recommendations for medieval ships

Just a quick update, as I just finished a pretty good book on the activities of te Corsairs, at least those of the 16th century (Barbarossas, Dragut and Ali Basha).  The book is a reprint of a quite old book (1910) that apprently has come out of copyright, and so is now available in paperback for cheap money (I got mine for $4!).  The book is called 'Sea-Wolves Of The Mediterranean,' by E. Hamilton Currey.  The language is pretty flowery (as is to be expected for a book of this vintage), but the information is quite solid, and it contains a pretty good description of a number of the vessels used by the Corsairs and others in the Med at the time.

I have also found some refernces and ship diagrams which may help as companion pieces to the book.  See: http://www.keyshistory.org/SS-Sp-Sail-ships.html

And another:  http://www.shipwreck.net/glossary.html

And another: http://epress.anu.edu.au/spanish_lake/mobile_devices/ch01s05.html

And if you want to SEE a real Mediteranean galley of the Renaissance/Medieval type, look at:  http://www.galere.ch/accueil/

Heres another in Genoa: http://www.shipyard-lowyck.be/references_detail.php?lang=EN&itemno=26&categoryno=1

And if you want an excellent resource on just about any ship-type ever built, for which EXISTING full sized replicas are floating around (and believe you me, there is a huge number of just about anything you can imagine!), then you most definitely want to snoop around at:  http://www.timedesign.de/ship/ship.html

 

hstry, paint away and enjoy, as art has never really been too close to reality as far as maritime subjects are concerned!  I can't tell you how many very well-known maritime paintings exist that are inaccurate in one way or another, and many times it is done deliberately to emphasize some feature or another.  For instance, there is a very famous painting depicting the delivery for burial of the body of the Emperor Napoleon by the French frigate Belle Poule, and the ship is depicted at almost twice her actual size in relation to all those surrounding in order to dramatize the event of lowering the draped casket to the boat to ferry it ashore.  Doubtless you are familiar with this and many other bits of 'artistic license' that do not detract, but rather enhance the scene the artist wishes to depict.  Best of luck, and I look forward to seeing your results one day!

Jim,

Thank you for the links to the medieval ships.  I don't know how accurate it is but it looks fascinating and I have saved it on my favorites so that I can go back to it after I have reread several books on medieval shipping.   The lure of the "undiscovered country" of medieval and classical shipping is in part what draws me to it, metaphorically going somewhere where few have tread before.   It means, however, that I am more liable to paint ships based on incomplete information which will only be remedied many years later, at which time some historian, with the advantage of later escavations, will tear my paintings apart.   I will take the chance as it it too inviting to pass up.

Searat12, Emir,

This is a fascinating conversation and inspires me to extend my reading to help understand it.   You have whetted my appetite for information on this aspect of medieval ship history.   Thank you.

Richard 

Hi Richard,

Here is a link to some neat variations on the plastic Crusader Cog model, along with a modified Viking ship, intended to represent an early form of castled vessel. The latter may not be totally accurate as it seems to ne using the Revell Germany model as a base, but the idea is very interesting and I like what he was trying to do.

http://www.modellmarine.de/phpwebsite/index.php?module=photoalbum&PHPWS_Album_op=view&PHPWS_Album_id=186&PAGER_limit=9&PAGER_start=9&PAGER_section=2

If that link does not work, try this one and go to page 2:

http://www.modellmarine.de/phpwebsite/index.php?module=photoalbum&PHPWS_Album_op=view&PHPWS_Album_id=186&PAGER_limit=9&PAGER_start=0&PAGER_section=1

Enjoy!

Jim

kapudan_emir_effendi wrote:

searat12 wrote: Well, much of what you say is true, especially regarding the inherent conservatism of traditional shipwrights.  However, it is important to note that change occurs, even within the most conservative groups given enough time (an inch off here, add an inch there), and you must admit, a thousand years is a LOT of time in anybody's book!  Two books I highly recommend on this subject of Northern European craft are 'Inshore Craft,' from Chatham Publishing, which is a quite complete directory of all the traditional working vessels of the British Isles, and the other book, and perhaps even more relevant to this discussion is 'Bateaux Traditionnels Francais' by Yves Gaubert.  In both books, you will see the continued use and development of Viking-type craft right down through the early 20th century, from the various 'Yoles' from the Shetlands, Orkneys, and right down the North Sea and Channel coasts, and many other developed forms as well.  The French book does much the same for the coasts of France, including Normandy and Brittany, along with any number of different traditional boats developed from Viking antecedents, as well as river barges and 'Gabares' whose design has not changed essentially since William's time of for that matter, the Egyptian Pharaohs (in particular, have a look at the barge 'Val de Vienne,' which is a Loire barge design from the 18th century, and still in use until the early 1900's, but could easily be pictured on the Nile three thousand years earlier).  These are very simple craft, easy to build and easy to operate, can carry a LOT of stuff, and have very ancient antecedents!  Certainly if the Channel was calm when William made his crossing (s), barges like these could certainly be used to bring over additional supplies, and could be loosely considered 'Celtic,' though almost identical vessels have been constructed and used the world over for much the same purpose (it is the easist boat to build of just about any type!).  But if there was any weather to speak of during William's crossing, such barges would have been death-traps to all on board.  Finally, if you look at the Bayeaux Tapestry, you don't see anything that might construed as a Celtic barge, or any other barge for that matter.  What you DO see depicted are vessels that for all intents and purposes are Viking longships, and that tapestry was created by reliable first-hand witnesses to the event. The French are exceedingly obliging for modellers of ancient and traditional vessels, because they have a great tradition of producing accurate replicas of virtually every kind of craft imaginable that the French have ever sailed.  Essentially, every seaside village has its own type of traditional craft, and one or more of these will be in existence for village pride, conservation of ancient craftsmanship and sailing skills.  These include not only the many types of the Channel Coast, and the Bay of Biscay, but also the Mediterranean coast as well (to include vessels like 'Pointus,' which are yet another vessel derived directly from the galley/chebec type). As for the Celts of Brittany and elsewhere, they weren't stupid either, and when confronted with a sea-going technology superior to their own, adopted it as quickly as they could (remember, they had been driven out of England by the relatives of the Vikings, the Saxons, and had been continually raided by Vikings since). A good example of how a very small and incremental technological change can have dramatic results can be seen in the career and victory of the Saxon King Alfred the Great over the Vikings of his day.  In 885 AD, Alfred and his fleet confronted a fleet of over 100 Viking longships (Danes) at the mouth of the Orwell River.  Afred's ships were built to almost the same design as those of the Vikings, however, based ona bit of bright thinking on his part, HIS ships were a few strakes taller than those of the Danes, which meant his bowmen could shoot down into the open Viking ships, while the Vikings were unable to reply.  It also meant that Alfred's ships were much more difficult to board as well, while the Saxon troops of Alfred could simply jump directly into the ships of the Danes.  The result was that Alfred totally defeated the Danes in this battle, seizing many ships, burning the rest, and no prisoners were taken.  And all because a couple more planks were added to an existing design...... It is to be admitted that this design 'improvement' had its detractors, and these ships were notably slower than those of the Vikings, and more likely to run aground (they drew more water), but the defensive trend had been established, and was eventually to result in vessels like the Cog. As far as the Byzantines and Muslims of the Med are concerned, certainly they copied each others vessels of the time (they were in open competitive warfare for almost 700 years), but you can hardly say that these vessels did not change or develop over time.  You can pick any time from the rise of Mohammed to the fall of Constantinople, and even further, past the Battle of Lepanto, and indicate that the vessels of one side were essentially the same as those on the other.  However, you cannot say the same by comparing vessels of one era with vessels from another (i.e., comparing a Byzantine galley or other ship type from 500 AD to another Byzantine ship from 1300 AD, and you will see two quite different vessels).   Certainly you can trace a fairly linear trend in design changes, but the ships did not remain the same design throughout, and went through a number of fairly significant alterations from thier Classical beginnings.   Hello, I'd like to further detail and strenghten my point about the existence of Celtic seagoing ships in William's invasion fleet. The article Celtic Plank Boats and Ships, 500 BC-1000 AD by Professor Detlev Elmers from Conway's The Earliest Ships is my main source, along with my interpretation of Bayeux Tapestry itself. to start with, I'd like to describe the earliest pictorial evidence we have about Celtic seagoing merchant ships. This evidence is a Celtic coin from around 100 BC minted in today's Normandy. It shows a chariot racer holding a model ship in his hands as a prize of competition. This model shows a deep, double ended ship carrying a single mast and square sail. At each end of the ship there is an animal head decoration, just like the tubbier, horse carrying ships of the Bayeux tapestry. Secondly we have the invaluable description by no one other than Julius Caesar in his De Bellum Gallicum, about the afromentioned Veneti ships. He describes an extremely strongly built, keelless and high sided ship propelled by a single mast and a soft leather single square sail. his full description again beautifully matches the ship on the Celtic coin. Thirdly, we have archeological evidence. In 1962 remains of a ship was found at Blackfriars, London and another was excavated in 1984-86 at Guernsey. Archaeologist Peter Marsden who excavated Blackfriars wreck realised that it exactly fitted to Caesar's description of Veneti ships. Guernsey wreck was of all the same shape likewise. Here is a website about Blackfriars ship with a detailed text and admirable drawings: http://www2.rgzm.de/Navis/Ships/Ship020/Ship020.htm Now, let's have a look to the tapestry itself: http://hastings1066.com/bayeux3.shtml Attention to the ship in the middle. It has no rowlocks and it's noticeably tubbier and deep than the apprently Norse designed ship seen on her left. again here: http://hastings1066.com/bayeux19.shtml Likewise, the second ship on the slight, the one heavily laden with horses and men has no rowlocks and is apparently very deep: only the heads of horses are visible from the gunwale. It's certainly far away from the design of a longship or even from more shallower Norse knarrs. Another crucial advantage that a keelless low draft Celtic ship for an invasion army is no doubt her safety of use in the tracherous sandy beaches of southern england which are strongly affected by channel currents. and now, the conclusion part by Professor Elmers about how long did celtic ship designs survived in western europe. Underlines are mine. "How the inland ships of the Celtic shipbuilding tradition survived beyond the end of the middle ages on the continent of Europe has been demonstrated above. The Germanic tribes who invaded the continent did not arrive by ship, and were not seafarers, so were likely to adopt the native style of vessel. However, in Britain every trace of the continued exitence of seagoing ships built to the Celtic tradition disappears after the end of Roman rule. the likely reason for this is that the Anglo-Saxons migrated to England in their own ships and subsequently continued to use them for their sea journeys, as the post-Roman ships excavated in London show very clearly.     It is probable that this reasoning does not hold true for Brittany and the adjacent Atlantic coastal regions, for no Germanic tribes migrated to those areas in their own ships. How long people in that region continued to buil ocean going ships based on the Celtic pattern is an open question, as archaeological research has produced no evidence to date. However, the writer suspects that the carvel construction which, in the late middle ages, spread out from this region towards the east can be traced back to Celtic carvel construction, which was the standard method in that area even before the advent of Caesar and the Romans." (the Earliest Ships, p. 71) Upon my interpretation of pictorial and archaeological evidence along with scholarly arguments, I'm greatly convinced that William of Normandy mobilised and used the proven eons old designs native to his recently conquered territories to good effect along with his ancestral Norse ships.

