Archäologische, archivalische und bildliche Indikatoren für den sozio-kulturellen Wandel des Lebens an Bord von Schiffen des 16. Jahrhunderts in Nordeuropa

Abstract

For many centuries and to the very present, the ship has played an important role as a socio-economic connecting link between the world’s cultures. In their complexity and unity, ship relics are thus more representative of the interaction between man and the sea than other forms of archaeological sources. Yet the typological designation of the remains of ships - the primary focus of research activities in maritime archaeology for many decades - reflects only one facet of this complexity and limits itself to analyses of ergological characteristics if it concentrates solely on the technology of the ship’s body. This article investigates the manner in which man made the ship’s body into a home, focussing on the society that developed on ships during a period of radical change in ship construction and the organisation of shipping in Northern Europe (1450-1600). This was the era in which the war ship replaced the practise of chartering merchant vessels for the purposes of combat. It was no longer the strength of the armoured fighters struggling to board the enemy ship that determined the outcome of a battle at sea, but the cannonade of "pure" war ships fighting side by side in a line formation. The techniques of warfare in general were developing rapidly during this period, a circumstance mirrored in the process of social specification that took place on board the three- and four-masted war vessels - as made evident to us primarily in the new regulations defining the duties and responsibilities of the various members of the ship’s company, accessible today through sources indicated in archives. We focus not only on the higher ranks such as that of captain, secretary and commissary of the stores, their duties and specific attributes within the ship’s company, but also on those of the craftsmen, the remaining members of the ship’s company and the town-based service providers. Despite the fact that the source material, in all its various categories, is found only sporadically, we nevertheless succeed in obtaining multi-faceted insight into the societies on ships - societies much refined in comparison to life on board the cogs of the Middle Ages - thanks primarily to the fertile symbiosis between history and archaeology.