Prohibition to trade with infidels—Its futility—Commercial policy
of the Italian republics—Genoa—Genoese fleets and treaties with
the Venetians—The Genoese restore the Greek dynasty, and secure
a more permanent footing at Constantinople—Galata—Kaffa—Genoese
vessels—Details of contract with the ship-builders—Its
inaccuracies—Napier’s description of a large Genoese ship of
the fifteenth century—Evident mistakes in the account—First
great improvement in the Genoese ships—Genoese carrack—Their
corsairs and pirates—The most daring of the pirates; their
terrible fate—Corsairs—Bologna and Ancona—Importance of Pisa—Her
trade with the Saracens, about A.D. 1100; and ships—Her first
great misfortune—Mode of conducting her trade—Florence—The
Florentines ship goods from a port of Pisa—Sale and transfer of
Leghorn, A.D. 1421—First expeditions to Egypt, Constantinople,
and Majorca—Freedom of commercial intercourse amongst the
Florentines—Their frugality, contrasted with their magnificent
public displays—Duties and powers of the board of the “six
consuls of the sea”—Their public vessels, and trade in which
they were employed—Consular agents—Extent of the Florentine
commerce, and cause of its decline—The smaller states—Decorations
and traditionary emblems of ships—Signals—Manners and
customs of seamen—Their legends—Punishments for gambling and
swearing—Superstitions—Manners and morals, A.D. 1420—General
severity of punishments—Impaling, flogging, &c.—Branding.
[Sidenote: Prohibition to trade with infidels.]
While the Popes favoured the trade and influence of the Italian
republics in places beyond the seas, with a view to the extension
of the authority of the Church, they prohibited all dealings with
the Muhammedans. The Bull of Alexander III. even went so far as to
confiscate the property, and condemn to slavery every person who
furnished the Saracens with arms, iron, or timber for shipping. But
though the powers of the Church often struck down remorselessly those
who dared to resist the edicts of the successor of St. Peter, the
desire of gain and the daring character of the maritime nations often
counteracted the most dreadful anathemas of the Vatican. Venice was
by far the greatest delinquent; her proud and rapacious merchants,
on various occasions, openly resented this interference with their
commercial pursuits, and evaded whenever it suited their purpose the
observance of the Bulls. The trade with the Levant was too valuable to
be relinquished on threats of temporal or even of eternal punishment,
and this, too, when urged by an authority often too weak to carry
into effect its threats. Hence, while other and weaker nations had
occasionally to submit, the Venetians, conscious of their power,
resisted with such success the Papal edicts that they at last obtained
licences to trade with whomsoever they pleased, and even with the hated
followers of Muhammed.
[Sidenote: Its futility.]
It is curious now to reflect upon the bitter animosity which prevailed
among the Christians against the followers of the Crescent, and on the
extreme though vain measures adopted to prevent commercial intercourse
with them. When, in 1288, the famous Raymund Lully propounded his
scheme for the reduction of the Holy Land, he insisted on a prohibition
of all dealings with Egypt, and asserted that in six years only of such
abstention from trade the Egyptians would become so impoverished as to
be easily vanquished; he also urged the expediency of direct journeys
to Baghdad and India, to obtain thence the productions of the East
instead of from Alexandria. But abstract philosophy, however supported
by fanaticism and hatred, will not prevail against material profit; and
Lully failed to make converts of merchants and ship-owners to doctrines
which would have impoverished them quite as much as the enemies of
their faith.
Nor did the efforts of other enthusiasts, with the view of stopping the
slave trade and of cutting off the supply of Mamluks for the Sultan’s
army, prove more successful; nor did even the project of maintaining a
Christian fleet in the Mediterranean to prevent all intercourse with
Egypt answer the plan of its proposers. Where one country produces
articles which cannot be obtained elsewhere, nothing but an absolute
blockade of the ports of trans-shipment can prevent their exportation;
and, even then, though the price may be greatly enhanced, such articles
will find their way by circuitous routes to those who are willing to
purchase them regardless of the cost. The consumer invariably suffers
by all such attempts at prohibition; but the producer is rarely
injured. As the trade in Indian goods was the most profitable of all,
neither spiritual authority nor philosophical reasoning availed to
restrain the merchants of Europe from joining in it; moreover, the
religious prejudices of the age did not demand a total abstinence from
Eastern luxuries. The Venetians, indeed, on more than one occasion,
boldly defied the terrors of the Inquisition, and maintained that the
offence of trafficking in distant seas was only cognizable by the civil
tribunals.
[Sidenote: Commercial policy of the Italian republics.]
The stern, selfish policy of the Venetian republic and its conflicting
measures of protection and of freedom are to this day marvels of
success. During many centuries a small isolated community held their
own amid the revolutions of surrounding nations, and maintained
their high position till the discovery of the route to India by the
Cape of Good Hope gave the first serious blow to their commercial
supremacy. Venice, however, in her rise and progress had some powerful
competitors, and, of these, the Genoese were the most conspicuous.
[Sidenote: Genoa.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1206.]
Situated on the western, or opposite shore of Italy to Venice, the
Genoese had long beheld with envy the superior wealth and power of
Venice, and had resolved, if possible, to acquire such strength as
would enable them to compete at sea with the Venetians whenever a
favourable opportunity might arise for the trial of their strength.
Hence, Genoa was early alive to the importance of securing a fleet
which would be at least sufficient to protect her own distant trade.
Indeed, before Venice rose to great power, Genoa had had commercial
establishments in the Levant, with factories along the coasts of Asia
and Africa, requiring from their great importance a protecting fleet.
Cruisers, under Venetian colours, too frequently molested her traders
with those settlements. But the Genoese had also their marauders;
and, strange to say, the hostilities between the rival republics
commenced with the capture of a celebrated Genoese pirate who had for a
considerable space of time infested the Mediterranean. The attack and
defeat of the first regular fleet of the Genoese quickly followed, and
the island of Candia (Crete) was captured by the superior forces of
the Venetians. To the rivalry between the Genoese and the Venetians in
the market of Constantinople, and to the long wars thence ensuing, we
have already referred.
[Sidenote: Genoese fleets and treaties with the Venetians.]
[Sidenote: The Genoese restore the Greek dynasty, and secure a more
permanent footing at Constantinople.]
But Genoa, though defeated, persevered in her determination to curtail,
if she could not grasp, the whole maritime commerce of her rival,
and while protecting her own vessels, to secure a portion of those
branches of trade the merchants of Venice had long monopolised. In
the bloody war for the possession of Chioggia in the Adriatic, Genoa
put to sea with eighty-four galleys, thirteen large ships, and one
hundred and thirteen transports; and in 1293 equipped one hundred and
twenty galleys, each manned by two hundred and twenty combatants.
Hence, a commercial treaty in 1298 was made between the two republics,
by which it was stipulated that, during thirteen years, no Venetian
vessel should navigate the Black Sea or pass beyond Constantinople.
The Genoese, however, though supported by a treaty with the emperor
which secured to them the monopoly of the Black Sea, were not able
to maintain that with Venice for the stipulated period. Repeated
quarrels arose; and the Genoese, continued for more than a century the
most powerful commercial rivals of the Venetians in all parts of the
East. Being masters of Galata, they interrupted the landing of the
Venetian ships at Constantinople, and forced the Venetian _podesta_
resident in that city to seek another anchorage for the merchant
traders of his city. But not content with this aggressive policy,
they resolved to overthrow the throne of the Latins; to reinstate
the Greek dynasty, then fugitive at Nicæa in Asia; and to demand as
their reward the entire command of the commerce of the empire, with
an exclusive monopoly of the trade of the Black Sea. Nothing could
well have surpassed the audacity of this enterprise. If Genoa failed,
her commerce in Greece, at least, would be extinguished; while if she
succeeded, she was certain to bring down upon herself the thunders of
the Latin Church, the hatred of the Franks, and the vengeance of the
Venetians. But the Genoese only thought of humiliating Venice, and of
securing for themselves fresh monopolies; and they were for a time
completely successful. Their navy brought back the Greek dynasty to
Constantinople, and they themselves, armed with an imperial diploma,
converted the suburbs of that city into a fortress for their own
protection.
