships, boats, and sea scenes, drawn mainly from the British Library. Some of the interpretations of ship types offered in this work are debatable, but it does underline the critical, if far from straightforward, role of iconography in helping us to understand medieval ships.
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Friel, Ian. “‘Ignorant of Nautical Matters?’ The Mariner’s Mirror and the Iconography of Medieval and Sixteenth-Century Ships.” Mariner’s Mirror 97.1 (2011): 77–96.
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In-depth review of the journal’s important corpus of work on medieval and 16th-century ship iconography over the past century, with ideas as to how this legacy can be used by scholars, and how maritime iconography studies might develop in the future.
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Kahanov, Yaacov, and Eliezer Stern. “Ship Graffito from Akko (Acre).” Mariner’s Mirror 94.1 (2008): 21–35.
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Ship graffiti from a medieval building in Israel, dated to the second half of the 13th century and believed to show light galleys. The authors base part of their interpretation on the detailed analysis of the hull proportions of the graffiti, a method that is controversial when applied to medieval art.
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Landstrom, Bjorn. The Ship: An Illustrated History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961.
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Although this book now includes some interpretations that have been rendered out of date by more recent work, it remains one of the finest and most inspiring collections of maritime reconstruction art ever published. (It has been reprinted many times, and the first part of the book was also published as The Sailing Ship.)
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Nance, R. Morton. “The Ship of the Renaissance.” Mariner’s Mirror 41 (1955): 180–192, 261–295.
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These papers contain Nance’s well-known drawings of the development of the rig and hull forms of large European ships from 1400 to 1600, which were based mainly on iconographic and documentary evidence. Although subsequent researchers would modify parts of this scheme, Nance’s ideas remain influential.
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Princeton University. Index of Christian Art.
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The foremost online database of Christian art in the world, invaluable for anyone studying the Middle Ages. Please note that, like all such databases, it has particular terms and conditions of use, and it also has a vast array of links to related websites.
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Unger, Richard W. The Art of Medieval Technology: Images of Noah the Shipbuilder. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
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The most common medieval images of shipbuilding are those featuring Noah and the Ark, and Unger’s work looks at the European iconography of Noah to see what it reveals about the tools and techniques of medieval and 16th-century ship construction, as well as the nature of iconographic evidence.
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Archaeological Evidence for Specific Ships

The archaeological study of medieval ships can be traced back to discoveries in the 19th century, such as the Gokstad, Oseberg, and Contarina ships (see Crumlin-Pedersen 2010, cited in General Overviews, and Bonino 1978, cited in Archaeological Evidence for Specific Ships: The Mediterranean and Southern Europe, for example), but these were vessels discovered on land, or in drained harbors or watercourses. With the exception of ships that were intentionally buried with grave goods, such vessels are likely to be craft that were stripped of their gear and abandoned as derelicts. Finds of this type can yield important information about hull structure, but they are unlikely to contain much of the armament, equipment, or cargo they may have once carried. Evidence of vessels that were in use at the time of their abandonment is more likely to come from submerged vessels, lost as wrecks. The systematic archaeological study of submerged wrecks was made possible by the invention of the aqualung in the 1940s, which gave diving archaeologists the freedom of movement required to conduct controlled excavation and recording. Archaeological evidence has revolutionized our understanding of medieval ships, revealing things that the documents or iconography cannot, but one should not think that it automatically trumps all other kinds of evidence. The process of decay leaves many vessel finds incomplete in important respects, and archaeological evidence itself has its own limitations. The future for studies of the medieval past lies in historians being able to understand archaeology, but also in archaeologists taking proper account of the work of historians.

Northern Europe and Western Iberia

The shipbuilding and rig traditions of northern and southern Europe in the Middle Ages were very different. Clinker construction and the single-masted square rig prevailed in northern Europe from the early medieval period to the 15th century. Clarke, et al. 1993, Evans and Bruce-Mitford 1975, Fenwick 1978, Lahn 1992, L’Hour and Veyrat 1989, and Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1968 are all studies of vessels built in this tradition. In the Mediterranean, classic shell construction was gradually being replaced by skeleton construction from at least the 7th century CE, and the square sail of Antiquity was replaced by the triangular lateen sail. It was only in the later Middle Ages that the northern square rig was adopted in the Mediterranean, and later that southern skeleton construction was established in the North. This transfer of technologies ultimately led to the development of the three-masted, square-rigged ship of the 15th century, which became the mainstay of the European transoceanic voyages. All except three of the vessels described in the works cited here were clinker-built one-masters. The Highborn Cay and Molasses Reef wrecks (Oertling 1989), although found far outside Europe, represent the new multimasted, skeleton-built ships that both embodied medieval traditions and signified the development of something new. The Mary Rose (Marsden 2003), lost in 1545, shows how far this process of invention had developed within just a few decades.

