CHAPTER ONE Dockyards and administration: the logistics of medieval fleets Wooden ships are graceful, beautiful objects. The first sight of the Viking ships preserved in the Oslo museum is breathtaking. The little fifteenth century ex-voto model from Portugal, now in the Prins Hendrik museum in Rotterdam, may be slightly battered but even so the form of the hull is full and satisfying. Wooden ships, however, are also complex to build, requiring many skilled craftsmen, and are highly perishable especially when afloat. No fleet, no vessel could stay long in a seaworthy condition in our period without the support of some form of repair slip or dock. To build ships required not only access to the necessary raw materials, suitable timber, hemp for cordage and sails, iron for nails and other fittings, but also a pool of workmen with experience in the craft of the shipwright. Beyond this there was also a need for ancillary supplies and tradesmen. Galleys sometimes with crews of well over 1

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The Mediterranean Since the Mediterranean had known extensive seaborne commerce and naval warfare on a fairly large scale both in ancient times and in the period before AD 1000, it is not surprising that the idea of a centrally provided facility for the building and maintenance of ships mainly intended for war, was well accepted during our period. The derivation of the term ‘arsenal’, (usually in this region meaning shipyard rather than munitions or arms store) from the Arabic dar al-sina’a meaning ‘house of work’ is widely accepted. It is also often suggested that the earliest dockyards originated in the areas con quered

by the Arabs in the seventh century. More probably the Byzantine facilities at Clysma and Alexandria were taken over by their Arab conquerors but the term they used spread throughout the area because of the power of their navy at this period. Certainly in papyrus letters from this date and into the ninth century there are many references to some sort of docking facilities available to ships in many ports on the Egyptian and Syrian coasts. Damietta was fortified and the anchorages at Acre and Tyre were protected by chains.1

There were also, of course, dockyards or ship building and repair facilities in the later Byzantine Empire particularly in the immediate vicinity of Constantinople itself. Very little is known about their organisation or their working methods. Chroniclers are not usually interested in this kind of administrative information and more mundane institutional sources have not survived. By the late eleventh century the Byzantine authorities seem to have relied largely on the Venetians to provide the naval element in their forces.

Lewis and Runyan attribute much of the later failure of the Greeks to maintain their hold on the Empire in the face of the expanding power of the Latin West to their reliance on Italian mercenary ships and crews.2 We should, however, be careful of overstating the extent of the decline of Greek seafaring skills. Michael Paleologus rebuilt and fortified the dockyard at Kondoskalion after the restoration of the Greek Empire. Even if the navy of the Empire was of little strategic importance compared with its land forces in the period before the fall of Constantinople, the shipyards and the shipwrights in the neighbourhood of the city were subsequently of great value to the victorious Ottomans

The only important shipbuilding facility established by a Muslim ruler in the period of the Crusades is that built in the early thirteenth century by Ala al-Din Kayqubad in Alanya on the south-west coast of Anatolia. This seems to have had facilities for at least five galleys with ship-sheds and a fortified entrance.

in 1620.6 Page 8 Its precise origins are obscure; a date as early as 1104 has been rejected by Concina.7 Martino da Canal, in his chronicle written between 1262–75, links the first intervention by the Venetian state in shipbuilding with the contract concluded by the republic with would-be crusaders in 1204. Concina found mention of an ‘arsana’ at Venice in 1206 but it is clear that for much of the thirteenth century the building of all types of ships took place in many small yards all over the city. The building of galleys in particular was not confined to a state-run yard. By the end of the century, however, when Venice was engaged in a bitter naval war with Genoa, the need to build and equip large numbers of vessels suitable for use in war was urgent. There were also difficulties in ensuring adequate supplies of timber of the right type and quality, hemp for cordage and sailcloth. In 1302 the Arsenale was placed on a much firmer footing by the Doge and Council with a monopoly of the

the building of galleys. It was closely associated with the neighbouring Tana, a ropewalk dedicated to supplying the needs of the galleys built in the Arsenale. A ‘house of canvas’ a sail loft where canvas was also made followed between 1304–7. At this date it was not, of course, the complex organisation that so impressed its later visitors but it had a dedicated skilled workforce the Arsenalotti, who lived in the area immediately surrounding the Arsenale itself and thus formed a distinct elite group among the artisans of Venice.

These included armouries, foundries and powder mills for explosives. The whole complex was surrounded by walls while the entrance from the Bacino di San Marco along the Rio dell Arsenale, was guarded and adorned by two towers bearing the Lion of St Mark built in 1460 in the latest Renaissance style.9 The Tana was outside the walls, as were the Forni Pubblici where the essential biscotti were baked, but the whole quarter of the Arsenalotti was almost, by the end of the fifteenth century, a city of its own. On the plan of Venice engraved by Jacopo Barbari in 1500, the Arsenale is a prominent and unmistakable feature.

As well as controlling the building of galleys, whether intended for war or for trade, as a state monopoly, the Serenissima as the Venetian republic was known, was also aware of the need to ensure constant supplies of the raw materials needed in the shipyards. Timber had always come for both the communal and private boatyards from the so-called ‘imperial’ (communal) forests in Istria and Dalmatia. In 1464 the Senate set up the Provveditori sopra le legne e boschi whose duty was to ensure the su ppl y of timber, es peciall y oak,

Apart from the extensive facilities in Venice itself the republic also established repair yards, supply depots and even shipbuilding yards in its colonies in the Adriatic and eastern Mediterranean. All were generally known as ‘arsenale’ even if on a much smaller scale. The most important was that at Candia which was capable of building galleys from scratch and which had increasing importance in the fifteenth century in the face of the growing threat of Turkish seapower. The others including those at Corfu, Zante, Zara and Retimo held supplies and could perform repairs but little is known of the detail of their organisation.

In the same way there are references to facilities known by some variant of ‘arsenal’, (arsene, drassanes, tarsianatus, tersana) in many other Mediterranean ports. In some the area formerly occupied by the arsenal is known and there are occasionally some surviving remains of the buildings. Accounts relating to the building of galleys and other ships, usually for the ruler concerned, can also be found. It is, however, very hard to get any clear picture of the operation of these shipyards over a period of time or the nature of their workforce. It is probably the case that, given the perishable nature of wooden ships, most ports of any size had facilities of some sort for the repair and even the building of ships.