[Sidenote: Galata.]
[Sidenote: Kaffa.]
Having made Galata (now Pera) a place of great strength, their port
soon became the entrepôt of commerce with the North and East. With
vessels especially adapted for the navigation of the Black Sea, the
Genoese, unlike the Greeks, did not intermit their voyages during
even the most inclement months of winter; and Kaffa, through their
enterprise and influence, thus became a place of great commercial
importance as the factory for the receipt of the productions of the
north of Persia and of India, which came thither by way of Astracan
and the Caspian Sea. The Genoese, however, like the Venetians, were
but too frequently harsh and imperious masters, forbidding foreigners
to make purchases or sales among themselves, and requiring that every
transaction should pass through the hands of their own people. These
restrictive laws necessarily diminished the value of their trade.
[Sidenote: Genoese vessels.]
[Sidenote: Details of contract, with the ship-builders.]
Although there are no drawings extant of the vessels of the Genoese
during the thirteenth century on which any reliance can be placed, they
were as skilful and even more daring in the management of them than
the Venetians; and that they were equally conversant with the art of
ship-building is certain, from the fact that, in 1268, when Louis IX.
king of France contracted with the Venetians for some ships, he also
contracted with the Genoese for some others. Of these, two are thus
described by Mr. F. Steinitz, from the contracts given at length in the
work of M. Jal.[685] “These,” he says, “were alike.” They were each,
by the condition of the contract, “to have thirty-one cubits of keel,
and fifty cubits of extreme length, with 40½ palms of beam. The depth
of the hold was 17½ palms; of the first deck, nine; of the second,
eight; and of the parisade, five palms. Each ship had a large boat,
two barges, and a gondola, or small boat, and two rudders (one on each
side), nine palms long; the fore-mast was fifty-one cubits in length,
and 12¾ palms in circumference. The main-mast was forty-seven cubits
long, and 11¾ palms in circumference. The fore-yard, which was made of
three pieces of different lengths, seems to have exceeded one hundred
cubits; and the main-yard, which was made of two pieces, to have been
four cubits shorter. There was also a separate yard, of the same length
as the main-yard, for the ‘velon,’ a large sail, the nature of which
has not been exactly ascertained; but as it had a separate yard, it
may have been used when going before the wind as an additional sail.
It seems to have been hoisted only on the fore-mast. Four thousand
ells of spun hemp to supply cordage, &c., was allowed to every ship,
and they had six cotton sails of the following dimensions: viz., for
the foresail, sixty-six cubits; for the ‘terrasole,’ sixty-one cubits;
another sail of fifty-six cubits, and another of fifty-two cubits. The
mainsail was fifty-eight cubits, and another sail was fifty-two cubits.
Two of these sails, namely, a ‘terrasole’ for the fore-mast, and a
‘velon’ also for the fore-mast, were to be made of Marseilles cotton.
Each ship had twenty-six iron anchors, twenty of which weighed eight
cantares, and the other ten cantares each, and casks for two thousand
‘mencaroles’ of water. The two ships were to be furnished with stabling
to carry one hundred horses between them; and they had fourteen hawsers
for fastenings, or moorings in port. The cost of these two ships, with
all their stores, was fourteen thousand livres tournois.”
The other ship, the _Paradise_, seems to have cost only three thousand
seven hundred and fifty livres tournois, and consequently must
have been smaller. Her dimensions are not given, but her fore-mast
is described as being fifty cubits in length, and 12½ palms in
circumference, and her main-mast somewhat smaller. She had seven sails,
some of which were, no doubt, duplicate or spare sails; twenty-five
anchors, twelve of which had buoys; three cables, thirty-one hawsers,
and “four mooring ropes at the bows.” She had a barge of fifty-two
oars, and two anchors; a boat of thirty-two, another of thirty-four,
and a gondola of twelve oars, the smallest of which could hardly have
been carried on her deck, and must, with the others, have followed
her at sea and attended upon her in harbour. In the contract, the
most minute details are given of her stores, in which are comprised a
sounding lead, three grapnels with chains, six lanterns, one being of
glass, hatchets, nails, hammers, scales, pitch kettles, and so forth.
[Sidenote: Its inaccuracies.]
There must, however, be various extraordinary inaccuracies in the
dimensions of these vessels, as supplied by Steinitz and other
historians. The cubit, as known to the Romans and Greeks, was about a
foot and a half. It was divided by the Romans into six breadths, or
palms, of three inches each; and such were, no doubt, the dimensions of
the cubit and palm as known to the Italian republics, and as understood
in our own time. If this be so, it follows that each of the larger
vessels was seventy-five feet extreme length, and only ten feet beam;
four and a half feet depth of hold, with a fore-mast seventy-seven feet
in length, of three feet in circumference, and a yard no less than
one hundred and fifty feet long. No doubt the yards of the vessels of
that period were of enormous length, as may be seen in the “lateen”
rigged craft of the present day, and far in excess of the yards of
modern ships as compared to the size and length of these vessels; but
it would be absurd to suppose that a vessel of only ten feet in width,
and under five feet deep, could carry a mast seventy-seven feet long,
much less a yard of double that length; nor could a vessel of the
dimensions supplied have stabling for fifty horses, or room to hold the
spare spars, sails, etc., named in the inventory. Nor is the matter
mended if we suppose the palm to have been nine inches; for then the
mast would be _nine_ feet in circumference, or equal to that of a
first-class modern line-of-battle ship.
However imperfect the drawings which have been preserved, the reader
will by these form a more accurate idea of what the vessels were than
can be obtained from the few records we have of their dimensions. If,
therefore, the following representations, given by M. Jal, from the MS.
Virgil in the Riccardi library are examined, and an allowance made for
imperfection of the drawings, we may form a tolerable idea of the ships
of that period.
[Illustration]
Throughout the whole of the middle ages, and even until the seventeenth
century, every vessel was provided with trumpets and bugles, which were
played during fêtes and battles or used in foggy weather as signals:
such instruments are very distinctly represented on the Corporation
seal of Dover.
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: Napier’s description of a large Genoese ship of the
fifteenth century.]
Nor, indeed, do writers of nautical experience, who describe the
vessels of the Genoese even so late as the fifteenth century, supply
information on which reliance can be placed. For instance, Napier, in
his “Florentine History,” furnishes[686] the following description of
one of the largest vessels of the period. “The vessels built during
this century for commercial purposes,” he remarks, “were large in size,
but it would be difficult to ascertain their exact capacity; and by
the description of one belonging to the Genoese family of Doria, which
anchored at Porto Pisano in 1452, this was quite unequal to their
outward dimensions. Her burden was said to be three hundred “botti,”
or about two hundred and seventy English tons[687]; her length, on the
upper deck, one hundred and seventy-nine feet; the mast, _thirty-eight
feet in circumference_ at the lowest and thickest part, and one hundred
and eighty-four feet high; the height of her poop from the keel,
seventy-seven feet nearly, without the after-castle; that of her bow
nearly sixty-one, independent of the forecastle; her sail, and she
seems to have carried but one, was more than a hundred and fifty-three
feet broad, and ninety-six high. She was heavily rigged with so many
shrouds, says Cambi, that they alone were worth a treasure; her anchors
were numerous, and weighed about twenty-five hundred-weight each; she
had seventy cabins; her cables were twenty-three inches round, and
eighty fathoms long; she was fitted with ovens, cisterns, and stalls
for horses; her _long boat_ carried nearly seventy-two tons, and six
hundred souls were embarked in her. This was the largest vessel that
had been seen in a Florentine port for a long time, and no ordinary
seamanship must have been necessary to manage so unwieldy a sail as she
seems to have carried.”
