Mariners of Other Days
"A shipman was ther ...
All in a gown of faulding[8] to the knee,
A dagger hanging by a lace had he
About his neck under his arm adown;
The hot summer had made his hue all brown:
And certainly he was a good fellow;
Full many a draught of wine had he drawn
From Bordeaux-ward, while that the chapmen[9] sleep;
Of nice conscience took he no keep.
If that he fought and had the higher hand,
By water he sent them home to every land.[10]
. . . . . . . . . .
He knew well all the havens as they were
From Gothland to the Cape of Finisterre,
And every creek in Bretagne and in Spain:
His barge ycleped[11] was the _Magdelaine_."
CHAUCER, _Canterbury Tales_.
WE have yet to give some descriptions of one or two actual battles, but
I think we will commence by trying to picture the seamen themselves.
What were these old "matlows"[12] like, and how were they raised? The
second question is easily answered. As Lord Haldane has stated,
compulsory service was never foreign to the English laws and
constitution. But we may observe that it has never been carried out in
the fair and impartial manner which is now universal on the Continent of
Europe, where "duke's son, cook's son", and everybody else has to serve
his country alike. No; ours has always been a kind of bullying system or
want of system.
In the old days of the Cinque Ports, if more ships were required than
they had to provide, their ships were just sent out to "commandeer" any
suitable craft they could lay hands on. So with men. Certain places and
counties had to provide a regulated quota of soldiers or sailors, or
both. If they were voluntarily forthcoming, well and good; if not, the
magistrates, the port-reeves, or bayliffs had authority to take as many
as they required to make up the number by force, and made no bones about
doing so. So while Jones got off free, Brown and Robinson were pressed.
But it was all a matter of luck--at any rate ostensibly. That was the
hardship of it, not only then, but in the later "press-gang days".
But, once caught, the mediæval seaman had little to complain of in the
way of pay. That, no doubt, made up for a good deal of severe
discomfort. A mariner or seaman in 1277 got 3_d._ a day--a penny more
than an ordinary soldier[13]--and in 1370 it was raised to 4_d._ Now, if
we bear in mind that it has been estimated that money at that time was
worth something like fourteen times what it is to-day, we must admit
that the seaman did not do so badly. The master of the ship at this time
was called the "rector", and received 6_d._ a day, while his second in
command got the same amount. There were no admirals then, but the senior
sea officer of the fleet was termed "captain" and paid 12_d._ per diem.
The knight who was in actual military command of a warship would draw
2_s._ a day if he was paid the same rate afloat as ashore.
Whether there was a regular scale of provisioning before John Redynge
was appointed "Clerk of the Spicery" in 1496, to look after the
victualling of both army and navy, I am unable to say, but it appears
that the usual "sea-stock" laid in for a voyage in mediæval times
consisted of bacon, salt meat, "Poor John" or salted herrings, flour,
eggs, and poultry.
We have little information as to the personality, manners, and customs
of the seamen of mediæval ages. In the earlier period they were pretty
certainly more of the long-shore or fisherman class than deep-sea
sailors. When not engaged in legitimate trading or warfare they
generally took a hand at rank piracy. There was a saying about them that
the British sailors were "good seamen, but better pirates"! Even the
Cinque Ports, which provided the nearest approach to a national navy,
achieved a most scandalous notoriety in this respect. But at the same
time there is no doubt that the Normans, Basques, Flemings, French, and
other seafarers were just as bad, though perhaps not quite so expert. It
was the fashion afloat in those days.
We may gather some small idea of what seamen and sea-going were like in
the Middle Ages from the pen of one Brother Felix Fabri, a Dominican of
Ulm, who went from Venice to Jerusalem somewhere about 1480. Space
forbids as long an extract as could be wished, for his experiences are
both interesting and amusing. The seamen with whom he came in contact
were not Englishmen, but "sea ways" are generally much the same all over
the world. He and his fellow pilgrims chose their berths before
starting, and had their names chalked over them. He gives many warnings,
which those of us who have been to sea can well appreciate. To the
would-be traveller he says: "Let him not sit on any ropes, lest the wind
change of a sudden and he be thrown overboard". And "Let him beware of
getting in the way of the crew, for however noble he may be, nay, were
he a bishop, they will push against him and trample on him". "He should
also be cautious where he sits down, lest he stick to his seat, for
every place is covered with pitch, which becomes soft in the heat of the
sun". Inadvertently to "steal the commander's paint" is a mishap which
may easily overtake the unwary on board His Majesty's ships in these
latter days.
The chronicler explains that the captain's authority is absolute; though
ignorant of navigation, he commands what course the ship will take. He
has under him a master-at-arms, a "caliph" or "ship's husband", and a
"cometa" or "mate", who sets the crew in motion--like the commander
in a modern man-of-war. "The mate's subordinates", says Brother Felix,
"fear him as they would fear the devil." The crew--bar the wretched
slaves who worked the oars, and of whose tortures "he shuddered to
think"--consisted of "compani", nine in number, who were employed on all
dangerous work aloft, and others termed "mariners", who, according to
him, "sing while work is being carried on to those who do it". This
sounds like a "soft job", but the "mariners" probably may be classed
with the so-called "idlers" in our war-ships, who are anything but idle.
