ABSTRACT

The rise of the broadside sailing warship, closely connected to the rise of the nations of the North Atlantic to a position of commercial and economic dominance in Europe, has long been accepted as one of the most important technological developments of modern times. Galley fleets used their ordnance against targets ashore to cover landings, to cover debarkations and resupply missions and as floating siege batteries against seaside fortresses. An understanding of the way in which galleys were initially armed permits a comparison of the way in which ordnance was viewed and used by the Mediterranean nations and by those of the North Atlantic. Bearing these considerations in mind, this chapter presents an examination of the early provision of artillery armament on Mediterranean war galleys, setting aside for the time the whole issue of tactics and the basic question of how the galley came to be the dominant type of warship in the Mediterranean in the first place.