The Clipper Ship Flying Cloud off the Needles, Isle of Wight, off the southern English coast. Painting by James E. Buttersworth
The Maritime history of Europe represents the era of recorded human interaction with the sea in the northwestern region of Eurasia in areas that include shipping and shipbuilding, shipwrecks, naval battles, and military installations and lighthouses constructed to protect or aid navigation and the development of Europe. Europe is situated between several navigable seas and intersected by navigable rivers running into them in a way which greatly facilitated the influence of maritime traffic and commerce. Great battles have been fought in the seas off of Europe that changed the course of history forever, including the Battle of Salamis in the Mediterranean, the Battle of Gravelines at the eastern end of the English Channel in the summer of 1588, in which the “Invincible” Spanish Armada was defeated, the Battle of Jutland in World War I, and World War II’s U-boat war.
Egyptian sources mention regular shipments of copper from the island of Cyprus, that arrived at the city of Byblos as early as 2,600 years BCE.[1] The Minoans of Crete are the earliest known European seafarers of the Mediterranean Sea. Little is known of their ships, but they reportedly traded pottery as far west as Sicily. According to the historian Thucydides, by 1,900 years BCE. their King Minos commanded a navy and conquered the islands of the Aegean. The Mycenaeans would obtain maritime hegemony in the region around 1,600 BCE and hold it until the attacks of the Sea Peoples, that disrupted the maritime culture and the naval balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age collapse between 1,200 and 900 years BCE.[1][2][3]
During the following centuries the ancient Greek navies first began to use ships with two banks of oars and by the 6th century BCE. the three banked trireme had been adopted by all sea-faring Poleis. Alongside the Phoenicians, who since around 1,200 BCE. had settled in the Levant and Northern Africa, Greek trading fleets and navies dominated the Mediterranean until the ascent of Rome in the third and second century BCE.[4][5]
Around 325 B.C. Pytheas, a Greek geographer and explorer undertook a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe (modern-day Great Britain and Ireland) and beyond. In his account On The Ocean (Τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ), that is only known through the writings of Strabo and Pliny the Elder, he introduces the idea of the land of Thule and describes Celtic and Germanic tribes, the Arctic, polar ice and the midnight sun.[9][10]
By the end of the Macedonian Wars in the latter half of the 2nd century BC, Roman control over the Aegean sea was undisputed and full hegemony over the entire Mediterranean Sea, now referred to as Mare Nostrum ("our sea") had been established.[13]
Roman galleys helped to build the Roman Empire. The empires’ struggle with Carthage inspired them to build and to fight in war galleys, but the galleys did not have much cargo space, so “round ships” were constructed for trade, especially with Egypt. Many of these ships reached 200 feet (61m) in length and were capable of carrying over a thousand tons of cargo. These ships used sail power alone to haul commodities in the mediterranean. The volume of trade that the Roman merchant fleet carried was larger than any other until the industrial revolution. We know quite a bit about these round ships, since Romans, like Egyptians and Greeks, left records in stone, sometimes even on a sarcophagus.[14]
There were many shipwrecks of Roman vessels, which can be explained by the very large number of trading vessels during Roman times since the volume of sea trade in the mediterranean reached a quantity to be only equaled in the 19th century. This greatly increased the number of shipwrecks.
Byzantine Empire
The western Mediterranean came under the control of the barbarians, after their invasion split the Empire in two, while Byzantium dominated the eastern half of the sea. The eastern empire lasted until 1453, such was the efficiency of the Byzantine navy, with its fleets armed with Byzantine fire (or Greek fire), a mixture of naphthaoil and saltpetre, fired through tubes in the bows of the ship. Enemy ships were often afraid to get too close to the Byzantine fleet, since the liquid fire gave the Byzantines a considerable advantage.[15]
The Viking Age
Voyages of the Norsemen
Also called the Vikings, the Norsemen raided towns and villages along the coasts of the British Isles, Scandinavia, as far south as Cádiz, Spain and even attacked Pisa, Italy in 860. They sailed up the Seine River in France, settled Normandy (which derives its name from the Norsemen), and settled Dublin after invading Ireland. Varangians were more concerned with trading than raiding, and sailed along Russian rivers and opened commercial routes to the Caspian Sea as well as the Black Sea.
