. Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance. n board ship was long subsequent to theinvention of fire-arms, and was very slowly adopted by most navies. Fromthe fact that, in the middle of the fifteenth century, a vessel of sevenhundred and fifty tons burden had only a single piece of artillery, andone of fifteen hundred only eight guns, and as for a commission of four NAVAL MATTERS. 95 months—the usual length of a ships commission in the Middle Ages—eachpiece of artillery was only provided with five-and-twenty to thirty rounds,we see with what difficul
. Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance. n board ship was long subsequent to theinvention of fire-arms, and was very slowly adopted by most navies. Fromthe fact that, in the middle of the fifteenth century, a vessel of sevenhundred and fifty tons burden had only a single piece of artillery, andone of fifteen hundred only eight guns, and as for a commission of four NAVAL MATTERS. 95 months—the usual length of a ships commission in the Middle Ages—eachpiece of artillery was only provided with five-and-twenty to thirty rounds,we see with what difficulty and how slowly the new style of weaponsreplaced the old one. In the ships inventories of 1441, side by side withbombardes, we find invariably figuring large cross-bows, viretons, darts, longlances, and complete sets of armour for the sailors. Things were not muchmore advanced than they were in 1379 at the celebrated naval battle ofChioggia, in which the Venetians made use, against the Genoese, of cannonconstructed of pieces of metal, welded together and covered with a casing. Fig. 91.—Prows of Galleys armed with the Spur.—From Drawings by Breugel the Elder,engraved by Fr. Huys (1550). of wooden staves, bound round with stout iron bands and ropes. Some ofthese primitive guns exploded at their first discharge; one alone survives,and is now to be seen in the arsenal at Venice, the solitary specimen of thefirst attempt at projecting iron and stone shot from a tube by the ignition ofsaltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal. More than a hundred years passed away before marine artillery attainedany importance ; it was not till the close of the sixteenth century thatBrantome was able to put on record that he had seen in the Mediterraneana galliot armed with two hundred pieces of artillery, belonging to Cosmo Medici, the Grand-Duke of Tuscany. The galleys of the Middle Ages and of the sixteenth century, armed at 96 NAVAL MATTERS. first with an iron spur and afterwards with four
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Keywords: ., booksubjectcostume, booksubjectmiddleages, booksubjectmilitaryar