Well, I have had a look at your documentation, and while there are certain elements to be considered, in the main, it appears to still be fundamentally flawed.  Regarding the ship at Blackfriars, and the description by Julius Caesar, once again, you are mixing apples and oranges, because these ships are a thousand years older than the ships of Williams' time.  The Balckfriars vessel in particular is a Roman merchant ship, built to Roman standards of design and construction, and most likely originated from a shipyard in Italy (and very similar Roman cargo vessels have been excavated throughout the Mediterranean).  The ancient Greeks used to build a similar vessel, and a number of them have also been found.

Regarding the Bayeaux Tapestry, every single vessel depicted can easily be discerned to be of the Viking construction of one design or another (Knarrs, Drakkars, and Gokstad), and is in fact indicated as such in the notes for each image.  Remember, the Knarr is specifically designed to carry freight (like horses) with a small crew, and is sailed almost exclusively, not rowed, which explains the lack of oarports (have a look at this website for a good quick description and some relevant drawings of the basic Knarr design at http://www.cdli.ca/CITE/v_knarr.htm and/or on wikipedia.  Finally, there is even a portion of the Tapestry specifically detailing the ships being constructed (image 2 in part 2 of the Bayeaux website you mention above), and they are clearly being constructed by Viking methods of clinker construction, not carvel, Celtic or otherwise.

As for Professor Elmers, as I read your quotes, he specifies the survival of Celtic forms of inland craft in your quote above (such as river barges, etc).  He also specifies in your quote that all traces of sea-going Celtic craft disappeared at the end of Roman rule (450 AD), and that NO traces of any such craft have ever been found in the archeological record since that time.  I can tell you that DOZENS of Viking ships have been found all over Scandinavia, all over the British Isles, and France, Poland, and Russia too. 

So where are the Celts and their great ship-building influence?  Yes, the Germanic tribes that sacked the Roman empire did arrive overland, and were not initially seafarers, but that situation did not last very long, especially after their contact with the Danes.  Conversely, when the Vandals had pillaged their way as far as they could overland (Spain), they then learned how to construct ships (probably of Mediterranean design from the locals, but this is unknown), and shortly thereafter went over the sea to seize a sizeable kingdom in North Africa which lasted until the rise of Islam.  It would thus appear that the various Germanic tribes were quite capable of taking to the sea when needed.  The ancient Celtic-designed sea-going ships without keels would also be at a great disadvantage as far as sailing performance is concerned.  A Viking ship can not only sail well downwind, but can also tack and sail quite close to the wind too, which no flat-bottomed, keel-less craft can do (unless there are very large leeboards).  Viking ships were very good at landing on beaches (it is exactly what they were designed to do!), and did so as a standard everyday tactic (and their descendant boat-types do so to this very day). 

Finally, given the fact that the Viking ship-type was so popular for so many centuries, and that their methods of clinker construction for ships did not really give over to carvel construction in Northern Europe until the very late Medieval and early Renaissance, I would think it far more likely that carvel construction came to Northern Europe along with the various Mediterranean traders (Venetian, Genoese, Neapolitan, etc) and their ships than any sort of Celtic construction revival.  In other words, extraordinary claims must be supported by extraordinary proofs!

This is the stuff that separates the Ships forum from the rest of the forums.

searat12 wrote:

Well, much of what you say is true, especially regarding the inherent conservatism of traditional shipwrights.  However, it is important to note that change occurs, even within the most conservative groups given enough time (an inch off here, add an inch there), and you must admit, a thousand years is a LOT of time in anybody's book!  Two books I highly recommend on this subject of Northern European craft are 'Inshore Craft,' from Chatham Publishing, which is a quite complete directory of all the traditional working vessels of the British Isles, and the other book, and perhaps even more relevant to this discussion is 'Bateaux Traditionnels Francais' by Yves Gaubert.  In both books, you will see the continued use and development of Viking-type craft right down through the early 20th century, from the various 'Yoles' from the Shetlands, Orkneys, and right down the North Sea and Channel coasts, and many other developed forms as well.  The French book does much the same for the coasts of France, including Normandy and Brittany, along with any number of different traditional boats developed from Viking antecedents, as well as river barges and 'Gabares' whose design has not changed essentially since William's time of for that matter, the Egyptian Pharaohs (in particular, have a look at the barge 'Val de Vienne,' which is a Loire barge design from the 18th century, and still in use until the early 1900's, but could easily be pictured on the Nile three thousand years earlier).  These are very simple craft, easy to build and easy to operate, can carry a LOT of stuff, and have very ancient antecedents!  Certainly if the Channel was calm when William made his crossing (s), barges like these could certainly be used to bring over additional supplies, and could be loosely considered 'Celtic,' though almost identical vessels have been constructed and used the world over for much the same purpose (it is the easist boat to build of just about any type!).  But if there was any weather to speak of during William's crossing, such barges would have been death-traps to all on board.  Finally, if you look at the Bayeaux Tapestry, you don't see anything that might construed as a Celtic barge, or any other barge for that matter.  What you DO see depicted are vessels that for all intents and purposes are Viking longships, and that tapestry was created by reliable first-hand witnesses to the event. The French are exceedingly obliging for modellers of ancient and traditional vessels, because they have a great tradition of producing accurate replicas of virtually every kind of craft imaginable that the French have ever sailed.  Essentially, every seaside village has its own type of traditional craft, and one or more of these will be in existence for village pride, conservation of ancient craftsmanship and sailing skills.  These include not only the many types of the Channel Coast, and the Bay of Biscay, but also the Mediterranean coast as well (to include vessels like 'Pointus,' which are yet another vessel derived directly from the galley/chebec type). As for the Celts of Brittany and elsewhere, they weren't stupid either, and when confronted with a sea-going technology superior to their own, adopted it as quickly as they could (remember, they had been driven out of England by the relatives of the Vikings, the Saxons, and had been continually raided by Vikings since). A good example of how a very small and incremental technological change can have dramatic results can be seen in the career and victory of the Saxon King Alfred the Great over the Vikings of his day.  In 885 AD, Alfred and his fleet confronted a fleet of over 100 Viking longships (Danes) at the mouth of the Orwell River.  Afred's ships were built to almost the same design as those of the Vikings, however, based ona bit of bright thinking on his part, HIS ships were a few strakes taller than those of the Danes, which meant his bowmen could shoot down into the open Viking ships, while the Vikings were unable to reply.  It also meant that Alfred's ships were much more difficult to board as well, while the Saxon troops of Alfred could simply jump directly into the ships of the Danes.  The result was that Alfred totally defeated the Danes in this battle, seizing many ships, burning the rest, and no prisoners were taken.  And all because a couple more planks were added to an existing design...... It is to be admitted that this design 'improvement' had its detractors, and these ships were notably slower than those of the Vikings, and more likely to run aground (they drew more water), but the defensive trend had been established, and was eventually to result in vessels like the Cog. As far as the Byzantines and Muslims of the Med are concerned, certainly they copied each others vessels of the time (they were in open competitive warfare for almost 700 years), but you can hardly say that these vessels did not change or develop over time.  You can pick any time from the rise of Mohammed to the fall of Constantinople, and even further, past the Battle of Lepanto, and indicate that the vessels of one side were essentially the same as those on the other.  However, you cannot say the same by comparing vessels of one era with vessels from another (i.e., comparing a Byzantine galley or other ship type from 500 AD to another Byzantine ship from 1300 AD, and you will see two quite different vessels).   Certainly you can trace a fairly linear trend in design changes, but the ships did not remain the same design throughout, and went through a number of fairly significant alterations from thier Classical beginnings.

