For the past several weeks, I’ve been writing posts about daily life in ancient Europe, and it’s been a blast. There is so much history that gets overlooked by writers because it isn’t as glamorous as arms and armor. Another commonly overlooked subject is the history of sailing, which is what I’d like to discuss today. Boats of some fashion have been used in the Mediterranean since 8000 BC, when early peoples colonized the islands of that sea. From that point until the roughly the 11th century AD, paddling and rowing were the dominant form of ship propulsion. The sail has a long history, but was used as a supplement to the oar until sailing vessels began to replace rowed vessels in the Middle Ages.
Whereas paddles are generally short and pulled through the water using the paddler’s strength alone, oars are long and operate on the principle of levers. Thole pins in the gunwales of the vessel serve as a fulcrum against which the rower can pull the oar. The resulting stroke is much more powerful and energetically favorable than the stroke of a paddle. Paddling is still used for some very small boats, but was replaced by the oar in most historical examples.
The first advanced craft we know of were built in the Egypt’s Old Kingdom, around 2300 BC. Under the rule of pharaoh Pepi I, these early galleys were used for the transport of troops, slaves, and timber during his raids of the Levantine coast. In these early days, there was no distinction to those vessels used for trade versus those used for war. It wasn’t until rams were built into ship bows in the 8th century BC that a difference in design emerged. The first Greek galleys are attested by Homer’s Iliad in the 12th century BC, where he describes ships with a single row of oarsmen. This single row of oarsmen was the only design at the time, usually with anywhere from 30-50 rowers working a single oar each. Around the same time, in 1175 BC, we have record of the first naval battle, waged between the Egyptians and the mysterious Sea Peoples.
The bireme represented the first big invention in seafaring, and was probably invented by the Phoenicians well before the 6th century BC. The bireme was a two-tiered vessel, allowing two rows of rowers to propel the ship. The bireme was used by many Mediterranean cultures and persisted into the time of the Byzantine Empire. The trireme was the next development in rowing technology, which used an outrigger to allow a third bank of rowers to participate in propulsion on each side of the ship. Triremes were first used by the Greeks, but were later massively utilized by the Romans. The invention of the trireme led to the disappearance of single-tiered vessels, though biremes still remained in use. Triremes employed up to 170 rowers, who all initially manned a single oar. As naval combat became increasingly important to Republican Rome, experienced rowers were in short supply and multiple rowers per oar began to be utilized.
Merchant galleys during Republican Rome were called actuaria, which used both rowers and a square-rigged sail to move. Actuaria had 50 rowers and transported goods, whereas the phaselus was used for passenger transport, and the limbs was a small express carrier. It’s likely that other seafaring peoples in the Mediterranean used similar designs for their merchant vessels during this period.
When Julius Caesar was conquering Gaul, one of the most troublesome Celtic tribes he came into contact with were the Veneti. The Veneti lived along the coasts of Armorica, what is today called Brittany, and they were consulate sailors. We know little about the Veneti ships, except that they were very tall, made of wood, thick hulled, and used sails for populsion. At the time, the Veneti vessels were superior to the standard Roman ships that Caesar brought against them. Ships under sail can be much taller than rowed ships because they don’t need to be close enough to the water to use oars. The much taller ships of the Veneti were difficult for the Romans to board, especially since the Veneti were deft sailors who could avoid the Roman craft. Additionally, the thick hulls of the Veneti ships made them resistant to the ramming hulls of the Romans. The Veneti were finally defeated by Caesar’s legate, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, who equipped his men with long billhooks to cut the halyards of the Veneti ships. With their leather sails cut down, the Veneti were dead in the water and the Romans had the victory.
Sails in the ancient Mediterranean were all initially square, a rigging that can provide power when sailing with the wind at the back of the vessel, but which hinders maneuverability in almost any other conditions. They are particularly useless when sailing into the wind. In the 2nd century BC, the spritsail began being used by the Greeks, which is a sort of quadrilateral shape. The spritsail later evolved into the lateen sail, which is more triangular. Both the spritsail and lateen sail offered more maneuverability than square rigging and were capable of sailing into the wind using tacking. Lateen rigging was first used sometime between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD and became the standard rigging from the 6th through the 13th centuries. Ancient sails in Europe were made from leather, wool, or linen. In later centuries, cotton canvas became a common sail material.
