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2015-11-23 -Short Attention Span Theater-

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Posted by swksvolFF 2015-11-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 I had a good question and assistance from Trailing Wife. The question was, does the galley crew include soldiers. It is a good question, not only were there pirates, but the Genoese who were just as competent seafarers and the two peoples hated each other, and had a series of wars where each others' shipping was targeted. A typical outfitting would only have a couple days worth of provisions, mainly water was an issue, so ships would hug the coastline making shipping fairly predictable, especially in The Black Sea where there were no islands to hop around. And the Venetians and Genoese both competed heavily in that arena as trade there bypassed the surging Ottoman Turks and Mamluks, cutting out a middleman:

What was different about the Venetians was the loyalty of the rowing crew. Crowley explains that helped the Venetian sea experience, even going so far as allowing them to store goods underneath their bench to trade at the next port. The Venetian rowers were expected to be the men at arms in a fight. Also, the design of their merchant vessels towered over the traditional oared ships at the time, further giving a Venetian merchant the advantage.

When a Venetian bought a ship, the company didn't so much as buy it, but rent it from the state, and the state required certain minimum standards before leaving port, which is the crossbowmen. In a war fleet, additional soldiers would be carried in stead of trade cargo. They even developed a ship with a drop down front where cavalry, the horses shipped strapped as hammocks, could exit straight onto the beach.

In the Age of Oar, even sailed vessels relied on the oarsman. There is a harrowing account of a ship which was becalmed (h/t TW) on how the food rots and the water becomes undrinkable, the people start to die from disease. A calm was as dangerous as a storm.

Towards the end of the Battle of Chioggia, an unpopular choice of City Commander nearly led to revolt, prompting the release of Captain Pisani, who had been imprisoned for a debacle which let the Genoese navy sail into the Adriatic.

Page 212, "You want us to go in the galleys," went up the cry in Saint Mark's Square, "give us our Captain Pisani!"

The Senate eventually acquiesces, and the next day the benches for volunteers into the navy were overwhelmed .

Now, I have to give credit to this book, and all of Mr. Crowley's books, for its excellent reference section - bibliography, index, notes which include the validity of quotes. Not such a big deal with the Venetians as he said they found some 40 miles of matriculate documents, as say in 1453 where whatever documents there were, were destroyed. Mr. Crowley had the humility to point out certain passages where the integrity of the source were suspect.

And about those standards before leaving port: everything was rated down to which ropes were of what quality and how they can be used, and shows how that paid off with an account of a ship which first survives a brutal storm and then is threatened to be blown into the rocks and is saved only by the quality of the ship, then the quality of the anchor rope.

I have been to St. Mark's square, that for me was easy to picture that scene. The storm at sea, he had me chewing my fingers.

There is an account, especially in 1453, of a handful of Venetian ships of this type trying to run the Ottoman blockade when the wind falters and they get surrounded by the Ottoman navy - and fight well enough long enough that the wind picks up again and they can escape. Mehmed was furious at his navy's inability to conquer these ship. Empires of the Sea further chronicles the Venetian seafaring and vessel construction during The Battle of Lapanto where the Venetians anchored the allied left with what would be nothing short of battleships of the age.

Each Venetian rower was also a soldier, with his weapons stored under his bench ready to fight.

On reflection, freeing the oarsmen is a last resort. The professional soldiers would be armored and equipped with pikes, an arquebus, so forth. The whip and the chain would be an oarsman's normal duty, but if it got down to all hands on deck, more often than not a Venetian captain could draw on his rowing crew to defend the ship. Captain's call I would guess. At Lapanto, both sides promised freedom for the rowers, some unshackled them, most stayed shackled, one Ottoman ship had the oarsmen slip from their chains and attack their former masters.

The Venetians were apparently good at winning the loyalty of the crew, likely from trade incentives and sailing skill, but as more and more ships took to the water, there was a strain on manpower and slaves more and more often took the oars, which would be a problem for the captain, especially if the slaves were from competing ideologies: Genoese, Orthodox, Muslim, Slav, Criminal.

Part of the challenge reviewing this book is that most of the passages can be steeped for five minutes and sipped on for fifteen.

Posted by swksvolFF 2015-11-23 11:31|| 2015-11-23 11:31|| Front Page Top

#2 If I ever get on my feet again I'm listening to this book; I have the audiobook version of _Empires of the Sea_ and enjoyed it a lot.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2015-11-23 12:07|| 2015-11-23 12:07|| Front Page Top

#3 Snowy, it was that audio which turned me on to this series. The narrator, John Lee, IMHO reads with great emotion, hits the accents, and drew me in so tight I had to pause the player when driving in traffic.