The Vikings were the best naval architects of their day, and the Viking longship was both large and versatile. A longship found at Oseberg, Norway, was 76feet 6inches (23.32m), more than 17 feet (5.18m) wide, and had a draft of only 3 feet (0.91m). The shallow draft enabled them to navigate far inland in shallow rivers. Later on during the Viking period some of the ships were reported to be over 100 feet (30m) long.
"From the fury of the Norsemen, good Lord, deliver us," has entered apocryphal knowledge as a common prayer among the people of western Europe during the period of the Norse raiders from the late 8th century to the 11th century. According to the website Viking Answer Lady,[16] which in turn cites Magnus Magnusson's Vikings![17] as its reference,
No 9th century text has ever been discovered containing these words, although numerous medieval litanies and prayers contain general formulas for deliverance against unnamed enemies. The closest documentable phrase is a single sentence, taken from an antiphony for churches dedicated to St. Vaast or St. Medard: Summa pia gratia nostra conservando corpora et custodita, de gente fera Normannica nos libera, quae nostra vastat, Deus, regna, ”Oh highest, pious grace, free us, oh God, by preserving our bodies and those in our keeping from the cruel Norse people who ravage our realms.”.
The Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League's formation in Hamburg, Germany (circa 1241)
The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive alliance of the merchant guilds of towns and cities in northern and central Europe that established and maintained a trade monopoly over the Baltic Sea and most of Northern Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries. Although trading alliances in the region were forming as early as 1157, the town of Lübeck did not form an alliance with Hamburg (which controlled access to salt routes from Lüneburg), until 1241.[18]
Trade was carried on chiefly by sea in order to escape tolls and political barriers, and at the end of the 15th century the Hanseatic League controlled some 60,000 tons of shipping. Although compasses were commonly being used in the Mediterranean during this period, the captains of Hanseatic vessels seemed slow to adopt the new technology, which put them in greater danger of wrecking. They also had to deal with pirates. During its zenith the alliance maintained trading posts and kontors in virtually all cities between London and Edinburgh in the west to Novgorod in the east and Bergen in Norway.
The League's power declined after 1450 due to a number of factors, such as the 15th-century crisis, the territorial lords' shifting policies towards greater commercial control, the silver crisis and when the great herringshoals disappeared in the Baltic. During the late 16th century and early 17th century, the League fell apart, as it was unable to deal with its own internal struggles, the rise of Swedish, Dutch and English merchants, and the social and political changes that accompanied the Reformation. Although a tight-fisted monopoly, the League's need for more cargo space led to new designs in shipbuilding, and its free association of about 160 towns and villages was a historically unique economic alliance that showed the benefits of well-regulated commerce.[19][20]
Around 1300, Venice began to develop the great galley of commerce, the ‘’galea grossa’’. It grew to carry a crew of more than 200 and weighed as much as 250 tons. These galleys took passengers and goods to Constantinople (now Istanbul), and to Alexandria in Egypt, and returned to Venice carrying luxury items. A sea route to the Indies discovered by Portugal signaled an end to the glory days of Venice's merchant galleys and spice trade, but the war galleys (or fighting galleys) lived on. The war galleys were mostly manned by prisoners of war or convicts, who were chained to benches, usually three to six per oar.
More than 3,000 Venetian merchant ships were in operation by the year 1450. The trading empire of the Republic of Venice lasted longer than any other in history, and even merchants vessels were required to carry weapons and passengers were expected to be armed and ready to fight. From the beginning of the 13th century until the end of the 18th century, the Republic ruled the Adriatic, the Aegean and the Black Seas. The Republic of Genoa was Venice's main rival, and many wars were fought between them. In 1298 the Genoese destroyed the Venetian fleet at Curzola, but were themselves defeated in 1354 at Sapienza in Greece.
The European Age of Discovery (1400–1600)
The Age of Discovery started with the Portuguese navigators, where Prince Henry the Navigator started a maritime school in Portugal, eventually leading to new shipbuilding technologies including the caravel, the carrack and the galleon. The Portuguese Empire led the Portuguese Kingdom to discover and map more of the globe, such as the remarkable voyage to find the sea route to India via the Cape of Good Hope. Initially Bartolomeu Dias left Portugal and rounded the Cape of Good Hope, with Vasco da Gama reaching the southern tip of Africa and on-wards to India. It was the first time in history that humans had navigated from Europe around Africa to Asia, though the Fra Mauro map suggests that ships from India had crossed the Cape of Good Hope in 1420.[21] It led to the discovery of Brazil and South America, and the first circumnavigation around the world, with the Portuguese nobleman Ferdinand Magellan, sailing around the world, across the entire Pacific Ocean for the first time.[22]
At the beginning of the 16th century, sea clashes in the Indian Ocean as the decisive Battle of Diu, in 1509, marked a turning point in history: the shift from the Mediterranean and from the relatively isolated seas, disputed in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, to the oceans and to the European hegemony on a global scale.