There was a "scribe", with the duties of the purser on a mail steamer of
our day, who "arranges disputes about berths, makes men pay their
passage-money, and has many duties. He is, as a rule, hated by all
alike." We must not omit mention of the pilot, or navigating officer,
with whom were associated "certain cunning men, astrologers and
soothsayers, who watch the signs of the stars and the sky". They have a
chart, "an ell long and an ell broad, whereon the whole sea is drawn
with thousands of lines". One of them was always on duty, watching the
compass and chanting "a kind of sweet song, which shows that all is
going well, and in the same tone he chants to him that holdeth the
tiller of the rudder, to which quarter it ought to be moved".
The mention of "astrologers and soothsayers" reminds us that sailors
have always had the reputation of being exceptionally superstitious. I
doubt if this is still true--at any rate as regards the Royal Navy. Take
the proverbial bad luck of sailing on a Friday. My own sea experience,
which goes back for a good many years, is that Friday was a very
favourite day for going to sea. We often left harbour on Fridays. I
think it was because on Saturday we got a good clear day for cleaning up
the ship, then came Sunday--a quiet day--so that everything and
everybody was nicely settled down by Monday morning, and we could start
fair on the weekly routine.
But from what we know of life in the Middle Ages it would have been
indeed strange if seamen had _not_ been superstitious. The wonders and
dangers of the deep were very real and close in those days of cogs and
galleys--veritably mere specks on the ocean. It is to be feared that
seamen of later ages had not the same dread of going to sea in debt as
De Joinville the Crusader,[14] or the expression "to pay with the
fore-topsail" would never have arisen. Like Chaucer's seaman, some of
them "of nice conscience took ... no keep", and were very glad to escape
their creditors by hoisting sail and putting to sea.
"Sailors have ever been superstitious," says a French writer on the
Middle Ages;[15] "their credulous brains are the parents of all the
fantastic beings and animals that they persuade themselves that they
have seen in their wanderings, and with which they have peopled the
mysterious depths of the ocean. The syrens of antiquity, the monsters of
Scylla and Charybdis, have been far surpassed by modern legendary
creations, such as the 'Kraken', a gigantic mass of pulp which attacked
and dragged down the largest ships; the 'Bishop Fish', which, mitre on
head, blessed and then devoured shipwrecked mariners; the 'Black Hand',
which, even in the days of Columbus, was despicted as marking the
entrance to the 'Sunless Ocean'; and the numerous troops of hideous
demons, one of whom, in the sight of the whole French Fleet of
Crusaders, on their way to attack the Island of Mitylene, in the reign
of Louis XII, clutched and swallowed up a profligate sailor who had
'blasphemed and defied the Holy Virgin'."
Strange to say, the St. Elmo's light, or "corposant", was regarded as a
heaven-sent vision prognosticating favour and protection. Knowing
nothing of electricity, and being unaware that the gradual collection of
the electric fluid into the weird luminous balls of light which, during
thunderstorms, sometimes collect at mast-head or yard-arm, is supposed
to render the ship less likely to be struck by lightning, one cannot
help thinking it remarkable that this phenomenon, which certainly has
quite a supernatural appearance, did not inspire more terror than
confidence in the seamen of the Middle Ages. I remember two "corposants"
appearing at the fore-top-mast head and at the yard-arm on board the old
_Nelson_ in a storm of thunder and wind, off the Australian coast. They
remained--occasionally shifting their position a little--for some
considerable time.
It was doubtless something of this kind which William, Earl of
Salisbury, saw one night, in a hard gale of wind, on his way back from
the Holy Land in 1222. The storm was so fierce that he gave up hope of
life, and threw his money and richest apparel overboard. Suddenly, when
the tempest was at its height, all hands saw "a mighty taper of wax
burning brightly at the prow". They also thought they saw the figure of
a celestial being standing beside it, screening it from the wind. The
ship's company were at once reassured of ultimate safety, but the Earl
was the most confident of all, because he felt certain that he was being
repaid for his piety at the time of his initiation into the honour of
knighthood, on which occasion he had brought a taper to the altar, and
arranged for it to be lighted every day in honour of the Holy Virgin.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] A coarse woollen stuff.
[9] Innkeepers.
[10] Threw the enemy's survivors overboard and drowned them.
[11] Called.
[12] At one time the "British Blue" was rather fond of calling himself a
"matlow" or "matlo", though it is said the custom is falling into
disuse. It has been stated that it dates from the old comradeship of
French and English in the Crimean War. The French word _matelot_, by the
way, is derived from _matelas_, a mattress. Before hammocks, two men
used a mattress in turn, one being always on watch.
[13] I say "ordinary" advisedly, as an archer got 3_d._ a day in 1346
and probably earlier.
[14] "Hereby would I shew you how foolhardy is he who adventures himself
in such peril, if he be in debt to any man, or is in deadly sin; for one
goes to sleep at night never knowing whether one will awake at the
bottom of the sea."
[15] Paul Lacroix.