I picked it up for a road trip, thinking, hey I've been to Malta, enjoyed the $5 gift store book, why not? Holy. Crap.

There was a time when I simply had no time to read: another good narrator, IMHO, is the series featuring Charlton Griffin - what I listened to was The Jewish War (Josephus), Julius Caesar, Hannibal (Harold Lamb), Charlemagne, Alexander the Great (Arrian), The March of the Ten Thousend (Xenophon), The Twelve Caesars (Seutonis), Tamerlane (Harold Lamb).

I thought he did a fine job with all of them, but found Hannibal absolutely engrossing.

Posted by swksvolFF 2015-11-23 12:37|| 2015-11-23 12:37|| Front Page Top

#4 Charlemagne - Richard Winston

Posted by swksvolFF 2015-11-23 12:38|| 2015-11-23 12:38|| Front Page Top

#5 Good notes, swksvolFF. I contacted you just with a little question of clarification, and got in return an education. Hog heaven! :-)

Posted by trailing wife 2015-11-23 13:36|| 2015-11-23 13:36|| Front Page Top

#6 In the beginning there was much a common purpose..Venice!..and everyone grew up as neighbors in the wooden town sticking out of the ocean. You might enlist as a rower, and know that the chains and whip are part of the job, but there was probably not a total stranger on the ship.

This is just me talking, and Mr. Crowley does mention towards the end of the book that fissures had developed between the crews and oarsmen. As Venice acquired wealth and colonies, fewer poor were available for the brutal job - sitting on a plank, exposed to the elements, constant rowing, and if he was lucky enough to get enough food and water to relieve himself, it was there on the plank. That is a tough life, but as they traveled and traded, returned to Venice, raised a family, told their children stories and taught them trading skills, the 'poor' of Venice were significantly better off than their contemporaries, so those children would go off and try their luck in trade and there was a diminishing pool of oar labor being produced by Venice.

I would say an accelerator of that divide was the second taking of Constantinople, 1204, an event this books does get into detail about where 1453 just sort of mentions it; why if I could do it again I would start with this book. This time Constantinople is thoroughly ravaged and the wealth of the city is taken to Venice. But not just the bullion, the trade rights to both Constantinople and The Black Sea, as well as various islands is where the wealth was. Ships were built, businesses established, a massive increase in overall wealth in Venice and ventures needed ships built, everyone benefitted. Fewer rowers.

It occurred to me this morning that if I were to sail a fleet against the Genoese I would want Venetians on the oars. They may be exhausted from the journey, more so by battle maneuvers, unarmored, and unskilled with weapons, but they could reload, tend the wounded, and with pikes they could at least present a bristle of steel versus a boarding party.

The Battle of Chioggia, 1378, Venice had 30 ships in storage which were filled only after the release of Captain Pisani, who many believed was wrongfully jailed as a scapegoat of disaster, allegedly his subordinates ignored his order and charged the Genoese off the boot of Italy, right into a trap. Only a handful of the fleet survived.

Also, the passage of the storm at sea remarked the passengers heard the oarsmen rolling about on deck, which would imply they were unchained, which at some level the crew trusted the oarsmen to not mutiny after the danger had passed.

There is a ton of other information here: the various acts which received scorn from the Papacy, trade rules with the Mamluks or The Golden Hoard, dealings in Cyprus, the Battle of Negroponte, office appointments and conditions, the immense gathering of intelligence, and just day to day dealings.

For Rantburgers, it is a fairly easy and quick read, and with some imagination can really extract some understanding of the greatest trading nation on earth at the time, and the general mood of the Mediterranean at that point in history.

Posted by swksvolFF 2015-11-23 17:51|| 2015-11-23 17:51|| Front Page Top

#7 The whip and the chain would be an oarsman's normal duty...

Were the oarsmen slaves? I know they weren't in the classical age, and I'd be surprised if they were any other time. OK -- not all that surprised if the Muslims used galley slaves.

Slaves have no motivation not to screw up, and when you're rowing like that, screwing up is easy. Throw off the rhythm, don't draw the oar in quickly enough, on and on...

Posted by Rob Crawford 2015-11-23 22:47|| 2015-11-23 22:47|| Front Page Top

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