A Spanish galleon
Christopher Columbus set sail in Santa Maria on what is probably history's most well known voyage of discovery on August 3, 1492. Leaving from the town of Palos, in southern Spain, Columbus headed west. After a brief stop in the Canary Islands for provisions and repairs, he set out for Asia. He reached San Salvador first, it is believed, (easternmost of the Bahamas) in October, and then sailed past Cuba and Hispaniola, still searching for Asia. He returned home in 1493 to a hero's welcome, and within six months had 1,500 men and 17 vessels at his command.
The year 1571 saw the last great battle between galleys, when more than 400 Turkish and Christian vessels engaged each other on the Gulf of Patras. The Battle of Lepanto as it was called, saw some 38,000 men perish. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, was wounded during the battle. In April 1587, Sir Francis Drake burned 37 Spanish ships in the harbor at Cádiz, in southern Spain.
The publication of Jan Huygen van Linschoten's book Voyages provided a significant turning point in Europe's maritime history. Before the publication of this book, knowledge of the sea route to the Far East had been well guarded by the Portuguese for over a century. Voyages was published in several languages, including English and German (published in 1598), Latin (1599), and French (1610). Widely read by Europeans, the original Dutch edition and the French translation had second editions published.
Once knowledge of the sea route became available to all Europeans, more ships headed to East Asia. A Dutch fleet embarked on a voyage to India using Linschoten's charts in 1595. (The Dutch version of his book was published in 1596, but his sea charts had been published the previous year). The publication of the nautical maps enabled the Dutch and British East India companies to break the trade monopoly Portugal held with the East Indies. Protestant Europe was ushered into the age of discovery in large part thanks to his work.
European innovations
Astrolabe, used for navigation until around 1730, when they were replaced with sextants
From the sixth to the eighteenth centuries, the maritime history of Europe had a profound impact on the rest of the world. The broadside-cannoned full-rigged sixteenth-century sailing ship provided the continent with a weapon to dominate the world.
During this time period, Europeans made remarkable inroads in maritime innovations. These innovations enabled them to expand overseas and set up colonies, most notably during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
1588 map of Northern Europe by Nicolo Zeno
They developed new sail arrangements for ships, skeleton-based shipbuilding, the Western “galea” (at the end of the 11th century), sophisticated navigational instruments, and detailed charts. After Isaac Newton published the Principia, navigation was transformed. Starting in 1670, the entire world was measured using essentially modern latitude instruments and the best available clocks. In 1730 the sextant was invented and navigators rapidly replaced their astrolabes.
Barbary pirates
For several centuries, from about the time of the Crusades until the early 19th century, the Barbary pirates of northern Africa preyed on ships in the western Mediterranean Sea. In 1816, the Royal Navy, with assistance from the Dutch, destroyed the Barbary fleet in the port of Algiers. The best-known pirate of this period may have been Barbarossa, the nickname of Khair ad Din, an Ottoman-Turkish admiral and privateer who was born on the island of Lesbos, (present-day Greece), and lived from about 1475–1546.
July 1779 saw the start of the Great Siege of Gibraltar, an attempt by France and Spain to recover control of stolen Gibraltar from the British. The garrison survived all attacks, including an assault on September 13, 1782, that included 48 ships and 450 cannon. In October 1805, the Battle of Trafalgar took place, which involved 60 vessels, 27 British, and 33 French and Spanish. The British did not lose a single ship, and destroyed the enemy fleet, but Admiral Lord Nelson died in the battle. It was the most significant naval battle of the beginning of the 19th century, and confirmed the British Navy's supremacy of the time.
Lighthouses
Tower of Hercules
The Pharos of Meloria is often considered the first lighthouse in Europe since Roman times. Meloria, a rocky islet off the Tuscan coast in the Tyrrhenian Sea, was the location of two medieval naval battles. The Tower of Hercules (Torre de Hércules), in northwestern Spain, is almost 1,900 years old. The ancient Roman lighthouse stands near A Coruña, Galicia, and is 57 metres (185ft) in height. It is the oldest working Roman lighthouse in the world.