Hello,

I'd like to further detail and strenghten my point about the existence of Celtic seagoing ships in William's invasion fleet. The article Celtic Plank Boats and Ships, 500 BC-1000 AD by Professor Detlev Elmers from Conway's The Earliest Ships is my main source, along with my interpretation of Bayeux Tapestry itself.

to start with, I'd like to describe the earliest pictorial evidence we have about Celtic seagoing merchant ships. This evidence is a Celtic coin from around 100 BC minted in today's Normandy. It shows a chariot racer holding a model ship in his hands as a prize of competition. This model shows a deep, double ended ship carrying a single mast and square sail. At each end of the ship there is an animal head decoration, just like the tubbier, horse carrying ships of the Bayeux tapestry.

Secondly we have the invaluable description by no one other than Julius Caesar in his De Bellum Gallicum, about the afromentioned Veneti ships. He describes an extremely strongly built, keelless and high sided ship propelled by a single mast and a soft leather single square sail. his full description again beautifully matches the ship on the Celtic coin.

Thirdly, we have archeological evidence. In 1962 remains of a ship was found at Blackfriars, London and another was excavated in 1984-86 at Guernsey. Archaeologist Peter Marsden who excavated Blackfriars wreck realised that it exactly fitted to Caesar's description of Veneti ships. Guernsey wreck was of all the same shape likewise. Here is a website about Blackfriars ship with a detailed text and admirable drawings:

http://www2.rgzm.de/Navis/Ships/Ship020/Ship020.htm

Now, let's have a look to the tapestry itself:

http://hastings1066.com/bayeux3.shtml

Attention to the ship in the middle. It has no rowlocks and it's noticeably tubbier and deep than the apprently Norse designed ship seen on her left.

again here:

http://hastings1066.com/bayeux19.shtml

Likewise, the second ship on the slight, the one heavily laden with horses and men has no rowlocks and is apparently very deep: only the heads of horses are visible from the gunwale. It's certainly far away from the design of a longship or even from more shallower Norse knarrs. Another crucial advantage that a keelless low draft Celtic ship for an invasion army is no doubt her safety of use in the tracherous sandy beaches of southern england which are strongly affected by channel currents.

and now, the conclusion part by Professor Elmers about how long did celtic ship designs survived in western europe. Underlines are mine.

"How the inland ships of the Celtic shipbuilding tradition survived beyond the end of the middle ages on the continent of Europe has been demonstrated above. The Germanic tribes who invaded the continent did not arrive by ship, and were not seafarers, so were likely to adopt the native style of vessel. However, in Britain every trace of the continued exitence of seagoing ships built to the Celtic tradition disappears after the end of Roman rule. the likely reason for this is that the Anglo-Saxons migrated to England in their own ships and subsequently continued to use them for their sea journeys, as the post-Roman ships excavated in London show very clearly.

    It is probable that this reasoning does not hold true for Brittany and the adjacent Atlantic coastal regions, for no Germanic tribes migrated to those areas in their own ships. How long people in that region continued to buil ocean going ships based on the Celtic pattern is an open question, as archaeological research has produced no evidence to date. However, the writer suspects that the carvel construction which, in the late middle ages, spread out from this region towards the east can be traced back to Celtic carvel construction, which was the standard method in that area even before the advent of Caesar and the Romans." (the Earliest Ships, p. 71)

Upon my interpretation of pictorial and archaeological evidence along with scholarly arguments, I'm greatly convinced that William of Normandy mobilised and used the proven eons old designs native to his recently conquered territories to good effect along with his ancestral Norse ships.

Hi Richard,

There are a few other options if you are interested, and some every good ones.

There is an excellent laser cut wood model of an 11th century Danish trading vessel, known as Skuldelev 3. The original was a 45 foot long coastal trader, built in Denmark around 1040; it had a long life during Harald Hardraada of Norway's futile attempt to displace Denmark's Svein Estrithsson. Ultimately it and four other ships (including two longships, one of 98 feet that was built in Dublin in 1042) were deliberately sunk to block a channel leading to Roskilde from Norweigian assault later in the century, beginning in 1070.

Skuldelev 3 s a really beautiful ship that has all the elements that made Viking vessels so successful, and its replica Roar Edge has shown this well, proving to be a very good sailor in every respect. A replica of the 98 foot longship, named Sea Stallion and painted in colors after the style of the Baeux Tapestry, recently sailed from Roskilde to Dublin, and will return this year.

The laser cut kit is from Billing Boats, as their "Roar Edge." I dont normally like Billing kits (in fact I cant stand them) but this one is a real exception, well designed and thought out. The planks are all laser cut and when assembled they go into this elegant form like no tomorrow. I have two of these kits and enjoy building them when I'm not working on my 1617 Dutch jacht. Here is a link to the Billing site:

http://www.billingboats.com/703.htm

And information about the actual vessel can be seen here:

http://www2.rgzm.de/navis/ships/ship003/Ship003Engl.htm

And here is a link to a page showing the model under construction:

http://www.frasers-art.com/models/roar-ege/roar.htm

its not a difficult kit but you will prepare for a tranition from plastic to wood - not a hard one, since nearly everything is pre cut, and the completed model is beautiful. When I completed the steering oar there is a real a sense of satisfaction, as Viking steering oars were extremely elegant.

The other option is a new, small release laser cut wood kit offered by the journal "Model Ship Builder" of Canada, based on the suprb Newfoundland reconstruction of the small carrack Matthew, which carried Cabot to America in 1497. Its one of two replica Matthews - the other one is in Bristol - and this one is my personal favroite, the lines just feel very good and the forecastle is raised slightly higher than the aftercastle in the manner of the late 15th century. Both replicas are carvel and not clinker built, perhaps due to modern law, and the model is as well, but the laser cut portions are seperate from the planking and there is nothing to hold you back from clinker if desired. Matthew is a true late medievel vessel and I think much better in its reconstructions than many of the Santa Marias out there. You can see the replica (or actually reconstruction) of Matthew and its model here:

http://www.modelshipbuilder.com/models/the-matthew-project.html

I've been really tempted to take it on, maybe some day.

Hope this helps,

Jim

I'd agree that the Tapestry is the story to beat here. Great discussion and I like to learn as much as I can- once you stop, you're no longer living.

Bill

Well, much of what you say is true, especially regarding the inherent conservatism of traditional shipwrights.  However, it is important to note that change occurs, even within the most conservative groups given enough time (an inch off here, add an inch there), and you must admit, a thousand years is a LOT of time in anybody's book! 