[Sidenote: Evident mistakes in the accounts.]
We should rather have expected a Post-Captain in the British Navy to
have remarked that no such sail could have been carried on the vessel
he names, for its spread would have been equal to close upon fifteen
thousand square feet of canvas; dimensions, compared with which the
largest sail in the _Great Eastern_, of somewhere about twenty-four
thousand tons register, would be insignificant, and whose mainmast
is a walking stick in comparison with the mast of one hundred and
eighty-four feet high, and _thirty-eight feet in circumference_, of
which Captain Napier has furnished a description. Nor are we disposed
to place any more confidence in the account of her height which he
furnishes; and we are sure that he would not have considered it safe to
have commanded in rough weather a ship of the height he describes in
proportion to her length (the breadth is not given), much less would
he have attempted to hoist upon her deck a “long boat” which carried
“nearly seventy-two tons.”
There is no way of accounting for these numerous palpable mistakes
than by supposing that they arose “from a mistake in copying the MSS.,
or from typographical errors;” but how they should have arisen in so
many cases is perplexing. Moreover, it is wholly unaccountable why
historians, especially men with the experience and practical knowledge
of Napier, should not have directed special attention to errors so
glaring.
It may, however, from all the information we have been able to collect,
be affirmed that, previously to the fifteenth century, practical
or professed writers upon shipping were unknown; while those who
incidentally refer to it are so inaccurate, that their works have
little, if any, real value. Almost everything relating to shipping, and
especially to merchant shipping, before that time is, therefore, in a
great degree matter for conjecture. Nay, we are even inclined to think
that, on the whole, we possess more accurate accounts of the ships of
antiquity.
[Sidenote: First great improvement in the Genoese ships.]
Various causes and circumstances rendered the middle of the fifteenth
century a remarkable epoch in the annals of marine architecture, and
not the least of these was the competition for maritime supremacy
between the great Italian republics. But when Genoa and Venice wisely
gave up quarrelling, there was a still more marked improvement in the
form and equipment of their vessels. The rivalry of commerce took the
place of those foolish contentions which invariably resulted in war.
Each nation then strove to produce, not the best fighting ship, but the
one most suited to yield remunerative returns. From that period the
improvement steadily increased, until vessels not unlike those of our
own time were constructed towards the middle of the sixteenth century.
[Sidenote: Genoese carrack.]
The Genoese, though inferior in, perhaps, all other respects to the
Venetians, then surpassed them in the art of ship-building; and they
were, so far as can now be traced, the first to construct a ship
approaching to the modern form and rig, of which any account and
drawing has been preserved. The following, copied from Charnock,[688]
affords an excellent and, we believe, accurate illustration of the
large Genoese merchant carrack of the first half of the sixteenth
century,[689] some of which are said to have been of no less than from
fifteen hundred to two thousand tons burden.
[Sidenote: Their corsairs and pirates.]
[Sidenote: The most daring of the pirates, their terrible fate.]
[Illustration: A GENOESE CARRACK, 1542.]
The Genoese, more especially in the early part of their history, had,
as we have seen, their lawless cruisers as well as their peaceable
traders. But her corsairs, once so renowned, must not be confounded
with her pirates. The former resembled in many respects the privateers
of our own time; while their pirates were chiefly under the control of
men who had been banished from the republic either for some delinquency
against the laws or for political offences. A number of these political
exiles, belonging to what was known as the “Guelph faction,” having
been banished from the republic in 1323, fitted out ten galleys armed
as cruisers and infested the Mediterranean, pillaging indiscriminately
the ships and the coasts of Genoa as well as those of other nations. In
one cruise alone they took booty estimated at three hundred thousand
golden florins. Their success, however, proved the means of their
destruction. Pursued by a squadron of Genoese ships of war as far as
the Black Sea, they sought shelter in Sinope, then under a Turcoman
ruler, who, quickly learning the wealth they had on board their
vessels, took short and effective means to secure it for himself.
Inviting the pirate chiefs with their crews to a banquet, he surrounded
them in the height of their revelry with his troops and massacred
nearly all of them. No fewer than fifteen hundred persons, among whom
were forty nobles, perished by this one deed of treachery, and only
three galleys succeeded in making good their escape.
[Sidenote: Corsairs.]
The corsairs, on the other hand, were armed as privateers, if not with
the express approbation, at least with the tacit acquiescence of the
government, and professed to wage war only with the enemies of their
own republic. The corsairs also performed the duties of the men-of-war
of more modern times, by searching the vessels of neutral and friendly
powers to ascertain if they had on board provisions, arms, or
merchandise destined for the enemy. The booty thus acquired was divided
among the commanders and cruisers, in conformity with the ancient
maritime regulations preserved in the “_Consulado de la Mer_.”[690]
[Sidenote: Bologna and Ancona.]
The successful resistance of Genoa to the growing power of Venice had,
however, another result, in that it encouraged other states inferior
in power to either of them to resist as far as they could the commands
of these imperious masters. Bologna and Ancona,[691] the first to make
the attempt, signally failed; nor did the latter meet with better
success when she joined the Istrians in their revolt against Venice,
though her ships had the audacity to commit various depredations on the
commerce of that state, while she refused to pay the duty required by
the Venetians from all vessels which entered that part of the Adriatic
acknowledged to be within their dominion.
[Sidenote: Importance of Pisa.]
[Sidenote: Her trade with the Saracens, about A.D. 1100; and ships.]
Amalfi, long before Venice or Genoa, the possessor, as we have seen,
of a large and valuable commerce with the East, had now passed away as
a place of commercial importance; but Pisa, one of the most ancient
cities of Tuscany and the chief pillager of Amalfi,[692] still
maintained a high position, and proved, in some respects, a formidable
rival to the Venetian and Genoese traders. Despising, in their
commercial operations, the narrow dictates of religious bigotry, the
Pisans, in frequent voyages to Palermo about the middle of the eleventh
century, successfully traded with the Saracen inhabitants. They also
traded to the coast of Africa, and, on one occasion, in revenge for a
supposed injury, captured and held the royal city of Tunis until they
obtained redress. They now played a leading and brilliant part in the
maritime commerce of the Mediterranean. Pisa, in the twelfth century,
contained two hundred thousand inhabitants, and many beautiful
monuments still attest its former greatness and splendour.[693] Among
the most conspicuous may still be seen its leaning tower, from which
has been copied the following representation of one of its ships,
sculptured so far back as the year 1178.
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: Her first great misfortune.]
Besides different sorts of merchant vessels bearing a common
resemblance to those of the Venetians, the Pisans constructed ships of
war with towers of wood, and machines for attacking an enemy, which
they managed with a skill that rendered them most formidable opponents.
Their expeditions against the Moors of the Balearic Islands, and their
conquests in Corsica and Sardinia conferred on them a high military as
well as naval reputation. But the Pisans were not without their share
of the calamities of the times. In the year 1120, their city was almost
laid in ashes and their islands of Sardinia and Corsica taken from
them by the Saracens.[694] They, however, assisted by the Genoese, soon
after recovered these islands; but the division of the conquest, and
probably the exasperation created by commercial jealousy, immediately
kindled a war between the allies, in which the Genoese, with a fleet of
eighty galleys and four great ships, carrying warlike engines, besieged
their harbour, and obliged the Pisans to submit to their pleasure
respecting Corsica. The peace that followed was again soon broken; and
a sanguinary war, frequently interrupted by insincere pacifications or
truces, continued to distress the two neighbouring and rival republics
for almost two centuries.
