The Social History of English Seamen 1485–1649 by Cheryl Fury (ed.)
The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2012, £65 (hb) 350 pages, with 15 figures, 11 tables, bibliography, index
ISBN 978-1-84383-689-6
This important themed collection of ten chapters marks both the end of a pioneering era of research into the English seaman of Tudor and early Stuart era, and the baseline for the next phase of study. While each chapter has a single author they are not identified on the contents page, revealing something of the ambition and unity of the project. Editor Cheryl Fury provides the introduction, conclusion and four chapters, dealing with the work of Geoffrey Scammell who, like Kenneth Andrews, provided much of the impetus for work in this field, the Elizabethan maritime community, health and healthcare, and sailors' wives and widows. David Loades's overview sets the sailors in the national and international context, while Ann Stirland exploits the rich archaeological evidence from the Mary Rose wreck to discuss the characteristics of seamen's bodies. The mechanics of their work, be they sailors or archers, can be seen in their bones, along with diseases, injuries and diet. James Alsop examines the lives and deaths of sailors in the small but significant English commerce with the Guinea coast of West Africa, one of the best documented of all contemporary trades. Vincent Patarino assesses the religious culture of shipboard life, Geoffrey Hudson takes a long view of the provision of health and social care before the establishment of the Greenwich Hospital, stressing the survival of older local systems and networks that functioned in counties like Devon, which were too far away from the London and Chatham focused national effort. Older accounts tend to work back from the centralized national systems of the 1690s, highlighted by the Greenwich Hospital, rather than forward from the seafaring communities. He concludes that these older systems were effective. John Appleby addresses the upsurge of English piracy that followed peace with Spain in 1604. Over the next 20 years one-time privateers and rovers found opportunities in a range of piratical activities, moving into oceanic crime, entering the Mediterranean, and moving into other piratical communities, Dutch, Hugenot French, and Muslim corsair states. As the Stuart state achieved greater political control over the marginal areas, like the South West Coast of Ireland, English piracy became less significant, replaced by new types of predator.
The men and women who emerge from this fine-grained study are far closer to their eighteenth-century successors than was imagined a century ago. Sailors were mostly young, unattached and capable; they developed professional skills, close friendships and acquired families and possessions. These last have left a lasting mark on the subject, through the unusually rich evidence of wills and legal proceedings. Most left the sea at an early age. Wives and families used a range of strategies to deal with the long term absence, and not infrequent loss of their husbands. Remarriage within the community was common, while wealthier women were more likely to remain widows and live on their resources. Seamen's wills reveal much about their family life, attachments and ambitions.
Tudor and Stuart seafarers were individuals; they built strong bonds of community and identity through their profession, and their regional/local links. Their families tended to share the same background, and much of the support network that sustained them was similarly local. These men resented the demands of central government; impressment for war service cut their pay and increased the risks. They were quick to protest, the occasional ‘riot’ in London seems to have opened the royal coffers. The poverty of contemporary English Governments is a recurrent theme; it held back the evolution of a standing navy, and national systems of recruitment, placing a premium on exploiting the seafaring community. Superstition and faith were closely aligned in the minds of Reformation sailors, but while older accounts stress their maritime identity Patarino argues for a wider cultural connexion. The culture of coastal communities was not separate, even if it was different. Fury provides a striking insight into seamen's diet, which was strikingly traditional, and the impact such habits had on health care. While major trading concerns like the East India Company and Merchant Adventurers built up useful medical knowledge on critical complaints like scurvy and calenture on long voyages, small traders and coasters were less troubled. The state lacked the economic resources and bureaucratic strength to match the work of the large companies. Again and again the discussion of key themes develops from one or two older texts, works that pioneered new archives, notably the High Court of Admiralty, while some well-known quotes appear in two or three papers. The book develops from those older texts, much of the new work being based on the detailed examination of national and local records, building up the sense of community and individual through the archive.
While it is not a textbook the coverage is comprehensive and, in combination with an excellent bibliography and deep engagement with the extant literature English Seamen will be the baseline for future researchers in this field.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.2013.767549
© Andrew Lambert