Two books I highly recommend on this subject of Northern European craft are 'Inshore Craft,' from Chatham Publishing, which is a quite complete directory of all the traditional working vessels of the British Isles, and the other book, and perhaps even more relevant to this discussion is 'Bateaux Traditionnels Francais' by Yves Gaubert.  In both books, you will see the continued use and development of Viking-type craft right down through the early 20th century, from the various 'Yoles' from the Shetlands, Orkneys, and right down the North Sea and Channel coasts, and many other developed forms as well.  The French book does much the same for the coasts of France, including Normandy and Brittany, along with any number of different traditional boats developed from Viking antecedents, as well as river barges and 'Gabares' whose design has not changed essentially since William's time of for that matter, the Egyptian Pharaohs (in particular, have a look at the barge 'Val de Vienne,' which is a Loire barge design from the 18th century, and still in use until the early 1900's, but could easily be pictured on the Nile three thousand years earlier).  These are very simple craft, easy to build and easy to operate, can carry a LOT of stuff, and have very ancient antecedents!  Certainly if the Channel was calm when William made his crossing (s), barges like these could certainly be used to bring over additional supplies, and could be loosely considered 'Celtic,' though almost identical vessels have been constructed and used the world over for much the same purpose (it is the easist boat to build of just about any type!).  But if there was any weather to speak of during William's crossing, such barges would have been death-traps to all on board.  Finally, if you look at the Bayeaux Tapestry, you don't see anything that might construed as a Celtic barge, or any other barge for that matter.  What you DO see depicted are vessels that for all intents and purposes are Viking longships, and that tapestry was created by reliable first-hand witnesses to the event.

The French are exceedingly obliging for modellers of ancient and traditional vessels, because they have a great tradition of producing accurate replicas of virtually every kind of craft imaginable that the French have ever sailed.  Essentially, every seaside village has its own type of traditional craft, and one or more of these will be in existence for village pride, conservation of ancient craftsmanship and sailing skills.  These include not only the many types of the Channel Coast, and the Bay of Biscay, but also the Mediterranean coast as well (to include vessels like 'Pointus,' which are yet another vessel derived directly from the galley/chebec type).

As for the Celts of Brittany and elsewhere, they weren't stupid either, and when confronted with a sea-going technology superior to their own, adopted it as quickly as they could (remember, they had been driven out of England by the relatives of the Vikings, the Saxons, and had been continually raided by Vikings since).

A good example of how a very small and incremental technological change can have dramatic results can be seen in the career and victory of the Saxon King Alfred the Great over the Vikings of his day.  In 885 AD, Alfred and his fleet confronted a fleet of over 100 Viking longships (Danes) at the mouth of the Orwell River.  Afred's ships were built to almost the same design as those of the Vikings, however, based ona bit of bright thinking on his part, HIS ships were a few strakes taller than those of the Danes, which meant his bowmen could shoot down into the open Viking ships, while the Vikings were unable to reply.  It also meant that Alfred's ships were much more difficult to board as well, while the Saxon troops of Alfred could simply jump directly into the ships of the Danes.  The result was that Alfred totally defeated the Danes in this battle, seizing many ships, burning the rest, and no prisoners were taken.  And all because a couple more planks were added to an existing design...... It is to be admitted that this design 'improvement' had its detractors, and these ships were notably slower than those of the Vikings, and more likely to run aground (they drew more water), but the defensive trend had been established, and was eventually to result in vessels like the Cog.

As far as the Byzantines and Muslims of the Med are concerned, certainly they copied each others vessels of the time (they were in open competitive warfare for almost 700 years), but you can hardly say that these vessels did not change or develop over time.  You can pick any time from the rise of Mohammed to the fall of Constantinople, and even further, past the Battle of Lepanto, and indicate that the vessels of one side were essentially the same as those on the other.  However, you cannot say the same by comparing vessels of one era with vessels from another (i.e., comparing a Byzantine galley or other ship type from 500 AD to another Byzantine ship from 1300 AD, and you will see two quite different vessels).   Certainly you can trace a fairly linear trend in design changes, but the ships did not remain the same design throughout, and went through a number of fairly significant alterations from thier Classical beginnings.  

searat12 wrote:

Yes, the Veneti were known for large vessels, but of course that was about a thousand years before William and the Normans, and since that time most of the various Gallic and Celtic tribes and the technology of mainland Europe had been swept away by a variety of Germanic hordes, Vandals, Goths, Visigoths, Lombards, Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, with the survivors a mixed breed of all of the above, plus various versions of Latin ancestry, and only a few fairly isolated enclaves of the old Celtic tribes.  Much the same happened in Great Britain, where the Celts of the South were so hard-pressed by invading Saxons and their Angle and Jute brethren, that a fairly substantial Celtic migration occured from Cornwall over to France to escape them, thus establishing 'Brittany' (called such because it was inhabited by 'Britons').

It's true that the celtic population of Gaul was rather confined to the more barren peripheral regions of western France by the time of Norman invasion of Britain. However population change is one thing and technology change is another. The first example coming to my mind is the galley which we are discussing here. Long after the conquest and arabisation of of Egypt, Fatimid Amirs were fitting out fleets of ships exactly similar to those of Byzantium or Italian city states. In those pre-Gutenberg ages craftsmen were of great value and technological change was rather slow and gradual. The Earliest Ships from Conway states that the large celtic barges were in widespread use during the centuries after christ. I see no reason for their total disappearance especially if one considers that the region where they were built was never colonised by germanic tribes, hence ensuring a continuity in traditions. Another point of attention is that William's army included a large Breton contingent, for which there is a strongly possibility that it acted also as marine contingent. They may well have contributed large seaworthy barges of celtic design to William's fleet.

Yes, the Veneti were known for large vessels, but of course that was about a thousand years before William and the Normans, and since that time most of the various Gallic and Celtic tribes and the technology of mainland Europe had been swept away by a variety of Germanic hordes, Vandals, Goths, Visigoths, Lombards, Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, with the survivors a mixed breed of all of the above, plus various versions of Latin ancestry, and only a few fairly isolated enclaves of the old Celtic tribes.  Much the same happened in Great Britain, where the Celts of the South were so hard-pressed by invading Saxons and their Angle and Jute brethren, that a fairly substantial Celtic migration occured from Cornwall over to France to escape them, thus establishing 'Brittany' (called such because it was inhabited by 'Britons').  In turn, the Saxons were repeatedly attacked and invaded by Vikings (York is a Viking-established city, as is Dublin), and the British Isles were never really free of the threat of the Norsemen until they were in fact conquered by their 'slightly cleaned up' relatives, the Normans.  France also suffered many depredations from the Vikings, as did much of the coastline all the way from Denmark around to Italy via the Atlantic, and of course Byzantium also suffered from Swedish Vikings passing down the Volga into the Black Sea (these were eventually pacified and bought off by the Byzantine Emperors, who hired them on as a personal corps of bodyguards, known as the 'Varangian Guard.'  You can STILL see where their guardposts were in modern-day Istanbul, because like all bored soldiers on guard duty, they carved their initials, catchy limmericks, etc in RUNIC on things like monumental lion statues next to the guard posts!).  The Vikings established themselves in Normandy (called such because it was now inhabited by 'Northmen') by cutting a protection deal with the King of France, whereby they promised NOT to sack Paris (again!) and give fealty to the King, if they were allowed a large chunk of France to settle in.  This happened about the year 1000 AD.  Yes, by the time of William, 66 years later, they had been Christianized, spoke French, and in some ways were more 'civilized,' but this was a pretty thin veneer!  After the England adventure with William, other Norman nobles led expeditions to seize new kingdoms as far afield as Sicily, in much the same way as the Viking ancestors did, but to more permanent effect.