[Sidenote: Mode of conducting her trade.]
The Pisans seem to have carried on their trade in a great measure by
companies, half laymen, half monastic, not altogether unlike some still
existing in the ports of Italy. By such means, also, the commerce with
their settlements at Tyre, Tripoli, Antioch, and St. Jean d’Acre,
was chiefly conducted; and when, in 1171, they gained a position at
Constantinople, owing to the quarrel between the Emperor Manuel and the
Venetians, they profited greatly by the working of their commercial
associations.[695] In less than a hundred years from this time, they
had become so powerful that the Venetians found it prudent to enter
into amicable arrangements with them, granting, among other favours
to the Pisan merchants, the privilege of trading to all their ports
of the Levant, Adriatic, and Archipelago, on the payment of only
one-fourth of the ordinary customs on the merchandise in which they
dealt.
[Sidenote: Florence, A.D. 1250.]
By this time Tuscany had become one of the most distinguished
commercial states of Italy, the merchants of Florence having
established relations or branch-houses in other parts of Italy,
and even in distant foreign countries; while many of them, who had
accumulated larger capital than could be conveniently employed in
trade, became dealers in money by exchange. By borrowing and lending
on interest at home, and by working their spare capital by means of
their _podestas_, or agents abroad, they for a time, in some measure,
monopolized the business of foreign exchange, realising immense
fortunes to themselves, while rendering a vast boon to every person who
had dealings with distant nations. The merchants of the other cities
of Italy soon followed the example of the Florentines (who, it may be
remarked, had risen from obscurity during the maritime wars of Pisa,
their neighbouring city) in dealing in money as well as merchandise.
The Florentines also established houses in France and in England,
though, as we have seen, Henry III. passed a law[696] forbidding his
people to borrow money from any foreign merchants. Having, together
with the Lombards,[697] establishments throughout Europe, they became
very useful to the Popes, who constantly employed them to receive and
remit the large sums they extracted from different nations in virtue
of their ecclesiastical supremacy. They were also doubtless useful in
lending on interest the vast fortunes the Popes then possessed—“sowing
their money to make it profitable,” as is happily expressed by one of
the most quaint and intelligent writers of the period.[698]
[Sidenote: The Florentines ship goods from a port of Pisa.]
[Sidenote: Sale and transfer of Leghorn, A.D. 1421.]
During one of those intervals of peace and goodwill of such rare
occurrence among these great commercial rivals in Italy, the
Florentines obtained permission to deposit and ship their goods from
a port of Pisa; but this good understanding proved of short duration.
The Pisans repented having made any concessions to their enterprising
and industrious neighbours, and soon afterwards the Florentines were
obliged to withdraw from Pisa. Further bickerings took place between
them, till at length, after holding for a short time an insignificant
port belonging to the people of Siena, Pisa had to mourn the success
of her rival, who purchased from Genoa the port of Leghorn, for one
hundred thousand florins.[699]
[Sidenote: First expeditions to Egypt, Constantinople, and Majorca.]
The acquisition of so convenient and valuable a port rendered Florence,
already a city of great wealth and influence, one of the richest
of Italy. Aspiring to possess a navy, she created a board known as
the “Six consuls of the sea,” to manage her naval affairs; but the
Florentine genius was more banking and commercial than maritime, and
her navy, even under the care of the Medicean princes and knights of
Stefano, never rose to much importance. She, however, soon obtained
merchant vessels sufficient to carry on her trade with the Muhammedans,
and to restore the factories which Pisa had formerly established in
the East. Her request to obtain, as successor to the Pisans, the
advantages they had formerly enjoyed, having been granted by the Sultan
of Egypt, the despatch of their first commercial galley to Alexandria
was a day of extraordinary exultation. That day inaugurated a new era
in the commerce of the now flourishing republic; a new outlet had been
opened for Florentine industry and enterprise; a new maritime power had
unfurled its flag on the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and it was
fitting that so auspicious an event should be opened with great public
rejoicings and solemn religious processions.[700]
Nor is it surprising that this day should have been one of exceeding
joy to the people of Florence. Though rivalling all other states in
the excellence of her manufactures and of her system of banking, she
had hitherto failed in establishing a maritime commerce, having, in
her earnest endeavours to gain such a position, been on all occasions
almost as strenuously opposed by the Venetians and Genoese as by her
more immediate neighbours, the Pisans. These obstacles had now been
overcome. The departure, therefore, of her own ships from her own port
was a matter to call forth something more than the ordinary tokens
of joy. The Florentine Argo destined to re-open the valuable trade
with Egypt and the far East contained, among its crew of two hundred
and fifty persons, twelve young men of the principal families of
Florence,[701] sent on board to acquire a knowledge of the trade of
the Levant and of maritime affairs. To facilitate, also, commercial
intercourse, knowing how difficult it is to reconcile people to a
strange coinage and reckoning, the Florentines coined golden florins
of the same value as those of Venice, called the “Galley florins,”
which they sent in large quantities with the expedition to secure an
easy currency at the foreign ports and to facilitate their commercial
transactions.[702]
Ambassadors were at the same time despatched to Egypt, with full
powers to treat on all commercial affairs; a second embassy obtained
mercantile concessions in Syria, Constantinople, and the Morea; while
a third proceeded to Majorca, to make the Florentine flag known and
respected in that part of the Mediterranean.
[Sidenote: Freedom of commercial intercourse among the Florentines.]
From this time the commerce of Florence increased so as to rival,
if not surpass that of Venice. Her merchants were indeed princes.
The trade with the East, opened in a measure by Cosimo de Medici,
was greatly extended and improved by his grandson Lorenzo. So highly
was this illustrious merchant esteemed by the Sultan of Egypt, that
he sent an embassy to him (a mark of respect seldom bestowed by
Muhammedan princes even on the most powerful Christian sovereigns)
with magnificent presents, including fine cotton cloths of various
kinds, and other rich Oriental manufactures, large vases of beautiful
porcelain, balsams and spices, and an Arabian horse of great value and
beauty.[703] Under this princely merchant, and heartily co-operating
with him in his wise administration, Florence reached the zenith of her
prosperity. Relieved from wars and tumults, the inhabitants exerted
their active spirit in commerce and manufactures. Besides developing
the intercourse with India, by way of Egypt, to an extent unknown since
the best days of the Roman empire, Florence opened up a large trade
with Spain and England, and became the chief buyer of their wools for
the supply of her vast manufactures. It was then that the English were
allowed to resort freely to the territories of Florence, and to carry
thither every kind of merchandise, whether the produce of their own or
other countries, not even excepting countries which were at war with
the republic. They might there buy and sell, with the Florentines or
any other people, all goods not already prohibited, or might carry even
prohibited goods through the Florentine territories to any country,
whether friendly or hostile, so that the policy of Florence, in her
desire to make all nations her merchants, and to centre within herself,
as far as possible, the trade of the world, resembled in many respects
that of Tyre, and was far more liberal than Venice.[704]
The fleets of Florence, though small compared to those of Venice, were
equipped and navigated under regulations similar to those of the proud
city of the Adriatic. Her state galleys, destined for the long voyages,
were in like manner conceded to the highest bidders. With the intention
of securing an abundant supply of raw materials for her manufactures,
Florence established agencies in Flanders and in France, under
arrangements akin to those she had opened in Spain and in England. Her
great commerce, numerous manufactures, and wide-spread banking, created
a large and constant flow of specie into the capital; and, in the
public and private buildings, of the architecture of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, which still adorn that beautiful city, may be seen
abundant proofs of the then enormous wealth of Florence.