Clarke, Richard, Martin Dean, Gillian Hutchinson, Sean McGrail, and Jane Squirrell. “Recent Work on the R. Hamble Wreck near Bursledon, Hampshire.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 22.1 (1993): 21–44.
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A study of a wreck identified as Henry V’s great ship Grace Dieu of 1418, one of the biggest ships ever built in medieval Europe.
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Evans, Angela Care, and R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford. “The Ship.” In The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial. Vol. 1, Excavations, Background, the Ship, Dating and Inventory. Edited by R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford. London: British Museum Press, 1975.
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This is the definitive report on the 7th-century ship as excavated in 1939 and re-excavated in the 1960s. The ship’s wooden structure only survived as a series of impressions in the soil, and the recovery of a coherent hull plan was a remarkable feat of archaeology.
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Fenwick, Valerie. The Graveney Boat: A Tenth-Century Find from Kent. BAR British Series 53. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1978.
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Definitive report on this important vessel find, a late Anglo-Saxon trading craft.
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Lahn, Werner. Die Kogge von Bremen. Vol. 1, Bauteile und Bauablauf. Hamburg, Germany: Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, 1992.
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Cogs were very important as cargo-carriers in 13th- and 14th-century northern Europe, and they are believed to have helped to inspire the development of the carrack in the Mediterranean. This is the major study of an important ship-find, a well-preserved German cog of 1380.
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L’Hour, Michel, and Elisabeth Veyrat. “A Mid-15th Century Clinker Boat off the North Coast of France, the Aber Wrac’h I Wreck: A Preliminary Report.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 18 (1989): 285–298.
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Report on the excavation of a large section of a merchant vessel lost off the coast of Brittany, possibly an English-owned ship.
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Marsden, Peter, ed. Archaeology of the Mary Rose. Vol. 1, Sealed by Time: The Loss and Recovery of the Mary Rose. Portsmouth, UK: Mary Rose Trust, 2003.
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Although built in 1510 and lost in 1545, and so, strictly speaking, just outside the boundaries of this bibliography, the Mary Rose is one of the most important wreck-finds of the 20th century, and the earliest known multimasted, skeleton-built ship to be excavated in the British Isles. The evidence from the ship, in terms of its construction, rig, and contents, is highly relevant to medieval ship studies. Subsequent volumes of this series have appeared out of sequence, so this work is continued in Vol. 4, Before the Mast: Life and Death Aboard the Mary Rose (2005), and Vol. 5, Mary Rose: Your Noblest Shippe; Anatomy of a Tudor Warship (2009).
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Oertling, Thomas J. “The Molasses Reef Wreck Hull Analysis: Final Report.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 18.3 (1989): 229–243.
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Reports on the excavation of two unknown Spanish ships lost in the Caribbean in the late 15th/early 16th centuries. See also Oertling’s “The Highborn Cay Wreck: The 1986 Field Season” in the same journal.
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Olsen, Olaf, and Ole Crumlin-Pedersen. “The Skuldelev Ships (II).” Acta Archaeologica 38 (1968): 73–174.
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This paper remains a key source for the understanding of this major group of 10th- and 11th-century Viking ship finds.
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The Mediterranean and Southern Europe

Archaeology has a vital role to play in understanding the development of medieval ships. Wrecks, after all, represent the real thing, or at least a surviving part of it. Without discoveries such as the Yassi Ada and Serçe Limanı wrecks (Bass and van Doorninck 1982 and Bass, et al. 2004, respectively), for example, we should be hard-pressed to understand the development of skeleton construction between the 7th and 11th centuries. The documentary sources and iconography for these periods offer little or nothing in the way of evidence on the matter. Unless one understands the archaeology of medieval ships, one will not be able to understand medieval ships. However, as with any study of medieval material life, interdisciplinary work is the key to arriving at a deeper knowledge of the subject. The existence of amazing wreck-finds—like those at Contarina, which are now, sadly, long since lost (Bonino 1978), or in Istanbul (Kocabas 2008)—does not mean that the documentary and pictorial sources have less value. If anything, they acquire greater value, as the archaeological evidence may be able to illuminate the written or visual material, and vice versa.