searat12 wrote:

bondoman wrote: Excellent information Searat and mostly new to me. I am going to first read up on the 900-1066 period in Brittany before I venture any more guesses about the provenance of Norman ships, for they do in the one instance illustrated look very Norse. I also immediately have a DUH moment in which it would only make sense that an invasion, as opposed to a raid, would have a multiplicity of types of ships, and a staggered schedule as you suggest. I'll cling to the theory however that a Latin knowledgeable society may have preferred a more Imperial ship building tradition than a speedracer one, but that may well be incorrect.   Well, knowledge of Latin is not much of a recommendation for ship-design analysis and usage, since Latin was the Lingua Franca for just about everyone in Europe at the time (and for a very long time afterwards too!).  As well, just about the only people who could speak it, or even rarer, write it, were pretty few and far between (most Normans, even nobles, were quite illiterate, and required scribes and monks to keep track of records, read messages, etc.).  One thing to note about Mediterranean ship-types operating in Northern waters is that they generally didn't do very well.  The sea conditions in the Channel, the Bay of Biscay and North Sea are very different from the Med, and caused lots of problems with Mediterranean designs.  For instance, the Spanish Armada contained several Galeasses (a stouter and more heavily armed version of the Mediterranean galley), and these eventually broke up and sank on the long journey home around the British Isles.  Mediterranean galleys had extremely stiff hulls (i.e. they didn't flex at all), largely because of the method of Mediterranean carvel construction which used a number of mortice and tenon joints between the planks.  In the early Classical galleys, these joints were pegged as well, and constituted the main strength binding the planks together.  Although frames were used, these were mostly to support structures such as rowing benches, deckwork and the like.  That made the galleys incredibly strong fore and aft (which is what you want for ramming), but pretty weak athwartships.  Viking ships were constructed on very different lines, using clinker construction (overlapping planks) held together at least initially with spruce roots!  This made the longships quite flexible, and the hulls can twist and turn to a remarkable extent (as much 8-10" in a 60' Gokstad!).  This allows the longship to flow over the waves, rather than just crash through them, and as any engineer will tell you, any body that can flex is inherently stronger than a body which can't (tensile strength).  The planks were assembled first, and THEN framing pieces inserted, rather than the more modern method of building a frame forst, and then planking up. The speed that some of these longships could attain under sail is created by some interesting principles not well understood until quite recently, and is also directly applicable to the clinker construction of these craft.  Essentially, the extreme curves of the bilge and floors, combined with the very hollow bows creates a form of vortex beneath the leeward side of the longships bottom under sail.  The clinker planks, drawn down in the long curve from the bow, create a lot of bubbles and foam, and these bubbles are drawn into the vortex, which means the ship is actually riding on something very similar to a cushion of air, so the principles of hull speed being a function of water surface contact area no longer apply!  In other words, a Drakkar longship can plane!  The different and more bulky and burdensome form of the Knarr, and even some heavier forms of the Gokstad type prevent this unique characteristic ability, but this can still be found in the Nordlands boats still built in Norway to this day.  As well, there are a number of smaller traditional French boat-types used for fishing and coastal work that are (or were) constructed by Viking methods, and Viking methods of construction was even used by the Dutch for building very large ships right up until the 18th century. As a military commander, William the Conqueror and the rest of the Normans would have been quite familiar with the Viking-type design, and certainly just about all the ships available in the area would have been some form of Viking-derived ship-type.  In other words, it really wouldn't make much sense to build, or rather buy Mediterranean-type ships that would have to be brought all the way around, when there were so many local craft that could be simply commandeered (and Normans were notoriously cheap, as well as piratical in nature!), with additional 'specialty' ships built by the local shipwrights on the Channel coast (who would have no idea how to build a Mediterranean ship, nor want to!). When ramming was no longer the main modus operandi of the galley (i.e. Medieval and later), the ram was replaced with a long spearlike structure above the waterline (Sperona), which eventually served several additional functions.  It worked as a ram, yes, but also a bowsprit, and more importantly as a boarding gangway for troops to get onto the enemy's ship.  This development coincided with the invention of 'Greek Fire' by the Byzantines, which essentially was a sort of flame thrower that would set another ship on fire, rather than being forced to come to grips with an enemy ship by either ramming or boarding.  These Greek Fire projectors were mounted on the bows behind a covered/shielded structure, and this structure served exactly the same function when cannons were invented, replacing the Greek Fire projectors.  Early Byzantine galleys equipped with Greek Fire projectors in fact had no ram or Sperona at all, but had a fairly simple and unremarkable bow!

the region where William built his fleet reminds me those great capacious ships of the Veneti tribe against which Ceasar did fight. Perhaps heavier equipments and horses were carried in such ships.

bondoman wrote:

Excellent information Searat and mostly new to me. I am going to first read up on the 900-1066 period in Brittany before I venture any more guesses about the provenance of Norman ships, for they do in the one instance illustrated look very Norse. I also immediately have a DUH moment in which it would only make sense that an invasion, as opposed to a raid, would have a multiplicity of types of ships, and a staggered schedule as you suggest. I'll cling to the theory however that a Latin knowledgeable society may have preferred a more Imperial ship building tradition than a speedracer one, but that may well be incorrect.

Well, knowledge of Latin is not much of a recommendation for ship-design analysis and usage, since Latin was the Lingua Franca for just about everyone in Europe at the time (and for a very long time afterwards too!).  As well, just about the only people who could speak it, or even rarer, write it, were pretty few and far between (most Normans, even nobles, were quite illiterate, and required scribes and monks to keep track of records, read messages, etc.).  One thing to note about Mediterranean ship-types operating in Northern waters is that they generally didn't do very well.  The sea conditions in the Channel, the Bay of Biscay and North Sea are very different from the Med, and caused lots of problems with Mediterranean designs.  For instance, the Spanish Armada contained several Galeasses (a stouter and more heavily armed version of the Mediterranean galley), and these eventually broke up and sank on the long journey home around the British Isles.  Mediterranean galleys had extremely stiff hulls (i.e. they didn't flex at all), largely because of the method of Mediterranean carvel construction which used a number of mortice and tenon joints between the planks.  In the early Classical galleys, these joints were pegged as well, and constituted the main strength binding the planks together.  Although frames were used, these were mostly to support structures such as rowing benches, deckwork and the like.  That made the galleys incredibly strong fore and aft (which is what you want for ramming), but pretty weak athwartships. 

Viking ships were constructed on very different lines, using clinker construction (overlapping planks) held together at least initially with spruce roots!  This made the longships quite flexible, and the hulls can twist and turn to a remarkable extent (as much 8-10" in a 60' Gokstad!).  This allows the longship to flow over the waves, rather than just crash through them, and as any engineer will tell you, any body that can flex is inherently stronger than a body which can't (tensile strength).  The planks were assembled first, and THEN framing pieces inserted, rather than the more modern method of building a frame forst, and then planking up.

The speed that some of these longships could attain under sail is created by some interesting principles not well understood until quite recently, and is also directly applicable to the clinker construction of these craft.  Essentially, the extreme curves of the bilge and floors, combined with the very hollow bows creates a form of vortex beneath the leeward side of the longships bottom under sail.  The clinker planks, drawn down in the long curve from the bow, create a lot of bubbles and foam, and these bubbles are drawn into the vortex, which means the ship is actually riding on something very similar to a cushion of air, so the principles of hull speed being a function of water surface contact area no longer apply!  In other words, a Drakkar longship can plane!  The different and more bulky and burdensome form of the Knarr, and even some heavier forms of the Gokstad type prevent this unique characteristic ability, but this can still be found in the Nordlands boats still built in Norway to this day.  As well, there are a number of smaller traditional French boat-types used for fishing and coastal work that are (or were) constructed by Viking methods, and Viking methods of construction was even used by the Dutch for building very large ships right up until the 18th century.

As a military commander, William the Conqueror and the rest of the Normans would have been quite familiar with the Viking-type design, and certainly just about all the ships available in the area would have been some form of Viking-derived ship-type.  In other words, it really wouldn't make much sense to build, or rather buy Mediterranean-type ships that would have to be brought all the way around, when there were so many local craft that could be simply commandeered (and Normans were notoriously cheap, as well as piratical in nature!), with additional 'specialty' ships built by the local shipwrights on the Channel coast (who would have no idea how to build a Mediterranean ship, nor want to!).

When ramming was no longer the main modus operandi of the galley (i.e. Medieval and later), the ram was replaced with a long spearlike structure above the waterline (Sperona), which eventually served several additional functions.  It worked as a ram, yes, but also a bowsprit, and more importantly as a boarding gangway for troops to get onto the enemy's ship.  This development coincided with the invention of 'Greek Fire' by the Byzantines, which essentially was a sort of flame thrower that would set another ship on fire, rather than being forced to come to grips with an enemy ship by either ramming or boarding.  These Greek Fire projectors were mounted on the bows behind a covered/shielded structure, and this structure served exactly the same function when cannons were invented, replacing the Greek Fire projectors.  Early Byzantine galleys equipped with Greek Fire projectors in fact had no ram or Sperona at all, but had a fairly simple and unremarkable bow! 

Experience has established that there's no point in my responding to posts from Searat 12.  Hstry and bondoman - good luck with your projects.