[Sidenote: Their frugality, contrasted with their magnificent public
displays.]
But while no means were omitted by the Florentines to encourage
commerce and manufactures, they were themselves frugal in their habits
and discouraged all extravagance and wasteful luxury. The whole force
of the state was directed to keeping the market abundantly supplied
with food and to preventing its export in order that the manufacturing
population should live cheap, and the merchants, in consequence, be
able to undersell, with a profit to themselves, all other nations.
Warned by the example of Rome, the Florentines, while they spared no
expense in public works, carried their frugality to such an extent,
that laws were passed to prevent excess in personal indulgences.
The ornaments permitted and forbidden were defined and described
by law, and the quality of woollen cloth (the use of silk stuffs
being prohibited) was minutely specified. Statutory enactments even
regulated the fashion of dress for both sexes, the expense of nuptials,
and the number and quality of the viands allowed on such occasions, “in
order to avoid any appearance of luxury and extravagance in a people
depending on their own industry alone for their national greatness and
prosperity;” indeed, the enactments went so far as to forbid retail
dealings in some of the more costly descriptions of cloth, in order to
prevent their being worn by the citizens.[705]
[Sidenote: Duties and powers of the board of the “Six consuls of the
sea.”]
The influential and important board of the “Six consuls of the sea,”
which regulated the naval affairs of Florence, made all the commercial
agreements with foreign states, fixed the quantity and quality of
merchandise to be embarked in the public galleys destined for any new
and direct trade with the Levant, and kept minute accounts of these
voyages. Its members were responsible for their economical management.
With them also rested the appointment of the consuls in foreign states;
a general superintendence of commerce, with exclusive jurisdiction in
maritime causes; and the care of the woods, buildings, chases, and
fisheries, besides various other duties totally unconnected with either
ships or commerce. Nor did their multifarious duties, as multifarious
as those of a modern English Board of Trade, end here. They had power
to impose on certain classes of foreign goods and manufactures high
and, in some cases, prohibitory duties, “for the encouragement of
native industry in those spots where local circumstances, and the
natural bent of the people, promised successful competition.”[706]
[Sidenote: Their public vessels and trade in which they were employed.]
The public navy of Florence, consisting originally of only two galleys,
had been now increased to eleven, besides fifteen “Fuste,” or smaller
vessels.[707] Though manned and armed as ships of war, they were
principally employed in the conveyance of merchandise to all places
beyond Rome on the one side, and Genoa on the other, trading eastward
with Constantinople, Kaffa, Trebizond, Alexandria, Tunis, Tripoli,
and Sicily; and westward with Minorca, Majorca, Bona, and the western
coast of Barbary, as well as with Catalonia, England, and Flanders.
These voyages were timed so as not to interfere with each other. When
there were no private bidders for the public galleys put up to auction
for hire, which seldom happened, the voyage was made on account of the
government. The sea-consuls settled the number of the crew and the
armament of each galley, and nominated the captain, supercargo, and
other officers, none of whom were allowed to be in any way connected
with the consuls, or to own any part of the cargo: the consuls, too,
were not permitted to share in this trade, except when the vessels were
freighted on account of the government. The galleys bound westward
sailed in September, and those for the Levant in February.
“On the day of sailing,” remarks Napier,[708] “the various ports at
which the galleys were to touch, the period of their stay at each,
their ultimate destination, the rates of freight, the names of the
officers, and the number of the crews were duly published, except for
the voyages to Catalonia and Sicily, which were kept secret for fear
of pirates, by whom these coasts were particularly infested. A loan of
seven thousand five hundred florins was advanced to the conductor for
his expenses, but on good security; and the hire of a galley for the
Levant, in 1458, amounted to one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight
florins, all charges being paid by the conductor. A hundred and thirty
men formed the crew and combatants of one galley, and the conductors
of those in the Levant trade were bound to present a carpet, worth not
less than fifteen florins, to the seignory on their return, also to
carry public ambassadors, and those young men who were sent abroad to
learn the art of trading.”
Under the rule, however, of the enlightened Lorenzo, the privileges
conferred on these public galleys in their trading operations were
entirely abolished, and the public permitted to build, freight, and
sail such vessels as they pleased. Under his rule, also, the commercial
relations with England were firmly established, and fresh treaties,
more liberal in their character than even those of 1385, were made in
1490 and 1491.
[Sidenote: Consular agents.]
So far back as 1339, the Consulates of Florence, established in
various European countries, are mentioned as old and widely-extended
institutions. The appointment of the consul was for three years only;
and he had to see that treaties were strictly observed, to administer
justice, maintain order and reputable conduct amongst the merchants,
and, besides other miscellaneous duties, to prevent “gambling and
swearing.” Every Eastern consul was allowed a secretary at four florins
a month, two attendants, three horses, and a dragoman, with an annual
salary of four thousand aspers.[709] He was strictly prohibited from
carrying on trade of any kind on his own account, and was not allowed,
under a heavy penalty, to act as consul for other nations or advocate
the cause of strangers.
[Sidenote: Extent of the Florentine commerce, and cause of its decline.]
In London, the Florentine consul received by way of remuneration
one-twelfth of a penny for every pound sterling of exchange; a penny
and half-penny on every pound sterling value of merchandize bought and
sold; a penny and half-farthing on every pound sterling of securities;
and ten pounds sterling on the cargo of any Florentine galley that
arrived in England, on board of which the merchants were compelled to
embark their goods, or were subject to the freight if they did not do
so.[710] Similar privileges were granted to the consuls at Lyons and in
Flanders: in Bruges they were even more specially favoured, as there
the Florentine establishments, as we have seen, had flourished since
the commencement of the thirteenth century, and her merchants were the
most wealthy, and probably also the most numerous and influential in
the city. Indeed, so powerful had the Florentine merchants and bankers
become in foreign ports that, during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, they held a large portion of the trade of Europe in
their hands. The whole of the banking of France was then monopolised
by them, and a considerable part of her commerce. Spain, Portugal,
Flanders, England, and even Venice, her proud competitor, were full of
them. The Medici alone had at one time no fewer than sixteen banking
establishments in different parts of Europe; and such was the extent
and consequent credit of the Florentines, that many of the European
mints, towards the close of the thirteenth century, including that of
Edward I. of England, were mainly under their control.
Although the western nations, towards the close of the fifteenth
century, resolved to direct more attention than they had hitherto
done to commercial and maritime pursuits, their opposition would have
produced little effect in depriving the Italian republics of those
valuable branches of trade, of which they had long held almost an
exclusive monopoly, had not the discoveries of the Portuguese, and the
consequent alteration of the route of the trade with India, given to
them an advantage, against which the Italians, with all their wealth,
skill, and knowledge were unable to compete.
Nor were there wanting other causes beyond the discovery of a new route
to India to bring about the decline and, at last, the annihilation of
the once great republics of Italy. In spite of legislative enactments
in favour of frugality, the Florentines, as they increased in wealth,
became proud and haughty. There seems, indeed, to be a point in the
career of nations as well as of prosperous individuals, when every move
is attended with danger. Wealth, though a source of power, is fraught
with evil. It as often makes men as nations, vain, presumptuous, and
arrogant. Wealth is then no longer an instrument for its increase by
the development of new sources of trade and commerce, or of the natural
resources of a nation, but is made subservient to individual vanity in
the erection of magnificent houses, in luxurious entertainments, or in
other modes of extravagance prejudicial to the interests of the state.