According to Smithsonian, a lighthouse on the Gironde River in France, Cardovan Tower, was the first lighthouse to use a Fresnel lens in 1822. The light reportedly could be seen from more than 20 miles (32km) at sea.
Oil spills
There have been several large oil spills off the coasts of Europe since 1967. They include:
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which involved the two columns of opposing warships maneuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides. In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the opponent with more cannons firing – and therefore more firepower – typically had an advantage.
The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement that took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic states arranged by Pope Pius V, inflicted a major defeat on the fleet of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of Patras. The Ottoman forces were sailing westward from their naval station in Lepanto when they met the fleet of the Holy League which was sailing east from Messina, Sicily.
The Spanish Navy or officially, the Armada, is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation, the most famous being the discovery of America and the first global circumnavigation by Elcano. For several centuries, it played a crucial logistical role in the expansion and consolidation of the Spanish Empire, and defended a vast trade network across the Atlantic Ocean between the Americas and Europe, and the Manila Galleon across the Pacific Ocean between the Philippines and the Americas.
Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Spain and first used as armed cargo carriers by Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-1600s. Galleons generally carried three or more masts with a lateen fore-and-aft rig on the rear masts, were carvel built with a prominent squared off raised stern, and used square-rigged sail plans on their fore-mast and main-masts.
Naval warfare is combat in and on the sea, the ocean, or any other battlespace involving a major body of water such as a large lake or wide river. Battles have been fought on water for more than 3,000 years.
The Holy League of 1571 was arranged by Pope Pius V and included the major Catholic powers of southern Europe, specifically the Spanish Empire as well as the Italian maritime powers. It was intended to break the Ottoman Empire’s control of the eastern Mediterranean Sea and was formally concluded on 25 May 1571. Its members were:
The naval forces of the ancient Roman state were instrumental in the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean Basin, but it never enjoyed the prestige of the Roman legions. Throughout their history, the Romans remained a primarily land-based people and relied partially on their more nautically inclined subjects, such as the Greeks and the Egyptians, to build their ships. Because of that, the navy was never completely embraced by the Roman state, and deemed somewhat "un-Roman".
A galley was a type of ship which relied mostly on oars for propulsion that was used for warfare, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean Sea region during antiquity and continued to exist in various forms until the early 19th century. It typically had a long, slender hull, shallow draft, and often a low freeboard. Most types of galleys also had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but they relied primarily on oars to move independently of winds and currents. The term "galley" originated from a Greek term for a small type of galley and came in use in English from about 1300. It has occasionally been used for unrelated vessels with similar military functions as galley but which were not Mediterranean in origin, such as medieval Scandinavian longships, 16th-century Acehnese ghalis and 18th-century North American gunboats.
The Byzantine navy was the naval force of the Byzantine Empire. Like the state it served, it was a direct continuation from its Roman predecessor, but played a far greater role in the defence and survival of the state than its earlier iteration. While the fleets of the Roman Empire faced few great naval threats, operating as a policing force vastly inferior in power and prestige to the army, command of the sea became vital to the very existence of the Byzantine state, which several historians have called a "maritime empire".
Oared vessel tactics were the dominant form of naval tactics used from antiquity to the late 16th century when sailing ships began to replace galleys and other types of oared ships as the principal form of warships. Throughout antiquity, through the Middle Ages until the 16th century, the weapons relied on were the ship itself, used as a battering ram or to sink the opponent with naval rams, the melee weapons of the crew, missile weapons such as bolts from heavy crossbows fixed on the bulwarks, bows and arrows, weights dropped from a yard or pole rigged out, and the various means of setting fire to enemy ships. The latter could be done by shooting arrows with burning tow or by Greek fire ejected through specially designed siphons.
Maritime history is the study of human interaction with and activity at sea. It covers a broad thematic element of history that often uses a global approach, although national and regional histories remain predominant. As an academic subject, it often crosses the boundaries of standard disciplines, focusing on understanding humankind's various relationships to the oceans, seas, and major waterways of the globe. Nautical history records and interprets past events involving ships, shipping, navigation, and seafarers.
