![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
This article examines the use made of shipping to support Edward I's military campaigns. It concentrates particularly on the period 1299-1301 looking in detail at fleets assembled on the west coast in 1299-1300 and the east coast in 1300-1 to provide logistical support to English armies fighting in Scotland. The evidence relating to these fleets is examined while the arrest of shipping for royal service is placed in the context of what is known about the maritime resources of England as a whole at this time. The role of the Cinque Ports in providing ships for the Crown under their charter obligations is also considered.
Notes
1The details of Edward I's military campaigns in Scotland and Wales can be found in Watson, Under the Hammer, Reid ‘Sea-power’, and Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea, 73-90.
2The Pipe Rolls which exist in a continuous series from the reign of Henry II were made up annually recording the income and expenditure of the Crown on a county by county basis. The information tends to be in a standard format with many details omitted. Special expenditure, like that incurred on armies and ships was removed to a separate set of rolls, the Rolls of Foreign
Accounts in the 1340s.
3At this date a ship's capacity was measured in the number of Bordeaux wine tuns with which it could in theory be loaded.
4The accounts analysed from the National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA), are Exchequer, Accounts Various, TNA: E101/10/30, TNA: E101/13/8, TNA: E101/5/28, TNA: E101/9/7, TNA: E101/6/41, TNA: E101/1029/, TNA: E101/11/2, TNA: E101/13/16.
5Rose, ‘The Provision of Ships’. The accounts published in translation are TNA: E101/10/30 and TNA: E101/ 13/8.
6Lambert, Shipping the Medieval Military and ‘The contribution of the Cinque Ports’.
7Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward I, vol. 3, 149.
8Ibid., vol. 4, 75.
9Rose, ‘The Contribution of the Cinque Ports’, 41-58.
10A commission to arrest ships for the crown issued in March 1301 in fact only requested two ships from London, the same number as Newcastle and Scarborough. Calendar of Patent Rolls 1292—1301, 583.
11This ‘free service’ is noted in the Wardrobe Book for 1299-1300, Topham, Liber Quotidianus, 271-9, and in TNA: E101/13/8.
12The term ‘galley’ used in these documents does not relate to a vessel like the galleys that were the common warships in the Mediterranean. They were, however, oared vessels although also having a sail. In these waters on the west coast of Scotland, similar ships were in use by the followers of the Lord of the Isles.
13Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea, 140. Rodger is basing his estimate on a memorandum in the Patent Rolls of Edward II (1324) which set out the manning levels for a fleet taking the King to Guyenne. This is printed in Hattendorf et al. British Naval Documents, 39.
14TNA: E101/6/41.
15The size of medieval ships was calculated in terms of the number of standard wine barrel (tuns) with which the ship could be loaded. There seems to have been a rough and ready way of estimating this without the need to carry out a ‘test’ loading. The cargo of a ship could occasionally exceed her notional capacity.
16Simon de Montagu, first Lord Montague, had considerable experience as a naval commander. In 1296 he broke the French siege of Bourg-sur-Mer by taking a vessel loaded with supplies for the garrison through the lines of French galleys blockading the town. In the reign of Edward II he was captain of the English fleet in 1307 and admiral in 1310. See Michael Prestwich, ODNB, on Simon de Montagu.
17Nicolson, A History of the Royal Navy, 284-8.
18Rogers, ‘The Siege of Caerlaverock Castle’, 257.
19The accounts relating to the building of these barges have been printed in Rose, ‘The Provision of Ships’, 9-30.
20Ibid., 22-3, 30.
21The best-known example is probably the Hawley family of Dartmouth, about 1390-about 1420. See Rose, ODNB, on John Hawley.
22British Library, Add. MSS 7966A.
23To be found in TNA: E122.
24Kowaleski, Local Customs Accounts, 71-130.
25Ibid., 71-2.
26Rose, ‘The Port of Southampton’, 176-81.
27Rose, ‘The Contribution of the Cinque Ports’, 41-58.
Additional information
Susan Rose taught at both Roehampton University and the Open University. She is now retired. Her research has concentrated on medieval maritime and economic and social history. Her publications included Medieval Naval Warfare, The Medieval Sea, Calais: An English town in France 1347—1558 and The Wine Trade in Medieval Europe. Her new book, England's Medieval Navy (Seaforth) will appear in November 2013.