Purse-proud men consider wealth essential to their greatness, and its
lavish expenditure necessary to the maintenance of their position.
They vie with each other in their houses, equipages, dress, dinners,
and fêtes of every kind. As it is with individuals so it is with
nations; and such was essentially the case with the Italian republics
in their career after the fifteenth century. Each of the great cities
then claimed for herself the honour of being the foremost in wealth,
in power, and in splendour. Independent of each other, they became
rivals, not merely for ascendancy, but in empty show. Trifling matters
of etiquette were too frequently magnified into national insults.
The most frivolous individual complaints were dealt with as matters
requiring the serious consideration of the respective states. These
petty animosities, the offsprings of overgrown wealth, and of its too
frequent accompaniments, arrogance and vanity, imperceptibly increased
in time into national jealousies and into a political rivalry, of a
character dangerous to the well-being of all the republics. Their
differences, craftily fermented by their more military neighbours, made
them at last an easy prey to the despotism of an overwhelming German
potentate, under whom the people of that rich and sunny land were held
in subjection until the sympathies of the free states of Europe and the
arms of a near and powerful nation were able in our own time to restore
Italy to independence.
[Sidenote: The smaller states.]
Reference has already been made to Amalfi,[711] Bologna, and Ancona,
and to the part they took during the Middle Ages in the commerce of
the Mediterranean. Though their trade, and that of Naples, Sicily, and
Milan, was insignificant when compared to the trade of Venice, Pisa,
Genoa, or Florence, it contributed essentially to the employment of
merchant shipping. Naples and Sicily, for instance, furnished large
quantities of grain, oil, cotton, sugar, and wines, requiring export
to distant parts where they were in demand. Bologna was famous for
its cloths and silks; Florence received a considerable portion of its
Indian produce through Ancona; and Milan, towards the close of the
Middle Ages, was an inland entrepôt of no mean commercial importance.
Before the close of the fifteenth century the maritime commerce of
Spain and Portugal had risen to a position second only to that of
Venice, which was destined soon to be eclipsed by the still greater
maritime discoveries of that period. But before taking a glance at
the progress of these nations during the Middle Ages, or referring to
those interesting episodes in their history, whereby they became the
instruments of discovering America, and of establishing a fresh route
to India, events which changed the seats and centres of commerce and
gave an astounding impetus to shipping, it may be desirable to furnish
an outline of the character of the sea-faring population at the period
to which we now refer, their customs and superstitions, and their love
for display in the decoration of their vessels.
[Sidenote: Decorations and traditionary emblems of ships.]
To cover the unsightly appearance of the resin and pitch necessary to
render their vessels tight and to preserve them from decay, pigments
were used of various colours, among which white, red lead, and
vermilion were long in the highest favour. Green, from its resemblance
to sea water, was adopted by piratical cruisers and explorers, to
avoid observation. Princes, and other opulent personages, frequently
decorated their ships in purple, richly gilt, with highly ornamented
poops and sterns, and figure-heads of the most beautiful devices
their artists could conceive. In these decorations the taste of the
Middle Ages appears to have adhered to the traditionary emblems of
the ancients. About the middle of the thirteenth century the Genoese,
who, in their encounters with the Pisans, had previously painted their
vessels green, assumed the colour of white, dotted with vermilion
crosses—the cross gules upon a silver ground being the shield of St.
George, the knight both of England and Genoa. In the sixteenth century,
red had become the prevailing colour, though frequently black and white
were intermingled in foliage, in varied lines or in capricious zigzags;
and, sometimes, the ground was entirely black, the ornaments alone
being of a dazzling vermilion. Except, however, on special occasions,
the colour of mourning, unrelieved by any other, seldom shed its
saddening influence over the vessels of the Middle Ages, as it does
almost invariably over those of our own time. Then its use was almost
exclusively confined to the bearers of death or of other disastrous
news. The galleys which conveyed to Manfred the intelligence of the
death of his brother Conrad were painted black, and their sails and
pendants of a similar colour. In 1525, when Francis I. was captured at
the battle of Pavia and carried captive to Barcelona, the six galleys
which conveyed the captive monarch and his suite were painted in that
sombre colour, from the topmasts down to the water-lines. The sails,
banners, pendants, awnings, and oars were all black, and the knights of
St. Stephen adopted the same colour when one of their captains was made
prisoner by the Turks, vowing never to wear any other until victory
should restore him to their country.
Although the ships of the ancients were frequently adorned with purple
and gold beyond the decorations to the hull already described, they
were surpassed in display by those of the Middle Ages, and, especially,
by the ships of the nobles of the Italian republics. Ornaments,
emblems, devices, and allegorical subjects with armorial bearings were
lavishly engraved or painted on the hulls; while alternate stripes or
squares of variegated colours decorated the sails. In the case of the
more ordinary vessels of the merchant or of the fisherman, the image
of a saint, of the Virgin Mary, or of some sacramental or cabalistic
charm, were common devices to ward off malignant influences.
[Sidenote: Signals.]
Signals were made by means of figured and painted sails, streamers, or
flags, and by the use of the ensigns. Indeed, nothing was wanting that
could render a ship “magnificent,” according to the prevailing tastes
of the period.
[Sidenote: Manners and customs of seamen.]
Having clung to the ancient mythological taste in the decorations of
the exterior of their vessels for so many ages, the ship-owners now
carried their pious zeal to the extremity of saintly image-worship,
which continued until the Reformation, then in its turn relapsing
again into pagan heresies. But the manners and habits of the seamen
continued almost unchanged. Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages
they were the same superstitious mortals, and as much addicted to the
marvellous as ever they had been. Prior to the Reformation, they, like
the rest of Europe, were of one catholic faith. They believed in God,
adored the Virgin Mary, and prayed to every saint in heaven supposed
to have any connection with the sea. They had, however, a great fear
of a priest, chiefly on account of his black gown; and in bad weather,
if peradventure any priest were on board, he would have risked being
pitched into the sea, if the master, as was often the case, happened to
be as superstitious and ignorant as his crew.
[Sidenote: Their legends.]
[Sidenote: Punishments for gambling, and swearing.]
Fantastic shapes and beings of another world, while they awed, pleased
their imagination, for they, too, had their sirens, of which their
poets sang. Nor were they without their sea-serpent. More marvellous
and tantalizing than even that of modern times, which matter-of-fact
men are always disputing, the sea-serpent of the dark ages was adorned
with a mitre on its head and had a dalmatic robe across its shoulders.
Indeed, many of the credulous world on shore believed as firmly in the
bishop-fish monster as the sailors themselves, especially since a
learned Jesuit confirmed the actual existence of this prodigy of the
ocean. But the sea monsters of the Middle Ages, unlike those of our
own day, were happily at times instruments of good. One of them, and
the statement is attested by a whole boat’s crew of seamen, actually
swallowed an unbelieving sailor who had been playing at dice, and who,
while at play, had wickedly defied the Virgin Mary. So thoroughly were
the authorities convinced that this marvellous story was a fact, that
to prevent any more sailors from being thus summarily disposed of, the
playing of dice was afterwards strictly forbidden on board ship. This
happy change appears to have extended to the ships of England, for when
Richard I. repaired to the Holy Land he enforced a regulation, that if
any seaman played at dice, or any other game of a similar character,
without licence, he should be plunged into the sea three mornings
successively by way of punishment.