Bass, George F., Sheila D. Matthews, J. Richard Steffy, and Frederick H. van Doorninck Jr. Serçe Limanı: An Eleventh-Century Shipwreck, Vol. 1, The Ship and its Anchorage, Crew and Passengers. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004.
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Continued in Vol. 2, The Glass of an Eleventh-Century Shipwreck (2009). Final reports on a vessel of c. 1025 CE excavated off the coast of Turkey. It was a skeleton-built ship, and its discovery confirmed that this technique was already in use in the Mediterranean by the early 11th century. The wreck was also notable for its huge cargo of Islamic glass.
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Bass, George F., and Frederick H. van Doorninck Jr. Yassi Ada: A Seventh Century Byzantine Shipwreck. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1982.
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The Yassi Ada wreck provided the first clear evidence that by the 7th century, classical Mediterranean shell construction was beginning to give way to a precursor of skeleton construction.
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Bonino, Marco. “Lateen-Rigged Medieval Ships: New Evidence from Wrecks in the Po Delta (Italy) and Notes on Pictorial and other Documents.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 7.1 (1978): 9–28.
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Among other things, this paper publishes photographs and plans of the c. 1300 Contarina ship, excavated in 1898 and recorded in an exemplary fashion for the period.
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Kocabas, Ufuk, ed. The Old Ships of the New Gate. Yenikapi Shipwrecks 1. Istanbul: Ege Yayinlari, 2008.
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Preliminary report on one of the most exciting maritime archaeological finds ever made: the remains of thirty-two Byzantine vessels, ranging in date from the 4th to the 11th centuries, in the former Theodosian harbor of Constantinople (Istanbul). The ships found include oared vessels, perhaps warships of the Byzantine navy.
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Ship Design and Construction

The design and construction of medieval ships was carried out by practical craftsmen, the majority of whom were most probably illiterate. The study of archaeological evidence can reveal a great deal about the processes of design and construction, but it is not the only source of information on the subject. The documentary sources for medieval shipbuilding are slight when compared with those available for later periods, but they are not insignificant, revealing such things as the processes of construction, what the parts of a hull were called, and how the shipbuilding trade and its workforce were organized in different parts of Europe. All of the surviving documents that relate to issues of design seem to be secondhand, in that they were contracts produced by notaries, or the jottings of interested dilettantes, rather than the firsthand work of shipbuilders. They too, however, give us insights into the mental world that lay behind the ships of the Middle Ages.

Northern Europe and Western Iberia

The works listed below either give overviews of the documentary, pictorial, and archaeological evidence or are examples of what can be learned from nonarchaeological sources. For example, detailed building accounts like that for the Newcastle galley of 1295 (see Johnson and Whitwell 1926) make it possible to follow the construction process as well as many of the wider social and economic aspects of medieval shipbuilding, while Mollat du Jourdin 1966 provides a rare glimpse of how a local shipbuilding and ship repair industry actually functioned. In addition, the nonarchaeological sources help to fill in gaps in the archaeology of ships, such as that for rig, where the physical evidence for rig is often not as good as that provided by documents and images (see Barker 1992, Edwards 1992, Friel 1995, and Smith 1993).

Barker, Richard. “Shipshape for Discoveries, and Return.” Mariner’s Mirror 78.4 (1992): 433–437.
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A study of the ships used in the 15th- and 16th-century Portuguese voyages of exploration, looking not only at their construction and rig, but also at the techniques used to help the ships and their crews survive these voyages.
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Edwards, Clinton R. “Design and Construction of Fifteenth-Century Iberian Ships: A Review.” Mariner’s Mirror 78.4 (1992): 419–432.
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A review of changing ideas, from the 19th century onwards, about the nature of Iberian ships in the 15th century.
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Friel, Ian. The Good Ship: Ships, Shipbuilding and Technology in England, 1200–1520. London: British Museum Press, 1995.
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This work looks mainly at the documentary evidence for the organization and economics of shipbuilding and shipwrightry in late medieval England, the supply of materials, the layout of sites, the nature of hull construction, ship propulsion, the specialization of ship types, and the nature and meaning of change in maritime technology.
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Johnson, Charles, and R. J. Whitwell. “The ‘Newcastle’ Galley.” Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th ser., 2 (1926): 142–193.
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Transcript, translation, and study of the highly detailed building account for this 1295 English royal galley. Like many of the other 1295 galley accounts, this was compiled on a week-by-week basis, making it possible to follow the construction sequence to a considerable degree.
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Mollat du Jourdin, Michel. “Constructions navales à Dieppe au XVe siècle.” Bulletin Philologique et Historique 10 (1966): 131–141.
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This article throws light on the nature of Dieppe’s ship construction and repair industry in the 15th century, thanks to the rare survival of some accounts for taxes levied on such work.
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Smith, Roger C. Vanguard of Empire: Ships of Exploration in the Age of Columbus. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
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Spanish and Portuguese shipbuilding and ships of the 15th and early 16th centuries are the subject of Smith’s work, which brings together evidence from documents, wrecks, and images to look at all aspects of their design, rig, equipment, and armament.
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The Mediterranean and Southern Europe

Mediterranean documentary sources for ship design and construction are better than those that exist for northern Europe. Many more shipbuilding contracts survive in Spanish, southern French, and Italian archives than in those of northern countries (see Fourquin 1999 and Pryor 1984 for this type of material), and all of the significant surviving pre-1500 theoretical writing on ship design is of Italian origin (see Bellabarba 1988, Bellabarba 1993, Bonfiglio Dosio 1987, and Lane 1934, for example). Material of this kind is of great interest, but it can be difficult to understand, given the problems of etymology and the fact that medieval technical documents are frequently incomplete, either leaving some things up to the expert judgment of a shipwright or assuming that something was so well known at the time as to not require stating. Added to this are the mathematical challenges of naval architecture. Any historian or archaeologist venturing into naval architectural reconstruction needs to have a clear idea of what they are doing before they undertake the work.