Kapudan a very good friend of mine is about to travel to Turkey as part of a trade mission with the Government. He needs suggestions about host gifts, from California, that would express appreciation for hospitality at a proper level, but also at a more traditional household level.

Please feel free to pm or email me.

Bill

Excellent information Searat and mostly new to me. I am going to first read up on the 900-1066 period in Brittany before I venture any more guesses about the provenance of Norman ships, for they do in the one instance illustrated look very Norse.

I also immediately have a DUH moment in which it would only make sense that an invasion, as opposed to a raid, would have a multiplicity of types of ships, and a staggered schedule as you suggest.

I'll cling to the theory however that a Latin knowledgeable society may have preferred a more Imperial ship building tradition than a speedracer one, but that may well be incorrect.

 

No, no, no, no, NO!!  A 'Roman galley' is NOT anything like a Byzantine galley, nor is a Carthagenian, or Greek galley anything like a Byzantine galley!  By the time of the Middle Ages, the galley had been significantly altered in both form and construction!!!   The closest comparison for a Byzantine, or post-classic Mediterranean galley with anything you might find in the hobby shop is the Heller model 'La Reale,' which although it is of the 18th century, it is closely based on a Mediteranean galley type which had been around for almost 500 years! The Spaniards, French and Maltese continued to produce and use these galleys, partly because the Turks and Barbary Corsairs continued to do so (and had done since at LEAST the sack of Constantinople/Istanbul, and partly because until the age of steam, nothing was really as effective for use in shallow waters and fickle winds as a galley in the Med (close design copies were also used in the Baltic, and for the same reasons).

Finally, there seems to be a LOT of assumptions flying around as to what a Viking ship, or could not do, and/or their relationship to the Normans.  The Vikings were QUITE capable of transporting horses in their ships (they brought them all the way to Iceland and Greenland, thank you very much!), along with cattle and other livestock.  It should be understood that the Vikings had different ships for different purposes, though they were all built with the same techniques.  The Drakkar or Long Ship was primarily a warship, and these ships could get very large indeed.  Although the academics for years have debunked the various claims of ship sizes in the ancient Sagas, in fact, Archeologists have just excavated a Drakkar in Ireland that was over 180' long!  That's plenty of space to stow horses, and pretty much anything else you might want to bring along.  The Drakkar is in fact very much like the Oseberg ship in configuration, very long, lean, and very fast.  In fact, the 'Viking ship' has never really gone out of fashion in Scandinavia, and the most recent version, known as a Nordlands boat have recently had something of a revival, a number of which are members of a club in Norway, that race quite regularly. 

Oh and by the way, when I say these Viking craft, both modern and 'ancient' are fast, I mean they can sail at up to 20 knots!!  For many years, I often wondered how it was that the Vikings would be able to surprise so many towns and monasteries on the coast with essentially, glorified rowboats.  You would think it would take HOURS for these things to get to the beach, which should allow plenty of time for the local warriors to assemble to drive them back into the sea.  But if you start thinking of the Drakkar type, not as a lumbering rowboat, but a craft that once spotted on the horizon, could be landing on the beach in only 45 minutes, makes all the difference in the world. 

The Gokstad ship type is quite different from the Drakkar, being beamier, deeper-drafted and higher sided.  It is a workhorse to carry lots of stuff for long distances.  It sails well, and rows well too, though not as well as the Drakkar, but it is emminently seaworthy.  These were large craft too, up to at least 70', and perhaps larger.  As far as warfare is concerned, this is the type most likely to be used as a transport for an invading fleet, with the Drakkars in front landing shock troops to seize control of the beaches and landing areas.  Because of its seakindly ways, the Gokstad is considered one of the primary ships used in the Vikings explorations and long-distance voyages.

The third Viking ship type is the Knarr, which is a fairly small, very beamy and actually rather tubby craft up to about 50' long, mostly sailed, rather than rowed (small crew).  This was the primary type used in trading, exploration, transportation of people, cattle, sheep, horses, and all sorts of cargo.  The Cog, or Kaag is essentially a 'modernized' and more specialized descendant of the Knarr.

Now on to the Normans!  While it is certainly true the Normans were not Vikings, in terms of politics, religion and allegiances, the fact is, they had only become 'French' 60 years before William the Conqueror, and ship technology in the North had NOT progressed significantly from the time of the 'classic' Vikings.  It should be remembered that half the reason Saxon King Harold was defeated by William at Hastings in 1066 was because he and his army had just forced-marched all the way down from Yorkshire, after defeating (yet another!) invading Viking horde led by the Viking warlords, Harold Bluetooth, and his great pal, Thorfinn Skullsplitter.  So you can hardly say the Vikings had been 'cashiered' in any way by early Norman times, or their 'technology' either!  Further, their ships were more than capable of carrying horses and other gear just about anywhere they chose.  Remember, horses were brought to Iceland, and the Iceland breed indicates Mediterranean blood,and these horses could not have been brought in small numbers either, or selective breeding would not have been possible.  You might want to have a look at a book titled 'The Medieval Warhorse' by R.H.C. Davis to get an idea of horse transport in Medieval times (check out page 62 for a view of a Byzantine horse transport ship of 1278).  Finally, it should ALSO be remembered that the English Channel is narrow, and there is no indication that William the Conqueror came over to england in just one wave.  It would seem reasonable to assume that cargo and livestock ships would have made a number of trips back and forth to France to bring all that the Norman knights needed to prosecute their war against the Saxon King Harold.

Finally, the Normans did not simply settle in France and then take England.  On the contrary, they continued in the path of their Viking ancestors, by invading and seizing kingdoms in Ireland, Wales, Italy, Sicily, Spain, and efforts in North Africa as well.  By expanding into the Mediterranean, the Normans would have had contact with other Mediteranean peoples and their ship designs, and certainly would have taken the best elements for further expansion in the Med, which would have coincided with the onset of the Crusades.....

hstry wrote:

OK, going back into the archives and adding those comments with the latest in this thread, I think that I have all of the recommendations downpat.   I ordered a model of the Revell Viking ship yesterday and requested copies of more recommneded books from ILL. Putting all of the recommendations together, it seems I should ... ...use Revell's Viking ship when needed, ...use Academy's Roman Galley...but lengthen it and mind the oar ports/oars ...use Zvezda's Crusader Cog...possibly putting in tranverse planking when the interior is seen, ...use Heller's Nina, Pinta, And Santa Maria as period caravels, not necessarily as Columbus ships. (The Santa Maria was a nau, not a caravel and Heller's Santa Maria has a pronounced tumblehome, fitting better perhaps as an early to mid 16th C caravela armada), ...not use any of the Greek or Carthegenian galleys unless they are substantially lengthened and research from the Olympia used to correct errors.   Perhaps Academy's Roman Galley could serve as a model for these if sufficiently lengthened and the oar ports corrected, ...dump "William the Conqueror". Do I have the above recommendations correctly?

The reccommendations seems all fine to me

 

hstry wrote:

Are there any documented differences between Carthegenian, Roman and Greek galleys or, with the lack of evidence, is their appearance 100% speculation?   These cultures and those of the Byzantines are so interrelated. I'll await Kapudan's response to learn more about Byzantine galleys and what might be done with Academy's Roman Galley to help serve as a model for a painting with a Byzantine Galley in it, classical or medieval.     Thanks, Richard

Richard, as I said also in my previous post, Academy (ex-Imai) Roman Warship and her twin, the Greek Warship are the only anicent galleys that can provide basis for a serious scale model. They share a common hull which is in turn designed by Björn Landström in "The Ship". In fact the Roman Warship is an exact rendition of Landström's reconstruction of a Liburna class light galley (The Ship p.44-45) while the "Greek Warship" is based upon the bas-reliefs on Trajan's Column. Ironically, this makes it a more accurate candidate for a Roman Galley model. Both kits have 26 oars which is just the half number that a liburna carried. As Professor Tilley said, Imai provided oarports for the upper bank of oars. To my opinion, if you just build the model and duplicate the missing oars on canvas, you may have a reasonably accurate picture of a Roman imperial era warship.

Byzantine ships are an altogether different matter. We had very few information about Byzantine warships until the discoveries at Istanbul subway excavations. I know that a comprehensible database of the wrecks with pictures and drawings is either prepared or being prepared but I did not see it yet. However, a recent talk with one of the excavation assistants largely confirmed my visioned picture of a small Byzantine fireship: a small low craft with about 25-30 oars and single mast (most probably carrying a lateen sail). So, if you try to build a Byzantine fireship out of Smer (ex-Aurora) viking ship by following my suggestions in the previous post, you shall have another reasonably accurate model I think.

