On land and at sea: maritime work and maritime workers in medieval Catalonia

Abstract

At the end of 1431, the king of the Crown of Aragon, Alfonso V the Magnanimous, sent a ship to Genoa for the purpose of purchasing several anchors that he had previously ordered. He also told the skipper to purchase 200 pieces of timber to make 200 oars, and assorted ropes and rigging for the vessel. The ship set sail from Barcelona, with instructions to use the voyage commercially in order to make it profitable. Until Genoa, the man in charge was a merchant from Barcelona with experience of trading with Italy, who had agreed to stopovers in Ibiza to load salt or any other possible merchandise that he might indicate and in Majorca to load whatever he could find. Once this cargo had been unloaded in Genoa, the Barcelona merchant was discharged from the ship, and it was the skipper who had to negotiate the cargo to be loaded for the return trip. It could be unloaded in Barcelona, Valencia and/or Mallorca, the three main western ports in the Crown of Aragon. This simple example represents many of the characteristics associated with medieval shipbuilding and sailing in the Mediterranean. It allows us to observe to what extent, in certain circumstances and regardless of cost and profit, shipowners considered it worthwhile to obtain equipment or raw materials in certain places, due to the prestige of their technical and marine production (anchors, cordage) or the quality of certain raw materials (wood for oars, usually beech because it was more hard-wearing). lt also enables us to observe the "recycling" or the long life of ships. The ship sent to Genoa had been seized in Marseille; its previous history is unknown; it had been repaired or fitted out in the port of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, for reuse by the king of Catalonia-Aragon; it was then freighted to Genoa, combining the Crown's prívate interests with commercial purposes first; then, in 1432, it was used in Alfonso the Magnanimous' expedition to Djerba against the king of Tunis; after that it was almost certainly reused in further trips. The example shows, albeit in this case subtly and indirectly, the different nautical characteristics and the varied uses of the ports on the Catalan coast.