Bellabarba, Sergio. “Square-Rigged Ship of the Fabrica di Galere Manuscript.” Mariner’s Mirror 74.2 (1988): 113–130, 225–239.
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An analysis of an important late-14th-/early-15th-century source regarding the design, construction, and rig of a very significant type of Mediterranean merchant ship.
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Bellabarba, Sergio. “The Ancient Methods of Designing Hulls.” Mariner’s Mirror 79.3 (1993): 274–292.
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Detailed discussion of the methods used for designing hulls in the Mediterranean between the late Middle Ages and the 17th century.
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Bonfiglio Dosio, Giorgetta, ed. Ragioni antique spettanti all’arte del mare et fabriche de vasselli: Manoscritto nautico del sec. XV. Venice: Comitato per la Publicazione delle Fonti Relative alla Storia di Venezia, 1987.
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Transcription and interpretation, in Italian, of a 15th-century Venetian document belonging to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, UK. The document includes a section on the techniques used in the design of galleys, with contemporary illustrations.
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Fourquin, N. M. H. “A Medieval Shipbuilding Estimate (c. 1273).” Mariner’s Mirror 85.1 (1999): 20–29.
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Transcription and translation, with a glossary, of a building specification for a huissier to be built for Charles I of Anjou.
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Lane, Frederic Chapin. Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1934.
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A pioneering study of its subject, based on extensive research in the Venetian archives, looking at the types of merchant and war vessels, their design and construction, the nature of the Venetian shipbuilding industry, and other important issues such as the supply of timber. Republished in a French translation in 1965.
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Pryor, John H. “The Naval Architecture of Crusader Transport Ships: A Reconstruction of Some Archetypes for Round-Hulled Sailing Ships.” Mariner’s Mirror 70 (1984): 171–219, 275–292, 368–386.
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The large, round-hulled merchantmen of the 13th-century Mediterranean were the biggest European ships of their time. Based on surviving shipbuilding contracts, other documents, and contemporary images, this paper offers a very detailed reconstruction of archetypal ships, and contributes greatly to our understanding of these round ships. Continued and reviewed in Pryor’s “The Naval Architecture of Crusader Transport Ships and Horse Transports Revisited,” Mariner’s Mirror, 76.2 (1990): 255–273.
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Propulsion, Performance, Equipment, and Techniques

Understanding shipboard equipment, and the techniques for using it, can be critical to appreciating the wider issues of the design and operation of medieval ships. Gifford and Gifford 1996, Mott 1997, Neersø 1985, Tipping 1994, and Ward 1994 are based on theoretical studies or the results of experimental archaeology using reconstructed vessels. Rose 2003 uses a more traditional approach, based on documentary sources.

Gifford, Edwin, and Joyce Gifford. “The Sailing Performance of Anglo-Saxon Ships as Derived from the Building Trials of Half-Scale Models of the Sutton Hoo and Graveney Ship Finds.” Mariner’s Mirror 82.2 (1996): 131–153.
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These impressive sailing trials suggest that the performance of both craft was better than might have been thought. However, both of the sailing models, like almost all reconstructions of ancient vessels, have to rely on conjecture to some degree, as the original ship remains do not have any surviving rig.
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Mott, Lawrence V. The Development of the Rudder: A Technological Tale. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997.
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Drawing on iconographic and archaeological evidence, as well as archaeological experimentation, Mott charts the development of the rudder from the Roman period to the 16th century and establishes a clear connection between changes in steering gear and the varying size and construction of ships.
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Neersø, Niels. A Vikingship: Roar Ege, A Reconstruction of a Trading Vessel from the Viking Age. Malling, Denmark: Mallings, 1985.
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Well-illustrated popular account (in English), showing the process of building a reconstruction of Skuldelev 3, a small 11th-century trading vessel. A good introduction to the processes of medieval shipbuilding and experimental archaeology.
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Rose, Susan. “Anchoring and Mooring: An Examination of English Maritime Practice before c. 1650.” Mariner’s Mirror 89.2 (2003): 151–166.
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A detailed study, based largely on documentary evidence, that looks at the legal aspects of mooring and anchoring, as well as technology and practice.
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Tipping, Colin. “Cargo Handling and the Medieval Cog.” Mariner’s Mirror 80.3 (1994): 3–15.
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Discussion of an important but little-understood aspect of ship technology and port operation. See also the commentary by Robin Ward in the same volume (Ward 1994).
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Ward, Robin. “Cargo Handling and the Medieval Cog.” Mariner’s Mirror 80 (1994): 327–331.
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Commentary on Tipping 1994, in the same volume.
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Navigation and Voyages

The literature on medieval voyages is extensive, but the aim of this selection is to give students some idea of the range of different types of material available for the study of sea travel and navigation. This includes the nature of navigational knowledge and techniques, how voyages might actually proceed (Marcus 1980 and Waters 1992), and how the routes used in sea travel may be reconstructed using modern navigational data and actual sailing (Gluzman 2010, Grainge and Grainge 1993). Other works in this bibliography, such as Hutchinson 1994 (cited in Textbooks), also look in some detail at pilotage, navigation, and navigational instruments.