In the time of the Roman Empire, the navy was greatly reduced from Republican times. The dominant vessel of the day was the liburnian, which was named for the Illyrian tribe from which it was derived. Liburna were compact biremes with around 25 oar pairs and were used for patrolling the Imperial provinces. They could weather both the open Mediterranean and travel up rivers. In regards to their versatility, autonomy, and speed, the liburna anticipated the Norse longships that took Europe by storm in the early Middle Ages.
In Ireland and Wales, two similar but historically distinct boats were used since the earliest days of human habitation in the islands. The Irish currach is a small boat with a wooden frame over which are stretched tarred animal skins. The Welsh coracle has a similar construction but they tend to be more circular in shape, and are usually only used in rivers. Both the coracle and currach are usually paddled rather than rowed. Aside from a few modern examples, both boats maintain their structure through thin pieces of wood that are woven together rather than fastened. The earlier forms of these boats may have been skin covered baskets, tarred to enhance waterproofing. Although there was once a land bridge between Britain and the continent, Ireland has pretty much always been an island. All people that settled in Ireland had to journey across rough seas to reach it, and the earliest of these probably did so in something similar to the currach. Coracles and currachs remain popular fishing vessels in Ireland and Wales today.
The famous viking longship is not a design that originated during the Viking Age, but was first developed in the 4th century BC by the Norse peoples of Scandinavia. When the Norse began raiding Western Europe during the early Middle Ages, longships had a certain uniformity of features. Longships had a shallow draft that allowed them to travel up rivers, and were light enough to be portaged (carried overland between bodies of water). Longships were fitted with a single row of oars, and later versions were rigged with a square sail made from woven wool. The bow and the stern were identical, allowing the ships to rapidly reverse directions which was helpful for both avoiding sea ice and fleeing a recently raided settlement. The longship was what enabled the hit-and-run tactics used by the vikings and gave them access to even the interior of the continent via rivers. Although all Norse longships held some features in common, there were many versions of the ship that varied according to the shipwright and its intended purpose. For example, the knarr was a merchant vessel built along a longship pattern, though it was wider and deeper in the hull while being shorter in overall length.
Norse longships were clinker built, meaning that the hull consisted of overlapping planks. Clinker construction was only known in Northern Europe at the time, and would have made the longships flexible enough to handle North Sea rollers. Ancient Mediterranean ships were built using a mortise and tenon method that was spread to Northern Europe by the Romans. The mortise and tenon method basically involved the linking of planks side-to-side using interlocking pegs and holes like lego bricks. With the raids of the Vikings, clinker construction became more popular among Northern Europeans like the Anglo-Saxons and remains a popular build for ships that sail around the North Sea. Clinker-built ships don’t fare well on the open Atlantic; their flexibility becomes a weakness when confronted by the more powerful swells of the open ocean. The old mortise and tenon method evolved to meet the demands of the Atlantic, with carvel-built ships becoming the standard in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Maritime navigation in the ancient world would have been devoid of instruments. Land astrolabes were used in classical antiquity, but didn’t work well on the heaving deck of a ship. In those days, Polaris (the North star) wasn’t as close to the celestial north pole as it is today. The ancient peoples of the Mediterranean used the whole of Ursa Minor was used to indicate the northern direction. During the Middle Ages, Polaris itself became more important in celestial navigation. It has been theorized that Norse peoples used certain crystal minerals that polarize light to find the sun in an overcast sky, or once it has dipped below the horizon, but there is no direct evidence for this use. Magnetic compasses first appear in Europe around the 14th century. Most seafarers of the ancient world would stayed within sight of land if at all possible, and traveled during seasons when the winds were favorable and predictable.