Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Richard Britnell: An Appreciation
- 1 Unreal Wages: Long-Run Living Standards and the ‘Golden Age’ of the Fifteenth Century
- 2 Minimum Wages and Unemployment Rates in Medieval England: The Case of Old Woodstock, Oxfordshire, 1256–1357
- 3 Crisis Management in London's Food Supply, 1250–1500
- 4 Grain Shortages in Late Medieval Towns
- 5 Market Regulation in Fifteenth-Century England
- 6 Self-Government in the Small Towns of Late Medieval England
- 7 Marketing and Trading Networks in Medieval Durham
- 8 Peasant Opportunities in Rural Durham: Land, Vills and Mills, 1400–1500
- 9 The Shipmaster as Entrepreneur in Medieval England
- 10 Cheating the Boss: Robert Carpenter's Embezzlement Instructions (1261×1268) and Employee Fraud in Medieval England
- 11 The Public Life of the Private Charter in Thirteenth-Century England
- 12 Luxury Goods in Medieval England
- Index of People and Places
- Bibliography of the Writings of Richard Britnell
- Tabula Gratulatoria
9 - The Shipmaster as Entrepreneur in Medieval England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Richard Britnell: An Appreciation
- 1 Unreal Wages: Long-Run Living Standards and the ‘Golden Age’ of the Fifteenth Century
- 2 Minimum Wages and Unemployment Rates in Medieval England: The Case of Old Woodstock, Oxfordshire, 1256–1357
- 3 Crisis Management in London's Food Supply, 1250–1500
- 4 Grain Shortages in Late Medieval Towns
- 5 Market Regulation in Fifteenth-Century England
- 6 Self-Government in the Small Towns of Late Medieval England
- 7 Marketing and Trading Networks in Medieval Durham
- 8 Peasant Opportunities in Rural Durham: Land, Vills and Mills, 1400–1500
- 9 The Shipmaster as Entrepreneur in Medieval England
- 10 Cheating the Boss: Robert Carpenter's Embezzlement Instructions (1261×1268) and Employee Fraud in Medieval England
- 11 The Public Life of the Private Charter in Thirteenth-Century England
- 12 Luxury Goods in Medieval England
- Index of People and Places
- Bibliography of the Writings of Richard Britnell
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
The successful shipmaster or magister of a medieval ship possessed many skills: navigational expertise to guide the vessel to its destination; commercial acumen to dispose of cargoes in his charge; management ability to employ, victual and direct a crew of men who were often of disparate backgrounds and ethnicities; business savvy to cope with wily seamen, shore-side workers and merchants in foreign ports; initiative to handle the dangers and risks that pervaded life at sea; and a basic understanding of law and international politics to steer his ship, cargo and crew through the dangerous waters of the medieval seas. This essay focuses on the entrepreneurial skills that medieval English shipmasters needed to be successful, particularly in terms of shipowning, naval service, remuneration, trade, managerial skills and the hazy border between privateering and piracy. Shipmasters often had an important stake in individual trading voyages, particularly when they owned all or part of the ship or had some share of the cargo. Even when their ownership stake was small, their ability to react quickly to ever-changing circumstances — whether a shift in the wind that kept them in a foreign port for weeks on end, or the loss of cargo in a storm, attacks by pirates, a shortage of the goods customers wanted or the loss of crewmen to illness or death — was essential since they were most responsible for the ultimate profit or loss of the voyage.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Commercial Activity, Markets and Entrepreneurs in the Middle AgesEssays in Honour of Richard Britnell, pp. 165 - 182Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011