Gluzman, Renard. “Between Venice and the Levant: Re-evaluating Maritime Routes from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century.” Mariner’s Mirror 96.3 (2010): 264–294.
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Detailed analysis of late-medieval and 16th-century voyaging in the Mediterranean, based on consideration of 130 voyage accounts of the period. The author has also sailed extensively in the area, and his paper challenges the ideas put forward in John Pryor’s Geography, Technology and War (Pryor 1988, cited under General Overviews).
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Grainge, Christine, and Gerald Grainge. “The Pevensey Expedition: Brilliantly Executed Plan or Near Disaster?” Mariner’s Mirror 79 (1993): 261–273.
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Analysis of the evidence for the voyage of William the Conqueror’s invasion fleet in 1066, with a reconstruction of the voyage incorporating navigational and other data.
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Marcus, G. J. Conquest of the North Atlantic. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 1980.
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A study of ships, seafarers, navigation, and fishing on the North Atlantic routes from the time of the Vikings to the later Middle Ages.
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Waters, David W. “Columbus’s Portuguese Inheritance.” Mariner’s Mirror 78.4 (1992): 385–405.
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A review of Portuguese navigational knowledge and its role in the early transoceanic voyages of exploration, written by a major scholar of the subject.
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Types of Ships

Medieval documentary sources are full of the names of different types of ships and boats—more than sixty can be found in English documents between 1200 and 1500 alone. Only a minority of these names can be tied to specific images or archaeological finds, although in many cases their general size ranges and functions can be identified. The great problem with type names is that they have denoted different things at different times. For example, a barge in 15th-century England could mean a large oared fighting ship or a river transport for important people. By the 19th century the term was more usually applied to small sailing merchantmen or canal boats. Trying to understand medieval ship types is challenging but very interesting. Discussion of ship types can be found in most of the works cited in this bibliography, but the items below look at the problem in greater detail. If it becomes possible to identify more type names with images of ships or wreck finds, then our general understanding of medieval ships, and of maritime history in general, will be increased.

Sailing Vessels

Although only two major traditions of construction and rig dominated medieval Europe, documentary sources (Burwash 1969) suggest that a large number of different types of vessel existed, from small river craft to large seagoing merchantmen and warships (Gardiner and Unger 1994). Iconographic sources have added to this picture of diversity (Pryor and Bellabarba 1990), and in some cases, such as that of the cog, it has been possible to tie the written and pictorial evidence for a ship type with archaeological finds (Gardiner and Unger 1994). The majority of the smaller types may never be identified, and as Greenhill 2000 shows, the identification of even more important kinds of ship remains very elusive.

Burwash, Dorothy. English Merchant Shipping, 1460–1540. Newton Abbot, UK: David & Charles, 1969.
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A pioneering account of the subject based on the documentary evidence for seamen, shipboard life, navigation, sea law, ship construction, and ship types. First published in 1947 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), this book is still useful, containing the only broad-ranging study and interpretation of the many ship and boat types found in English documents of the period.
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Gardiner, Robert, and Richard W. Unger, eds. Cogs, Caravels and Galleons: The Sailing Ship 1000–1650. London: Conway Maritime, 1994.
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This well-illustrated, multiauthor book includes papers on cogs, Mediterranean round ships, the carrack, the caravel, galleons, fluits, navigation, guns and gunnery, and shipbuilding, as well as a chapter on the interpretation of medieval ship iconography.
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Greenhill, Basil. “The Mysterious Hulc.” Mariner’s Mirror 86.1 (2000): 3–18.
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Study of a ship type found in medieval documentary and iconographic sources, but so far not discovered archaeologically, to the extent that some scholars doubt that it ever really existed. The hulc, or hulk, still remains mysterious.
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Pryor, John H., and Sergio Bellabarba. “The Medieval Muslim Ships of the Pisan Bacini.” Mariner’s Mirror 76.2 (1990): 99–113.
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A paper discussing two rare, and important, images of medieval Muslim ships.
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Oared Vessels

Oared ships, particularly Mediterranean-type war galleys, have attracted a lot of scholarly attention over the years (see Anderson 1962, Guilmartin 1974, Lehmann 1984, and Gardiner and Morrison 1995). This is due in part to the survival of a significant amount of archival material for medieval Mediterranean navies, and the fact that a relatively large number of images of these undoubtedly photogenic vessels still exist. However, oar-driven vessels were also of enormous importance. Oared fighting ships were a key factor in naval warfare in both southern and northern Europe into the 16th century (see Anderson 1962, McWhannell 2002, and Tinniswood 1949), and merchant galleys were the backbone of Italian trade with northern Europe for more than two centuries. In general, the literature has more to say about oared warships than merchantmen (mainly because state archives have survived better than those of individual merchants). Besides the pieces cited here, other works in this bibliography, such as F. C. Lane’s classic account, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Lane 1934, cited in Ship Design and Construction: The Mediterranean and Southern Europe), contain a great deal of information about galleys.