The Ottoman Navy or The Imperial Navy, also known as the Ottoman Fleet, was the naval warfare arm of the Ottoman Empire. It was established after the Ottomans first reached the sea in 1323 by capturing Praenetos, the site of the first Ottoman naval shipyard and the nucleus of the future navy.
Medieval ships were the vessels used in Europe during the Middle Ages. Like ships from antiquity, they were moved by sails, oar or a combination of the two. There was a large variety, mostly based on much older, conservative designs. Although wider and more frequent communications within Europe meant exposure to a variety of improvements, experimental failures were costly and rarely attempted. Ships in the north were influenced by Viking vessels, while those in the south by classical or Roman vessels. However, there was technological change. The different traditions used different construction methods; clinker in the north, carvel in the south. By the end of the period, carvel construction would come to dominate the building of large ships. The period would also see a shift from the steering oar or side rudder to the stern rudder and the development from single-masted to multi-masted ships. As the area is connected by water, people in the Mediterranean built different kinds of ships to accommodate different sea levels and climates. Within the Mediterranean area during the Medieval times ships were used for a multitude of reasons, like war, trade, and exploration.
Naval boarding action is an offensive tactic used in naval warfare to come up against an enemy watercraft and attack by inserting combatants aboard that vessel. The goal of boarding is to invade and overrun the enemy personnel on board in order to capture, sabotage, or destroy the enemy vessel. While boarding attacks were originally carried out by ordinary sailors who are proficient in hand-to-hand combat, larger warships often deploy specially trained and equipped regular troops such as marines and special forces as boarders. Boarding and close-quarters combat had been a primary means to conclude a naval battle since antiquity, until the early modern period when heavy naval artillery gained tactical primacy at sea.
The North Sea has an extensive history of maritime commerce, resource extraction, and warfare between among the people and nations on its coasts.
The maritime history of England involves events including shipping, ports, navigation, and seamen, as well as marine sciences, exploration, trade, and maritime themes in the arts of England. Until the advent of air transport and the creation of the Channel Tunnel, marine transport was the only way of reaching the rest of Europe from England and for this reason, maritime trade and naval power have always had great importance. Prior to the Acts of Union in 1707, the maritime history of the British Isles was largely dominated by England.
Ancient navies had a large impact on the navies of today. The outcomes of battles between ancient navies have been studied by the military to learn tactics that would help in their conquests. The ships that these civilizations created were what many ship designs were based on and allowed the vessels to become better built. The Punic Wars are some of the most notorious wars in history, and the naval vessels and tactics used in all three became a major part of naval military history.
The Venetian navy was the navy of the Venetian Republic which played an important role in the history of the republic and the Mediterranean world. It was the premier navy in the Mediterranean Sea for many centuries between the medieval and early modern periods, providing Venice with control and influence over trade and politics far in excess of the republic's size and population. It was one of the first navies to mount gunpowder weapons aboard ships, and through an organised system of naval dockyards, armouries and chandlers was able to continually keep ships at sea and rapidly replace losses. The Venetian Arsenal was one of the greatest concentrations of industrial capacity prior to the Industrial Revolution and responsible for the bulk of the republic's naval power.
The Genoese navy was the naval contingent of the Republic of Genoa's military. From the 11th century onward the Genoese navy protected the interests of the republic and projected its power throughout the Mediterranean and Black Seas. It played a crucial role in the history of the republic as a thalassocracy and a maritime trading power.
Ancient Rome had a variety of ships that played crucial roles in its military, trade, and transportation activities. Rome was preceded in the use of the sea by other ancient, seafaring civilizations of the Mediterranean. The galley was a long, narrow, highly maneuverable ship powered by oarsmen, sometimes stacked in multiple levels such as biremes or triremes, and many of which also had sails. Initial efforts of the Romans to construct a war fleet were based on copies of Carthaginian warships. In the Punic wars in the mid-third century BCE, the Romans were at first outclassed by Carthage at sea, but by 256 BCE had drawn even and fought the wars to a stalemate. In 55 BCE Julius Caesar used warships and transport ships to invade Britain. Numerous types of transport ships were used to carry foodstuffs or other trade goods around the Mediterranean, many of which did double duty and were pressed into service as warships or troop transports in time of war.
↑ Istvan Szepesi, "Reflecting the Nation: The Historiography of Hanseatic Institutions." Waterloo Historical Review 7 (2015). onlineArchived 5 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine
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