OK, going back into the archives and adding those comments with the latest in this thread, I think that I have all of the recommendations downpat.   I ordered a model of the Revell Viking ship yesterday and requested copies of more recommneded books from ILL.

Putting all of the recommendations together, it seems I should ...

...use Revell's Viking ship when needed,

...use Academy's Roman Galley...but lengthen it and mind the oar ports/oars

...use Zvezda's Crusader Cog...possibly putting in tranverse planking when the interior is seen,

...use Heller's Nina, Pinta, And Santa Maria as period caravels, not necessarily as Columbus ships. (The Santa Maria was a nau, not a caravel and Heller's Santa Maria has a pronounced tumblehome, fitting better perhaps as an early to mid 16th C caravela armada),

...not use any of the Greek or Carthegenian galleys unless they are substantially lengthened and research from the Olympia used to correct errors.   Perhaps Academy's Roman Galley could serve as a model for these if sufficiently lengthened and the oar ports corrected,

...dump "William the Conqueror".

Do I have the above recommendations correctly? 

 

 

Are there any documented differences between Carthegenian, Roman and Greek galleys or, with the lack of evidence, is their appearance 100% speculation?   These cultures and those of the Byzantines are so interrelated.

I'll await Kapudan's response to learn more about Byzantine galleys and what might be done with Academy's Roman Galley to help serve as a model for a painting with a Byzantine Galley in it, classical or medieval.    

 

Thanks,

Richard 

 

Thank you John. It does not escape me that Landstrom avoids the subject entirely, as though the 11th century did not exist.

Not only horses, but some amount of seige machinery, plus clergy and their retinue which we know of and also supplies to camp in southern England prior to the battle. And that included mounted cavalry and their van, which certainly was beyond any program that the Norse shipwrights had to respond to.

I think our friend from Istanbul is a gem in the hand. The continental ship designs in the west at that time would certainly have been descended from the Romans, and that would suggest Byzantium.

Effendi- I write icons, but thats a story for another day.

Here's a rendering of a Roman ship from about the 4th Century.

another

another, from Ostia

Landstrom on page 48 pretty much synthesizes these. But again, no later that 300 AD.

My thesis may start with the idea that Williams ships were Roman in design, rather than Celtic.

My supporting arguments would be that the size is generally one which would be designed for continental warfare, i.e. a mixed force of cavalry, archers and foot with all the equipment that would require;

2) that as a former member of the Empire, Norman France would be a familiar trading partner with the Mediterranian fleets;

3) the text of the Tapestry is in Latin.

 

I'll resurface in about a year, at best.

 

By all means: good luck, bondoman.  There's no reason whatever not to try such a reconstruction.  I do not, however, recommend starting with that Heller travesty. 

I'm aware of only one model that purports to be a serious reconstruction of one of William the Conqueror's ships:  the one by August Crabtree in the Mariners' Museum, where I used to work.  That one shouldn't be taken seriously either.  Crabtree started out with the assumption that lots of people have made over the years:  that the vessel in question looked like a Viking longship (specifically the Gokstad Ship) of between one and two centuries earlier.  Medieval historians are pretty generally in agreement that that's a mistake.  The Normans presumably did inherit much of the Norse shipbuilding tradition (there are obvious similarities between the ships in the Bayeux Tapestry and the various Norse depictions of ships), but the Normans weren't Vikings and neither was William.  The ships in which his army crossed the English Channel probably were considerably larger and tubbier than the traditional Viking ship.  (Several of the ships in the Tapestry are shown carrying horses; several hundred such critters, at least, must have accompanied the army.  There's no way a horse could ride in the Gokstad ship.  Well - maybe one horse, with several guys keeping him steady, but a fleet of ships built like that couldn't carry the whole army's horses.)

It seems likely that some European maritime museum has commissioned a well-researched model of one of those ships.  If so, I'd certainly like to see a picture of it.

I first learned of the Bayeux Tapestry because my Grandfather had a copy of "Men, Ships and the Sea" which I read cover to cover, over and over while staying with them.

I also tracked down the National Geographic issue on that and read it at the Library.

In 1979 while in University in Denmark I went to Bayeux and spent a couple of days. There is a remarkable Gothis Cathedral, it's near the Landing Beachs, and of course has a Norman Museum with the Tapestry. At that time it was displayed all round the four walls of a large room, like a tennis court in size, that one rose up into by a central stair.

Oh, and my given name is William.

While I can understand that it is impossible, I am going to research the construction of a model ship from 1066.

Wish me luck.

I'll cheerfully yield to Kapudan's greater familiarity with the various recently-issued kits he's mentioned; he's seen them and I haven't. 

Zvezda seems to be a rather odd and, shall we say, eclectic company.  Some of its kits, as I understand it, are indeed reboxings of old Heller kits - sometimes with new names.  Others come from other European sources, and at least one, the cog (which has appeared so far in two different boxes, but as I understand it the contents are almost identical), is an original Zvezda product - which has now been picked up for distribution by Revell Europe.  The complexities of the modern plastic kit business really are beyond unraveling by normal minds.

Unfortunately (unless I've missed the announcement - which certainly is entirely possible) Zvezda seems to have given up on sailing ships; I haven't heard of any new ones since the release of the two cogs.  (That's been a couple of years now - hasn't it?)  I was hoping for more from this stable.

Kapudan,

So, of the currently available medieval and classical ship models that I have inquired about in my first and second posts of this thread, which of them are..

...reasonably accurate,

...not accurate, but could be used for basic shapes and then altered on canvas for a painting,

..totaly inaccurate beyond any redemption or fixing on the painting canvas?

 

I'm focusing first on the medieval era, but may in time work my way to the classical era.   These eras are the most alluring to me because they are less well known and are an "undiscovered country" to me as a painter of historical subjects.  (No mountain men, American Civil War, American Indians, clipper ships or WWII fighter planes for me.) 

Thank you,

 

Richard

 

   Hi all, well I'm currently building the Heller 1/90th scale model of the Conquistador, the background on the instruction sheet of this model states it's from around 1519 during an important Spanish sea expedition commanded by Fernand Cortez who sought to discover and conquer Mexico. in addition to being a warship, the Conquistador was used as transport for very important people. the works called consolate del mar from the documents of the historical archives of Barcelona, from engravings of these days...Heller technicians have been able to draw up the the drawings of a ship that is typically Spanish, a vessel with hull lines that are near those of the galleons: the Conquistador.                                                                                              

  I must admit that the box art had a lot to with me buying this kit as the ship just had an interesting look to it, with the additional aft structure attached. and so far it's proving to be a challenge to build as well as a fun kit.  Karl 

 

Greetings Professor

jtilley wrote:

The Zvezda Greek and Cartheginian galleys are, I believe, reissues of Heller kits.  People who are more knowlegeable than I am about ancient galleys don't take them seriously; among other problems they're far too short for their height and breadth.  The whole subject of the ancient war galley has undergone serious rethinking during the past twenty-five years or so, largely as a result of the reconstructed Greek trireme Olympias.  Every plastic ancient war galley kit on the market, so far as I know, was originally released before the Olympias was built.  (It should be noted that some eminently qualified scholars have big reservations about the design of the Olympias.  But it's been pretty firmly established that the old Heller kits are grossly out of proportion.  There are several threads about them here in the Forum; the comments of a member named JWintjes, who knows far more about such things than I do, are particularly worth reading.  He suggests that, by slicing the hull of a Heller galley in half and inserting a section taken from a second kit, it might be possible to make a reasonable model.  But I don't know that anybody's actually tried that.)

I can assure you that Zvezda's line of ancient galleys are fully new kits. They all share a common hull and oars, the differences being the sprues of decoration, masts and bow-stern pieces. As for their accuracy, you're quite right. First, they are too massive and broad to be 1/72 scale, they can be rather taken as 1/100 scale. And at that size, they rather tend to represent the floating fortresses of late classical fleets. In fact, the first Zvezda galley "Greek Triera" exactly conforms with the drawings of a septireme in the book "Warships" by Angus Konstam. The big difference is that the ship in those drawings is a bireme while Zvezda seems to have added a third tier of oars to make a Trireme. If you omit those additional oars you can obtain an exact reproduction of that ship in this book but I'm not knowledgeable enough about its accuracy.