Anderson, Roger Charles. Oared Fighting Ships, from Classical Times to the Coming of Steam. London: Percival Marshall, 1962.
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Although some of the interpretations in this book are now out of date, it remains the only concise, one-volume work to track the history of European oared warships from Antiquity to the 19th century.
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Gardiner, Robert, and John Morrison, eds. The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels Since Pre-Classical Times. London: Conway Maritime, 1995.
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Seven of the sixteen chapters in this multiauthor work are concerned with medieval and Renaissance oared ships, both warship and merchantmen, looking at how they were designed, built, equipped, and used, and providing a reliable summary of the knowledge and ideas on what can be a very complicated subject.
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Guilmartin, John F., Jr. Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
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This is a major work on the subject, although at the time of publication it was criticized in a review by the late Professor Geoffrey Scammell for some errors of fact. The work does also cover important aspects of galleys, armament, and sea warfare in the 15th-century Mediterranean.
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Lehmann, L. Th. Galleys in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff Nederland, 1984.
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A study of the evidence for galley types in the Netherlands from the 14th century to c. 1600, the most detailed part of the medieval section concerns the inventory of a galley acquired by the Duke of Burgundy in 1450.
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McWhannell, D. C. “The Galleys of Argyll.” Mariner’s Mirror 88 (2002): 14–32.
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A study of naval power and warships in the medieval and early modern Western Isles of Scotland.
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Tinniswood, J. T. “English Galleys, 1272–1377.” Mariner’s Mirror 35 (1949): 276–315.
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Although dated in some respects, particularly as regards etymological interpretation (Tinniswood was writing before Sandahl’s work on etymology Sandahl 1951, cited under Maritime Etymology, was available), this remains a valuable overview of an important set of northern European shipbuilding records.
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Conflict at Sea and Navies

Understanding the wider history of the Middle Ages is essential for understanding medieval ships and shipping. All ships, whether warships or merchantmen, existed for specific purposes, and the strategic or economic context could determine what ships were built or used (and how they were used) in a given situation (see Johnson 1927 and Macdougall 1989). Also, conflict at sea was endemic during the Middle Ages (see Hattendorf and Unger 2003, Haywood 1991, and Rose 2002). Many of the violent encounters between vessels had nothing to do with state conflict, but were instead motivated by another age-old factor: piracy.

Hattendorf, John B., and Richard W. Unger. War at Sea in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Woodbridge, UK, and Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2003.
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A collection of essays on different aspects of medieval and early modern naval history, covering both northern and southern Europe.
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Haywood, John. Dark Age Naval Power: A Re-assessment of Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Seafaring Activity. London and New York: Routledge, 1991.
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Based primarily on documentary evidence, although incorporating consideration of archaeological finds, this book shows that seafaring activity was much more prevalent, and important, in pre-Viking Britain and France than had hitherto been thought.
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Johnson, C. “London Shipbuilding A.D. 1295.” Antiquaries Journal 7 (1927): 427–436.
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A study of the building of two-oared warships for King Edward I. Various other ports, including Lyme, Southampton, Ipswich, York, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, also completed galleys in 1295–1296, and collectively they are known as the 1295 galleys. Their building accounts are the earliest surviving detailed, countrywide shipbuilding records from England.
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Macdougall, Norman. James IV. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1989.
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This biography of King James IV of Scotland (r. 1488–1513) devotes a chapter to what the author calls the king’s royal obsession: creating a navy. In an age when state policy and strategic direction were decided by the monarch, kings played a key role in the rise and fall of their navies.
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Rose, Susan. Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000–1500. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
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Although Rose’s book does not have a great deal to say about technology, it provides the reader with a clear and detailed understanding of the violent maritime world of northern and southern Europe that shaped the development of ships and fleets.
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Warships and Naval Weaponry

The specific design of warships relates both to tactical requirements and to the nature of the weapons that they could carry. Most medieval naval battles and ship-to-ship encounters are poorly documented, and discussions of the nature of warship design and weaponry tend to revolve around records of what armaments ships carried, what contemporary pictures show of sea battles, and how ships were used to supply and support land campaigns (see Chazelas 1977–1978, Mott 1990, and Pryor 1982). It would be easy to think that there is little more to be learned about medieval warships and sea warfare. However, the debate over the effectiveness (or otherwise) of late medieval naval guns, as exemplified by DeVries 1998 and Rodger 1996, shows that it is possible for new conclusions to be drawn from familiar material. In addition, it is likely that in the coming years, more archaeological examples of both northern and southern European medieval war vessels will be found, opening up new areas of research.