Seamen of all ages would seem to have been grievously addicted to
swearing;[712] and, although the Church and State of every nation have
endeavoured to control this wicked and foolish practice, it still
prevails to a large extent on board of merchant ships, and is only
now curtailed or stifled in ships of war by the strict discipline
maintained in them. It was almost universal in the Middle Ages. The
French and Mediterranean sailor swore by his bread, by his wine, and by
his salt, in the same way that King Richard[713] swore by the “very
eyes of God.” The Church of Rome reproved in the strongest terms the
sailor’s oath, alleging that, under an apparently simple expression,
it covered one decidedly sinful. In the opinion of the Holy Father,
bread, wine, and salt were the bases of their daily food; they were
also the sacramental elements; they were the symbols of life itself
here and hereafter; to swear, therefore, by bread, wine, and salt, was
to commit indirectly, in their judgment, an act of horrible atrocity.
Accordingly, by a decree of 1543, the most severe penalties are
inflicted upon this most “damnable custom;” and these are renewed in a
later decree of 1582.[714]
Sailors have ever been a cosmopolitan race. As citizens of the world,
they have had almost a common language as well as a common religion.
The song which they still sing in lifting the anchor or in hoisting
the sails, of “Ye-ho, cheerily, men!” or some such words, for we have
never seen them in print, is the song, or at least the same tune sung
a thousand years ago by the Venetian sailors, and resembling, we dare
say, that lively and invigorating air re-echoed along the shores of
Syria from the ships of the ancient Phœnicians as they manned their
oars or spread their sails for sea.
[Sidenote: Superstitions.]
Their superstitions were universal. These may have varied in name
and form, but from a very early period even until now sailors have
considered Friday to be an unlucky day, and one on which no vessel
ought to take her departure from a safe harbour. In the Middle Ages
it was dreaded by seamen as the day of all days of ill-omen or
misfortune: again, salt being spilt horrified them, and knives placed
across were, in their opinion, the prognostications of calamity.
Divination, sorcery, witchcraft, and necromancy, were then practised
by even “thinking minds.” What, then, could have been expected from
the thoughtless sailor, who, to obtain a fair wind, invariably had
recourse to prayers and incantations? In the midst of the gale he
invoked a return of fair weather by various superstitious practices.
The Greeks of the Mediterranean during a storm threw small loaves into
the sea, which they called the loaves of “St. Nicholas.” The Russians,
to appease the evil spirit which stirs up the boiling waves, and charms
the mountain which the sea cannot pass, offered in humility a cake made
of flour and butter. The Portuguese, when in imminent peril, fixed to
the mast of the ship an image of St. Anthony, and to this idol prayed
until the wind changed to his liking.
Nor were these superstitions confined to the sailors of Europe. Some of
the Indians, when in danger on the ocean, supplicated the protection
of their prince of evil spirits, who was one of their gods, and drank
the blood of a cock, swallowing with it a small piece of burning coal,
the heat of which they did not feel in the excitement of their insane
delirium. When a waterspout was discovered ahead of the ship, the
practice prevailed, especially in the Mediterranean, for a sailor to
pull out his knife and make the sign of the cross or triple triangle
in the air, as representing the Trinity, uttering in his despair some
mystical or cabalistic words. If the handle of his knife turned black
the water spirit would not reach the ship, and they were safe; but if
the danger increased, two sailors resorted to a more powerful charm, a
practice which in some measure still prevails in the Levant. They drew
their swords and struck them against each other, taking especial care
that the weapons formed the figure of a cross every time they clashed.
This remedy, in their judgment, was sure to succeed. Some misbelieving
sailors would fire a gun against the waterspout in order to disperse
it, but these practical fellows, who had no faith in necromancy,
deserved to be drowned.
The sailors of the latter portion of the Middle Ages were, however,
though superstitious enough, not so superstitious as some of their
forefathers had been. They no longer believed that to cut their nails
or their hair during fine weather was unlucky, and that such necessary
and homely operations inevitably brought on a gale; but they thought,
as many sailors still do, that to whistle in a calm would bring wind,
and that to continue whistling when the wind came would arouse the
anger of the gods and create a storm. They rejected as an idle fable
the notion, that if a sailor heard a sneezing from the left hand when
going on board ship, it was a fatal omen to which he ought to yield
obedience; or, on the contrary, that the voyage would be propitious
if the sneezing sound came from the right. But they still implicitly
believed it to be a most unlucky sign if, at the moment when they were
shipping provisions, the vessel gave a list to starboard. They believed
devoutly in a goblin, and considered it a very mischievous imp, which
delighted in tormenting sailors during the night by opening their
knives, tangling their hair, tearing their bedding, and which, in some
of its freaks, would be bold enough to attack the ship herself, tying
the ropes into knots so that they would not run through the blocks,
carrying away the anchors in a calm, and tearing holes in the sails
when they were closely reefed.
[Sidenote: Manners and morals, A.D. 1420.]
[Sidenote: General severity of punishments.]
The laws regulating the manners and morals of seamen were frequently
very severe. Moncenigo,[715] in 1420, punished with flogging every man
guilty of blasphemy, or even of swearing, and inflicted a penalty of
one hundred sous on any sailor of the poop, any steersman, officer, or
gentleman, who was guilty of the like offence. The Norman code ordered
the sailor guilty of robbery to have his head shaved, and then to be
tarred and feathered. In this state he was made to pass through the
crew ranged in two files, and each man struck him a blow with a stick
or a stone, after which he was dismissed the ship.
In conformity with the earlier laws, Peter III., of Aragon, passed in
1354 an ordinance condemning every man to run the gauntlet who gambled
with his effects. In certain cases the admiral of a fleet could cut
the delinquent’s ears off for a similar offence; and he had even the
power also to cut out his tongue, if, for example, any unhappy culprit
should insult or menace the master or captain. In the commencement of
the fourteenth century, the Catalonian law inflicted the punishment
of chopping off the hand of any man who cut the cable of the ship
malignantly. In 1397, at Ancona, any sailor who abandoned a ship when
wrecked, before she was stranded, lost his right hand.
But when the mutilation of members was found to be injudicious, for
“afterwards a man was good for nothing,” this punishment was removed
from the law of Catalonia passed in the year 1354. The ordinance,
however, inflicting the loss of the tongue and the ears, and running
the gauntlet of sticks and stones along the deck, was not abrogated for
some centuries, whilst hanging a man at the yard-arm was for the first
time introduced. The laws of the North, terribly severe in the case
of a sailor who struck with a knife at the master of a ship, or who
merely raised any arms against him, enacted that the offender should
have his hand fastened to the mast with the knife which he had used,
so that he could only liberate himself by tearing away his own hand
by main force, leaving a portion of the member adhering to the mast.
Any quarrels among the sailors at Genoa which led to loss of life were
rigorously punished, and almost invariably with death. Pilots were most
severely dealt with. If any one of them had engaged to carry a vessel
into a harbour on the penalty of losing his head, he was decapitated if
he failed to do so; in the case of shipwreck he was liable to a similar
punishment, unless, indeed, he was rich enough to pay for the loss
occasioned by his ignorance and carelessness. Sometimes a man, who cut
the cable maliciously so as to cause the loss of the ship confided to
his care, was punished by being impaled.[716]
[Sidenote: Impaling, flogging, &c.]
But the pale, the whip, the cat-o’-nine tails, the mutilation of
members, the cutting out the tongue, the death by the axe or by a
punishment like the gibbet, were not the only chastisements inflicted
on mariners who were guilty of crime. Immersion in the water, repeated
three times successively, was one more commonly inflicted than any
other; and when, in the twelfth century, it was first used by the
English, it received the name of keel-hauling; and _cale_ (keel) by
the French, who inflicted it upon any sailor who used his knife in an
assault. At Marseilles three sailors were punished with keel-hauling,
who, in a joke, swore by the name of God or by that of any of the
saints.[717] Wreckers were punished with great severity by most, if not
all, the Mediterranean nations during the Middle Ages. If any person,
instead of aiding a ship in peril on a coast, endeavoured to plunder
her, and killed or wounded any one on board with a view to robbery, the
offenders were upon discovery hurled into the sea, and when taken out
half dead were stoned to death, “just as a wolf should be stoned to
death.”
