This volume of essays is of unusual interest to military and naval historians, having had its genesis in a conference or symposium held at Arrabida, Portugal under the auspices of the Fondaço Oriente in February 2002. This symposium had a clear aim: to "draw broad conclusions on the role and characteristics of armed force at sea before 1650." The book admirably fulfils this aim in a collection of essays by leading specialists in the field. In some ways it is invidious to single out individual contributions for comment but what follows below reflects the reviewer's interests and in no way detracts from the quality of the contribution of those which are not discussed in detail. In his introductory chapter John Hattendorf takes on the argument whether A.T.Mahan's theories of naval supremacy and the control of the seas, based on the navies of France and England from the second half of the seventeenth century to his own day, have any relevance to earlier periods. Hattendorf's analysis of Mahan's approach is valuable in itself but one is not surprised to find that Mahan's views have little applicability to an era where it is hard to find any 'European great-power navies.'The remainder of the book is divided into three sections: 'Northern Europe', 'Southern Europe', and 'Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century Europe'. The first section includes contributions dealing with naval force in the Viking Age (Niels Lund), later Sacandinavian warships, (Jan Brill), and two essays on the use of ships by the English Crown 1200-1500 (T.J.Runyan and Ian Friel). These conveniently draw together material available in a variety of other publications and provide an overview of current thinking. The second section looks not only at the navies of Genoa and Venice as might be expected (John Dotson, Michel Balard and Bernard Doumerc) but also at the Byzantine fleets of the tenth century and at the sea power of Iberia 1000-1650. John H.Pryor's essay on Byzantium and the sea is particularly valuable. Pryor has a mastery of the sources which are not easily available, or are untranslated from Greek. The promised appearance of newly translated versions of some of these texts, including, for example, the Anonymous Naval Warfare, in his forthcoming The Byzantine Navy will be something to celebrate. In the meantime, this essay has some very interesting points to make regarding the design and operation of the dromons of this period. This covers not only the amount of drinking water needed every day by a crew rowing in the climate of the Eastern Mediterranean but also the method of stowing such awkwardly shaped containers as amphorae needed to store the water. His section on 'Tactics and Strategy' is likewise very valuable focusing on the disappearance at about this time of "the only 'ship-killing' weapon ever known before the invention of explosive projectiles: the waterline ram." He is rightly dismissive of the effectiveness of 'Greek fire'; fire at sea could be as dangerous to the user as to his opponent. His description of the cautious tactics adopted at this time in encounters between galley fleets, a preliminary 'missile phase' (using rocks, arrows, and the like) followed by grappling an enemy vessel, is, of course that adopted by later fleets in these waters, at least until the advent of useful shipboard artillery. His final conclusion demonstrates clearly the inapplicability of Mahanian theories to this theatre of war, making the point that the defence of Byzantium rested on the success of its land armies to which fleets were only an adjunct. Lawrence Mott's contribution on Iberian Naval power covers a much longer period than most of the other chapters and perhaps suffers in comparison since it must perforce deal largely in generalities. The last section on 'Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century Europe' includes material not easily found elsewhere. This is particularly the case with the chapter by Louis Sicking on naval power in the Hapsburg Netherlands before the Dutch Revolt and the rapid emergence of the Dutch Republic as a major naval power in the seventeenth century and that by Jan Glete on Naval power in the Baltic in the sixteenth century, a period when the Hanseatic League began to decline. Sicking argues that the 'maritime potential' of a state is crucial in the assessment of its sea power. In the Netherlands the number of vessels owned by private individuals not by the state (which "hardly ever possessed ships") is what matters. The standing navy founded in 1550 had only a marginal role. The way in which forces of merchant ships were used to pursue an aggressive strategy against the commercial rivals of the Netherlands, in the Baltic especially, has clear links with that pursued at a later date by the Dutch East India Company. It also shows how Dutch maritime strength was only available to her Hapsburg rulers when the commercial interests of the Dutch ship-owners and traders coincided with the political interests of their rulers.Glete's aim is to explain why the waning naval strength of the Hanse towns was replaced by that of Denmark-Norway and Sweden. Here he lays considerable weight on technological changes particularly the use of effective shipboard artillery. He also points out that the Hanse towns were not able to develop the much stronger naval administrations of the Nordic kingdoms which were engaged in building more powerful states as well as in developing their naval power. His work is based on a mastery of the sources in Scandinavia but it is a pity that those seeking more information will have to consult the bibliography in his Warfare at Sea, 1500-1650, (London, 2000) since there are very few references here.
In the concluding chapter, 'Toward a history of medieval sea power', Richard Unger attempts to draw general conclusions based on the work of those represented in this book, a task which was signalled in the introduction to the volume. This chapter does not shrink from making explicit the large aims of the editors; their aim was nothing less than to construct a whole theory of medieval naval history, to "explain why what happened did in fact happen". In some ways Unger's conclusions are unexceptional. It is not surprising to learn that regional, commercial, political and technical differences all had a role to play in the way in which European states developed navies and came to understand the idea of naval domination. It may, however be more controversial to claim that "the history of sea power in the era offers a graphic example of how and why modern states emerged." Not all European states, after all, have significant coastlines and do not appear to have suffered greatly from this lack. Nevertheless the overview of the whole collection of essays provided by this final chapter is very useful and the volume itself is certainly worthy of a place on the bookshelves of any serious naval or maritime historian.
SUSAN ROSE
University of Surrey Roehampton
Page Added July 2003