Chazelas, Anne, ed. Documents relatifs au Clos des Galées de Rouen et aux armées du roi de France de 1293 à 1418. 2 vols. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1977–1978.
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A major scholarly study of French naval forces in the later Middle Ages, containing transcripts of many original documents, including accounts of the key French dockyard at Rouen, the Clos de Galées.
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DeVries, Kelly. “The Effectiveness of Fifteenth-Century Shipboard Artillery.” Mariner’s Mirror 84 (1998): 389–399.
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This paper challenges the view of Friel and others that guns were of limited importance in the sea warfare of the period, citing their potential significance as antipersonnel weapons.
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Mott, Lawrence V. “Ships of the 13th-century Catalan Navy.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 19.2 (1990): 101–112.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.1990.tb00241.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on iconographic and documentary evidence, this paper focuses mainly on Catalan oared fighting ships, adducing important evidence for technological change in rowing systems.
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Pryor, John H. “Transportation of Horses by Sea during the Era of the Crusades: Eighth Century to 1285 AD.” Mariner’s Mirror 68 (1982): 9–27, 103–125.
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Horses were commonly transported long distances at sea for use in land campaigns. This paper details what is known of Mediterranean practice during the Crusades, but is also relevant to the study of horse transportation in other parts of Europe.
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Rodger, Nicholas A. M. “The Development of Broadside Gunnery, 1450–1650.” Mariner’s Mirror 82.3 (1996): 301–324.
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Although this paper is mostly concerned with post-1500 naval gunnery, it should also be read by those studying medieval naval warfare.
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Merchant Shipping, Ports, and Trade

A vast amount has been written on the subject of medieval merchants and trade, and there are many studies of medieval ports or seafaring regions (see Bernard 1968, Bill and Clausen 1999, and Childs 1997). The merchant ships of the Middle Ages are much less well documented than warships in the archival sources, because the records of individual shipowners have mostly disappeared, although a good deal can be learned about them from contemporary documentation relating to trade and war (see, for example, Bernard 1968, Harpster and Coureas 2008, Lane 1964, Scammell 1961, Scammell 1962, and Ward 1995). Paradoxically, many more medieval merchant ships have been found as wrecks than contemporary naval vessels, and trading ships like the northern European cog are now relatively well documented. The works listed here are intended to offer an introduction to different aspects of the shipping industry in general—from the nature of ports to mercantile practices and law—and they help to reveal why, and how, ships were used to move cargo.

Bernard, Jacques. Navires et gens de mer à Bordeaux (vers 1400–vers 1550). 3 vols. Paris: SEVPEN, 1968.
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Bernard’s compelling study of ships and sailors at Bordeaux is also a rich source of information about later medieval European shipping. It provides a comprehensive analysis of its subject but also includes transcripts of local shipbuilding contracts, as well as a ship-by-ship summary of the late-15th- and early-16th-century customs returns for Bordeaux.
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Bill, Jan, and Birthe L. Clausen, eds. Maritime Topography and the Medieval Town: Papers from the 5th International Conference on Waterfront Archaeology in Copenhagen, 14–16 May 1998. National Museum Studies in Archaeology & History 4. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 1999.
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Understanding the nature of medieval ports is one of the keys to the greater understanding of medieval ships. This collection of papers on the maritime topography of ports in the Baltic, North Sea, and Scandinavia also includes much material relevant to the study of ships and shipbuilding.
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Childs, Wendy R. “The Commercial Shipping of South-Western England in the Later Fifteenth Century.” Mariner’s Mirror 83 (1997): 272–292.
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Childs has written extensively on medieval English trade, at both the macro- and micro-economic levels. This paper is an example of the latter, a detailed study of the activities of English West-Country shipping at the end of the Middle Ages, based on customs records and other documentary evidence.
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Harpster, Matthew, and Nicholas Coureas. “Codex Palatinus Graecus 367: A Thirteenth-Century Method of Determining Vessel Burden?” Mariner’s Mirror 94 (2008): 8–20.
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Discussion of part of a 13th-century Cypriot treatise that describes a relatively complex method of calculating a ship’s carrying capacity. Unfortunately, it is not clear if the manuscript was a practical work, but it does illuminate a little-known aspect of medieval merchant shipping in the Mediterranean.
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Lane, Frederic C. “Tonnages, Medieval and Modern.” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 17.2 (1964): 213–233.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.1964.tb00077.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Tonnage estimates for ships have never been a neutral technical matter, and in the Middle Ages the methods and units of tonnage estimation that were used varied from place to place. All of this creates challenging, but not insuperable, problems for historians. Lane’s classic paper offers a way through.
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Scammell, G. V. “English Merchant Shipping at the End of the Middle Ages: Some East Coast Evidence.” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 13.3 (1961): 327–341.
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Despite its apparently regional focus, this paper addresses much broader issues, such as the decline of larger ships in the 15th century and the nature of the late medieval English merchant fleet.
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Scammell, G. V. “Shipowning in England, c. 1450–1550.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 12 (1962): 105–122.
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Shipowners find the finance for ships and commission their construction, but the relatively limited range of sources means that it can be difficult to understand the nature of medieval shipowning. Scammell’s pioneering account remains a very useful introduction to the subject.
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Ward, Robin. “A Surviving Charter Party of 1323.” Mariner’s Mirror 81.4 (1995): 387–401.
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Transcription and translation of a key type of trading document that has rarely survived.
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Fishing