[Sidenote: Branding.]
The brand was one of the most ignominious punishments which Venice
applied in the thirteenth century. By an enactment of 1232, any
seaman who had received advances on any part of his wages whatever by
anticipation, and did not fulfil his engagement, was enjoined forthwith
to reimburse twice the amount he had received, and was liable to be
flogged and branded on his forehead; while a law of the Hanseatic
League, renewed in 1418, 1447, and 1597, inflicted the punishment of
slitting the ears of any sailor who deserted the master of his ship in
time of danger.[718]
The penal statutes of the Christian countries of the Mediterranean
forbade, as already explained, any sale of arms or of ships to the
Saracens. Persons who violated this enactment were sometimes “hung by
the throat,” in the terms of the law of Jerusalem. The most lenient
punishment, the dispossession of everything the delinquent had in
the world and his exposure on the staircase of the tribunal to the
public execration,[719] allowed for selling a ship to the infidels,
and thereby “wronging the republics two-fold,” was by the statute of
Venice of 1232 adopted in principle, if not in all its details, by
other Christian countries. But in spite of these stringent laws the
Venetians, as already shown, if they did not sell ships or arms to the
Saracens, traded with them in other merchandise whenever it suited
their purpose. A similar humiliating exposure was inflicted on any
pilot or steersman, who, through negligence, had caused the ship under
his charge to be boarded, and thus to sustain serious damage or loss.
In this case, however, instead of being exposed upon the staircase
of the tribunal, the unfortunate offender was obliged, after the
confiscation of his property, to sit for six hours upon a cask in a
public thoroughfare, in the short dress worn by culprits, with his feet
naked, and holding in his hands a helm, amidst the laughter and scorn
of the populace.
FOOTNOTES:
[685] F. Steinitz, “The Ship: its origin and progress,” p. 101.
[686] Napier’s “Florentine History,” vol. iv. book ii. p. 36.
[687] “This,” remarks Captain Napier, “is probably a mistake in copying
the MS., or a typographical error, and is more likely to be three
thousand botti (to judge from her great dimensions), unless the ‘botti’
signified more in ship measurement than in the markets.”
[688] Vol. ii. p. 7.
[689] The original drawing is said to have been made at Genoa in 1542;
but M. Jal thinks it later, and that Charnock has misread 1542 for
1642—Arch. Nas. ii. p. 215.
[690] See Pardessus, vol. ii.
[691] For details of the war with Ancona about A.D. 1167, see Smedley,
“Sketches,” vol. i. p. 67, &c.
[692] Amalfi was taken by the Pisans A.D. 1137.—Sismondi, vol. i. p.
203.
[693] Pisa contributed the aid of its ships to the first and third
Crusades, but, like Genoa, declined to join in the fourth. (Gibbon, ch.
lx.) Its trade with Alexandria is mentioned as early as A.D. 823 by
Muratori, Ant. v.
[694] The sack of Pisa was no doubt in return for the aid they had
given to the Crusaders, from whom they had themselves derived great
advantages, with many privileges and charters from the princes of
Antioch and kings of Jerusalem. See original Charters ap. Muratori Ant.
v., and Stellæ Chronic. ibid.
[695] Brev. Hist. Pis. ap. Muratori V. vi. col. 186. In 1249 Pisan
sailors were in the fleet of Louis IX. at Damietta.—Matth. Paris, p.
793.
[696] 29 Hen. III. c. 6.
[697] The chief cities were in Lombardy, as Milan, Piacenza, Siena,
Lucca. Stow states that Lombard Street in London had acquired its name,
as the chief residence of these foreign merchants, so early as A.D.
1318.—Survey, p. 376.
[698] Matthew Paris, pp. 419-823, &c. It appears further that, in A.D.
1329, the whole of the customs of England were farmed to the great
commercial house of the Bardi at Florence, at a rate of twenty pounds
per diem (Rot. Pat. 4 Edw. III.); while the frequent notice of the
importation of horses into England from Lombardy (as well as Spain),
shows that there was a brisk trade between the two countries.—Rymer,
Fœd. V. iii. p. 124, &c.
[699] Napier’s “Florentine History,” vol. iii. p. 53.
[700] See full details of these exultations in Napier, vol. iii.
[701] A similar practice has been noticed in the case of Venice.
[702] The “Fiorino largo di Galea,” or “Broad Galley-piece,” was struck
of the exact size and weight of the Venetian ducat, A.D. 1422. See
Napier, “Flor. Hist.” iii. p. 56, and further details of the “Metallic
Currency of Florence,” vol. iv. p. 9. It may be added that the gold
coin—at first so unpopular in England—struck by Edward III. in A.D.
1344, is generally believed to have been made to facilitate trade with
Florence.—Cf. Rymer, Fœd. V. v. p. 403, &c.
[703] Roscoe’s “Life of Lorenzo,” vol. ii. p. 60.
[704] Fœd. V. xii. p. 389.
[705] Napier’s “Florentine History,” vol. iv. p. 16.
[706] Ibid. p. 26.
[707] Napier considers the “Fuste” to have been “a lighter species of
war-galley,” iv. p. 24. M. Jal gives elaborate details on the subject
of the names of mediæval ships, in which he differs very much from
writers who have gone before him. He, however, invariably gives the
authorities on whom he relies, which other writers have too frequently
omitted (see “Arch. Nav.” ii. p. 3, &c.).
[708] Napier’s “Flor. Hist.” iv. p. 29.
[709] As previously stated, it is not possible to reduce these sums
with accuracy to the modern English value. The asper seems to have
varied much in value, and is now superseded, as a money of account, by
the piastre.
[710] Napier’s “Florentine History,” vol. iv. p. 32.
[711] Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, gives the fullest account of the
trade of Amalfi in the tenth century (Muratori, “Script.” V. ii. p.
487; “Antiq.” v. ii. p. 884). The merchants of Amalfi built in A.D.
1020 two hospitals at Jerusalem, one dedicated to St. John, which gave
the title to the famous Knights Hospitallers, afterwards of Rhodes and
Malta (“W. of Tyre,” xviii. c. 4; Brencman, “De Republ. Amalf.” c. 8).
[712] The laws of Alençon and of La Roche inflicted the punishment of
cutting out the tongue of the sailor who offended for the second time.
Jal, “Arch. Nav.” ii. p. 109. The laws of Richard do not allude to this
habit.
[713] Chronic. Jocelyn. de Brakelond, p. 31-34.
[714] The punishment of death for swearing was enjoined by John of
Austria just before the battle of Lepanto in A.D. 1571; and similar
laws were promulgated by Colbert, the Czar Peter I., and others (Jal,
“Arch. Nav.” ibid.).
[715] Jal, “Arch. Nav.” ii. p. 107 _et seq._, who gives all the
punishments mentioned in the text, with reference to the authorities
for his statements.
[716] Cf. also Pardessus. v. p. 400.
[717] Keel-hauling seems to have been the common punishment for
swearing at Marseilles (see Stat. Mars. Lib. I. and Du Cange).
[718] The Hanseatic law also ordered the branding of the ears.
[719] Marino Faliero was thus exposed. This law would seem to have been
general, and not applicable to those only who sold their ships to the
infidels.