First published in 1997, this collection of articles, two of which hitherto only appeared in Dutch, examines the technical changes in shipbuilding, as well as new practices in shipping and fishing, from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. It seeks to show how these changes transformed the European economy and affected the relationship between the economy and governments, and to portray the process, although most dramatic in the Dutch Republic, as part of a general European phenomenon. The studies also investigate the causes of these developments, and suggest how improvements in shipping may have affected patterns of trade and behaviour of public authorities.
First published in 1997, this collection of articles, two of which hitherto only appeared in Dutch, examines the technical changes in shipbuilding, as well as new practices in shipping and fishing, from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. It seeks to show how these changes transformed the European economy and affected the relationship between the economy and governments, and to portray the process, although most dramatic in the Dutch Republic, as part of a general European phenomenon. The studies also investigate the causes of these developments, and suggest how improvements in shipping may have affected patterns of trade and behaviour of public authorities.
In The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, 1600—1800, Phillip Reid shows how ordinary commercial vessels reflected the risk management strategies of those who designed, built, bought, and sailed them.
Buccaneers, Explorers and Settlers studies how during 'the long 18th century' British incursions into the Pacific transformed Europe's knowledge of that great ocean. Buccaneers devastated Spanish settlements and shipping in the South Sea, and the accounts by Dampier and his companions of their exploits became best-sellers. Anson's circumnavigation carried on the tradition of commerce-raiding, but it represented the beginnings of a more official interest in the Pacific and its resources. Later in the 18th century the hopes of speculative geographers that unknown continents and sea-passages existed in the Pacific prompted a series of expeditions by Cook and his contemporaries. New peoples were discovered as well as new lands, and the voyages led to changing perceptions of their lifestyles. Exploration was followed by trade and settlement in which Cook's associates such as Banks played a leading part. Before the end of the century there were British settlements in New South Wales, Nootka Sound had become a centre of international dispute, and across the Pacific traders, whalers and missionaries were following the tracks of the explorers.
Shipwrecks and the Bounty of the Sea is a work of social history examining community relationships, law, and seafaring over the long early modern period. It explores the politics of the coastline, the economy of scavenging, and the law of 'wreck of the sea' from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I to the end of the reign of George II. England's coastlines were heavily trafficked by naval and commercial shipping, but an unfortunate percentage was cast away or lost. Shipwrecks were disasters for merchants and mariners, but opportunities for shore dwellers. As the proverb said, it was an ill wind that blew nobody any good. Lords of manors, local officials, officers of the Admiralty, and coastal commoners competed for maritime cargoes and the windfall of wreckage, which they regarded as providential godsends or entitlements by right. A varied haul of commodities, wines, furnishings, and bullion came ashore, much of it claimed by the crown. The people engaged in salvaging these wrecks came to be called 'wreckers', and gained a reputation as violent and barbarous plunderers. Close attention to statements of witnesses and reports of survivors shows this image to be largely undeserved. Dramatic evidence from previously unexplored manuscript sources reveals coastal communities in action, collaborating as well as competing, as they harvested the bounty of the sea.
This book, mainly based on primary sources from various countries, provides fascinating new insights into the origin and development of the Admiralty and maritime policy in the Low Countries before the Dutch Revolt, including government interference with maritime strategy, warfare, privateering, prize law, commerce, and fishery.
Since the Viking ascendancy in the Middle Ages, the Atlantic has shaped the lives of people who depend upon it for survival. And just as surely, people have shaped the Atlantic. In his innovative account of this interdependency, W. Jeffrey Bolster, a historian and professional seafarer, takes us through a millennium-long environmental history of our impact on one of the largest ecosystems in the world. While overfishing is often thought of as a contemporary problem, Bolster reveals that humans were transforming the sea long before factory trawlers turned fishing from a handliner's art into an industrial enterprise. The western Atlantic's legendary fishing banks, stretching from Cape Cod to Newfoundland, have attracted fishermen for more than five hundred years. Bolster follows the effects of this siren's song from its medieval European origins to the advent of industrialized fishing in American waters at the beginning of the twentieth century. Blending marine biology, ecological insight, and a remarkable cast of characters, from notable explorers to scientists to an army of unknown fishermen, Bolster tells a story that is both ecological and human: the prelude to an environmental disaster. Over generations, harvesters created a quiet catastrophe as the sea could no longer renew itself. Bolster writes in the hope that the intimate relationship humans have long had with the ocean, and the species that live within it, can be restored for future generations.
England's Islands in a Sea of Troubles examines the jurisdictional disputes and cultural complexities in England's relationship with its island fringe from Tudor times to the eighteenth century, and traces island privileges and anomalies to the present. It tells a dramatic story of sieges and battles, pirates and shipwrecks, prisoners and prophets, as kings and commoners negotiated the political, military, religious, and administrative demands of the early modern state. The Channel Islands, the Isle of Wight, the Isles of Scilly, the Isle of Man, Lundy, Holy Island and others emerge as important offshore outposts that long remained strange, separate, and perversely independent. England's islands were difficult to govern, and were prone to neglect, yet their strategic value far outweighed their size. Though vulnerable to foreign threats, their harbours and castles served as forward bases of English power. In civil war they were divided and contested, fought over and occupied. Jersey and the Isles of Scilly served as refuges for royalists on the run. Charles I was held on the Isle of Wight. External authority was sometimes light of touch, as English governments used the islands as fortresses, commercial assets, and political prisons. London was often puzzled by the linguistic differences, tangled histories, and special claims of island communities. Though increasingly integrated within the realm, the islands maintained challenging peculiarities and distinctive characteristics. Drawing on a wide range of sources, and the insights of maritime, military, and legal scholarship, this is an original contribution to social, cultural, and constitutional history.
Spoken Word and Social Practice: Orality in Europe (1400-1700) addresses historians and literary scholars. It aims to recapture oral culture in a variety of literary and non-literary sources, tracking the echo of women’s voices, on trial, or bantering and gossiping in literary works, and recapturing those of princes and magistrates, townsmen, villagers, mariners, bandits, and songsmiths. Almost all medieval and early modern writing was marked by the oral. Spoken words and turns of phrase are bedded in writings, and the mental habits of a speaking world shaped texts. Writing also shaped speech; the oral and the written zones had a porous, busy boundary. Cross-border traffic is central to this study, as is the power, range, utility, and suppleness of speech. Contributors are Matthias Bähr, Richard Blakemore, Michael Braddick, Rosanna Cantavella, Thomas V. Cohen, Gillian Colclough, Jan Dumolyn, Susana Gala Pellicer, Jelle Haemers, Marcus Harmes, Elizabeth Horodowich, Carolina Losada, Virginia Reinburg, Anne Regent-Susini, Joseph T. Snow, Sonia Suman, Lesley K. Twomey and Liv Helene Willumsen.
A Cultural History of Objects in the Medieval Age covers the period 500 to 1400, examining the creation, use and understanding of human-made objects and their consequences and impacts. The power and agency of objects significantly evolved over this time. Exploring objects and artefacts within art, technology, and everyday life, the volume challenges our understanding of both life worlds and object worlds in medieval society. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Objects examines how objects have been created, used, interpreted and set loose in the world over the last 2500 years. Over this time, the West has developed particular attitudes to the material world, at the centre of which is the idea of the object. The themes covered in each volume are objecthood; technology; economic objects; everyday objects; art; architecture; bodily objects; object worlds. Julie Lund is Associate Professor at the University of Oslo, Norway. Sarah Semple is Professor at Durham University, UK. Volume 2 in the Cultural History of Objects set. General Editors: Dan Hicks and William Whyte