The religious requirement to consume fish, and the search for additional sources of protein, made inland, inshore, and deep-sea fishing very important in medieval Europe (see Fagan 2006; Osler and Porteous 2010; and Starkey, et al. 2000). The subject is not as well documented as that of trade or warfare, but discussions of fishing and fishing vessels can be found in other works in this bibliography, besides those listed here. The HMAP website also addresses the history of fishing and fishing communities, as well as that of the fish populations on which they depended.

Fagan, Brian M. Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
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A study of the nature of fish consumption and the fishing industry in the Middle Ages, and how the need for fish played a part in European voyages to America.
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HMAP: History of Marine Animal Populations.
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This is an international, interdisciplinary project involving scientists, historians, and others, aimed at charting the changing nature of fish and other marine animals in the past and present, including studies of the history of fishing and coastal communities.
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Osler, Adrian G., and Katrina Porteous. “‘Bednelfysch and Iseland Fish’: Continuity in the Pre-Industrial Sea Fishery of North Northumberland, 1300–1950.” Mariner’s Mirror 96.1 (2010): 11–25.
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A paper demonstrating considerable continuity from the medieval period in the nature of the inshore fishing industry of this region.
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Starkey, David J., Chris Reid, and Neil Ashcroft. England’s Sea Fisheries: The Commercial Sea Fisheries of England and Wales since 1300. London: Chatham, 2000.
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A key work for the study of the fishing industry in England.
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Maritime Communities

The vast majority of medieval seafarers are undocumented as individuals, but it is possible to reconstruct a good deal of the social, economic, and religious worlds inhabited by seamen in different parts of Europe (see Miller 2003, Mollat du Jourdin 1983, Runyan 1975, and Ward 2009). In studying medieval ships, it can be easy to forget that we are not just looking at artifacts or the doings of war fleets or the minutiae of trade and trade routes (see Rose 2000). The story of medieval ships is a profoundly dramatic, human story, even if the individuals often seem anonymous. The works below give an introduction to some of the aspects of seafaring life in the Middle Ages. The story can be explored further in many of the other works in this bibliography. These include Burwash’s English Merchant Shipping (Burwash 1969, cited in Sailing Vessels), Bernard’s Navires et gens de mer a Bordeaux (Bernard 1968, cited in Merchant Shipping, Ports, and Trade), Scammell’s The World Encompassed (Scammell 1981, cited in General Overviews), or any of the shipwreck reports, which in their way memorialize unfinished voyages and the men who sailed on them.

Miller, Robert. “The Early Medieval Seaman and the Church: Contacts Ashore.” Mariner’s Mirror 89 (2003): 132–150.
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Overview of the ways in which the medieval church provided for the spiritual and physical welfare of seafarers, an important element in understanding the maritime history of the Middle Ages.
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Mollat du Jourdin, Michel. “The French Maritime Community: A Slow Progress up the Social Scale from the Middle Ages to the Sixteenth Century.” Mariner’s Mirror 69.2 (1983): 115–128.
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A study of the social history of seafarers on the western seaboard of France.
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Rose, Susan. “Bayonne and the King’s Ships, 1204–1420.” Mariner’s Mirror 86 (2000): 140–147.
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A study of the medieval English Crown’s relationship with this Gascon port and its failure to make effective use of its ships and seafarers.
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Runyan, Timothy J. “The Laws of Oleron and the Admiralty Court in Fourteenth Century England.” American Journal of Legal History 19.2 (1975): 95–111.
DOI: 10.2307/844801Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Laws of Oléron influenced maritime law from Atlantic Spain to the Baltic and Scandinavia, and this paper looks at its influence on English practice.
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Ward, Robin. The World of the Medieval Shipmaster: Law, Business and the Sea, c. 1350–c. 1450. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2009.
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This work looks at the medieval English shipmaster as a ship commander, navigator, and businessman, drawing on evidence from a wide range of sources, including the laws and business documents that help to explain how both ships and trading networks actually functioned.
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