As a footnote about Olympias; despite all the efforts of hand picked crews, Olympias never menaged to exceed 7 kts in best conditions while we well know that Triremes were able to reach 12 kts in for short sprints in battle. Discussions pointed out that the distance between the oarports might be wrongly done. Two years ago, during excavations for subway building in Istanbul, a complete port from the time of Emperor Theodosius was discovered. There were remains of nearly 90 ships in the port, some conserved nearly %80 due to being rapidly covered with mud during torrents. In other words, it's a ghost port full of ancient Vasa's. Among the best preserved wrecks there are two warships: a bireme and a single banked fireship. The examination of Bireme showed that there were 90 centimeters between each oarport: exactly as the critics of Olympias suggested The Theodosian port is now being turned into an open air museum and replicas of best preserved wrecks will be built to adorn a reconstructed late Roman quay.

jtilley wrote:

I think the Smer "Viking Dragon" is the ancient Aurora kit from the 1950s.  If so, it's a great toy for kids but that's all.  The people who designed it apparently did no research whatever about Norse shipbuilding.  (They were working in the dawn of the plastic scale modeling era; their intended purchasers didn't care much about historical accuracy.)  Frankly I wouldn't mind getting my hands on that kit, as an exercise in nostalgia; I don't know how many times I built it when I was in elementary school.  But as a scale model of a Viking ship - forget it.

Exactly but this toy can be useful in a very unexpected way: just saw off the awful dragon head and tail, put a lateen sail to the mast and when you put the 1/72 Greek fire projector from Orion models' "Roman Sailors" set, you can obtain a reasonable replica of an early byzantine fireship.

jtilley wrote:

I think the "Conquistador Ship San Gabriel" by Zvezda is also a reboxing of a Heller product, which in turn was based on the hull and other basic components of the Heller Santa Maria.  I've only seen photos of the Heller "Conquistador," but on that basis it frankly looked to me like a piece of junk.  The Heller designers in those days (the early seventies) appear to have been immensely talented artisans who possessed only a vague understanding of how sailing ships worked.  They were notorious for making "new" sailing ship kits by slapping new parts on old hulls, thereby coming up with shapes that sometimes looked believable and sometimes didn't.  This one, to my eye at least, didn't.

Again it's not a Heller kit professor. Zvezda's recently released Conquistador Ship and Nina were originally products of a now defunct portuguese company named "Replicas Occidental". Conquistador was originally released as Vasco da Gama's flagship Sao Gabriel but the kit is based on the "replica" of Affonso de Albuquerque's flagship Flor do Mar, today standing in Malacca, Malaysia. Here is a website about the replica and some photos:

http://www.artimanha.com.br/Tesouros/Flor%20do%20Mar/Flor_do_Mar.htm

Occidental kit has super wood grain detail and genuinely designed with the keel as a separate piece but unfortunately her designers maimed the accuracy by heightening the forecastle and poop, perhaps to differentiate their product from Flor do Mar. But the result is sadly a distorted model. Nevertheless, to my opinion, her basic shape is far better than both Revell's and Heller's Santa Maria. With little effort (shortening the supersturcture and masts) one can obtain a serious scale model.

jtilley wrote:

I have the Academy Roman Warship.  It's a reissue of a kit from the late, lamented Japanese manufacturer Imai, and as a piece of plastic kit engineering it's a masterpiece.  (Imai was, to my knowledge, the only company that's ever figured out how to make reasonable-looking blocks and deadeyes in injection-molded styrene.)  It's probably the best of the plastic ancient galley kits.  It does have some serious problems, though, starting with the stated scale - which is far too small.  And for some reason the openings for the oars in the outriggers don't have oars in them.  (Imai also made a "Greek galley," which shared many of the same parts.  The "Greek" version had oars sticking out of the outriggers - but not through the oar ports beneath them.  Weird.  I think these two kits may have been among the first in the Imai line, which eventually included some of the best plastic sailing ship kits ever.)  If I had to pick a plastic ancient galley kit on which to base a serious scale model this one probably would be it.  But it's "pre-Olympias."

Indeed Professor, Imai's finely crafted Roman Warship is based on Björn Landström's reconstruction of a Roman Galley. It was cutting edge when that great expert compiled his book "The Ship" but of course it's totally outmoded today. Nevertheless, we have a "but" here I share your idea that a serious scale model can be built out of that. Landström based his reconstruction in turn, upon the liburnian type open decked small bireme galleys depicted on the Trajan's Column. Ironically, Imai's "twin" to Roman Warship, the Greek Warship is far more close to the galleys on Trajan's Column with her open outriggers and solid poop with a "garden". Imai kits carry 26 oars protruding from beneath the outrigger with ports for another 26 provided on the top. By removing the upper deck, crafting a short spur ram and adding another 24 oars, you can obtain a reasonably accurate 50 oared Roman liburnian (I suggest this conversion after a close examination of drawings in the book Age of Galley from Conway)

jtilley wrote:

I've only seen the box art for the Zvezda "Medieval Lifeboat."  It looked reasonable - though I question whether the term "lifeboat" was in use at the time.  (Lots of people use that word to describe any small boat.  That may be what's going on here.)

In fact it's Heller's Sardane, a traditional fishing craft from French Mediterreanean coast.

I fear

jtilley wrote:

that's a rather depressing list. The medieval period just isn't well represented by the ship model kit manufacturers - plastic, wood, or otherwise.  The good news is that two of the relatively recent kits, the Zvezda cog and the Revell Viking ship, actually are nice kits.  (Dr. Wintjes pointed out, in another thread, that the deck planking of the Zvezda cog is "laid" longitudinally, whereas the deck planking of all the few surviving real cogs is laid athwartships.  But he acknowledges that our knowledge of cogs isn't enough to brand Zvezda definitively "wrong.")  I'd have trouble recommending any others.

I'd also like to mention Occidental's Portuguese Caravel, now issued by Zvezda as Nina and Heller's rendition of that same ship among the few and good models from the era under discussion. Occidental model is a superb kit, without the accuracy problems of her larger brother Sao Gabriel.

Cheers.

John,

Thank you.  I have two of the Conway series of books already, ie The Age of the Galley and Cogs, Caravels and Galleons.  I'll have to find the third.    I also have a small collection of other books on medieval/ renaissance ships that I have been reading.   The book on the Olympias will be interesting to read.    

The benefits of having a three demensional model, even if they are not perfect, is that you have something tangible with which to handle when working out compositions and with which to observe to paint the multiple angles of ship design, first hand, rather than to construct it all out on paper by hand every time you wish to try another perspective.   If you are familiar with CAD, it is another story.

Searat12,

Yes, I know that Roman, Carthagenian and Greek galleys are from the "classical era", generally concluded sometime around 485 CE and that is why I did not include them in my original post.   However, I have been reading a bit on them and would eventually like to try my hand at painting some scenes including them and therefore asked about them in my second post.

 

 

In either case, medieval, classical or otherwise, my intention is to paint historical landscapes/seascapes/harborscapes as opposed to close up scenes where every line and trunnel is closely observed.   When painting close scenes in which the figures are more prominent, there is just too much detail to research and include to accomplish a painting in a few weeks.   Been there, done it.  There is really too much even for a more distant scene, ie 300' or more away, to put into a painting, but if I can accomplish a reasonably accurate view of the ship, the rest is landscape/seascape which I can do without having to write a PhD thesis per painting.   My models are just incomplete props for the "real show" which in my case is the painting, both as a reasonably accurate historical work (which will never satisfy all historians) as well as an artistic work, which is equally as important to me.  Hence my reason for asking if the model ships could serve at least as props and altered on canvas.

Perhaps using the imperfect models for a start, tempered with the recommended books and a distant view of a mile or two would work, ha, ha.   I need to start with something tangible, despite its imperfections, and am trying to find which bad model is the least bad.  If I wait for the perfect model, nothing will get done.

 Thanks,

Richard   

In answer to hstry's last query - I guess those kits could, if used carefully (and taken with several shakers of salt) be of use as reference materials for a painting.  But my strong inclination would be to rely much more heavily on the documentary and graphic material that's gotten published in the past few years.  A good place to start is the Conway's History of the Ship series.  The three volumes of it that would be most relevant to what we've been discussing here are The First Ships, The Age of the Galley, and Cogs, Caravels, and Galleons:  The Sailing Ship, 1000-1650.  The most thorough account of the Olympias project is the second, revised edition of The Athenian Trireme, by J.S. Morrison, J.F. Coates, and N.B. Rankov; it contains quite a few drawings and photos.