ABSTRACT
This book focuses on maritime conflicts as a part of the transformation of Europe from the end of the fifteenth century to the mid–seventeenth century. The main lines of this transformation are well known. From a maritime perspective some parts of the process are especially important. Long–distance trade increased and the role of capitalist entrepreneurs in society became more important in large parts of Europe. In the Mediterranean, the Spanish and the Ottoman empires became dominant during the first half of the sixteenth century. In the last decades of that century and the early decades of the seventeenth century the economic and political power of north–western Europe rapidly rose while the Mediterranean stagnated. The importance of the territorially integrated states in Europe rose and they began to develop permanent organisations for enforcing a state monopoly of violence on land as well as at sea. Finally, Europe developed an ability to influence economy and politics on a world–wide scale by its superior competence in warfare at sea. Warfare itself was also transformed. At sea, the institutional, organisational and technical frameworks for war and violence changed decisively between 1500 and 1650.
