Daniel

One of the things I'm really interested in, and will probably get round to researching one day, is whether many levellers or former levellers made it to the Caribbean and became buccaneers, or influenced those who later became buccaneer. Since levellerism was strongest in the New Model Army, and since it was the NMA that captured and held Jamaica for the English, I think it is entirely possible. Was the supposed socialist stance of some pirates actually a hangover of English Civil War political experiment? Rediker's going to love me!

If you prove that one, Foxe, DT from Piratesinfo is going to have himself a hell of a laugh. That's been one of his pet theses for years!

English Civil War is outside what I studied for my thesis, so I won't claim any familiarity with the Diggers, Levellers, etc. I won't dispute that they were political movements, but I had always heard that their political stance sprang pretty directly from their religious doctrine. Were they religiously disunited while pursuing common political goals?

How about John Knox and his Scottish Kirk?  He was a devotee to Calvin I believe.

Seems that Cromwell attracted all likes of odd creatures.

Right. The Church of Scotland ended up a whole lot more the way the Calivnists wanted than the Church of England did. Though even the Scots had their equivalent of the Puritans, called the Covenanters.

(I wrote my master's thesis on Calvinist religious doctrine, can ya tell? )

Hey thanks. Do you know what other types of dissenters would be around during the GAoP time frame? Aren't the Quakers pretty much established by now as well? And did not Locke pretty much start laying down his theories concerning religious tolerance about now?

Hector

Yes, there were Quakers, as well as Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, I think even some Anabaptists. Cromwell's New Model Army was filled with all kinds of different odd religious persuasions.

Isn't Calvinism pretty much the same then? How are they related?

Hector

Exactly the same as Calvinism, in fact. A Puritan was basically an English Calvinist who refused to accept the Church of England's concessions to old Catholic practices, like keeping the hierarchy of priests, bishops, and archbishops or certain elements of the old Catholic liturgy. The Puritans used a system of presbyters (elders) and deacons exactly reflecting Genevan Calvinist practice. Many of the English Puritans visited or corresponded with John Calvin in Geneva, and his successor Theodore de Beza, and as I recall the first English Puritan Bible was printed in Calvinist Geneva, decades before the King James version.

Both religions were based also in works... i.e. I must do this in order to get to Heaven, instead of just accepting that Christ died to pay for all sins. It is almost a flip flop then between the Puritans and the Catholics, the Catholics, trying to work things out for themselves by agreeing to do this or that and the Puritans almost trying to force folks to do good works by their strict laws.

Well, the Puritans would never admit that theirs was a works-based reilgion, though sometimes it looked that way. The Puritans were absolute, committed predestinationists who believed that God chose who went to Heaven and who went to Hell before you were ever born. The strict social regulation was intended to glorify God for its own sake, not get anyone into Heaven; that outcome had been predetermined.

Well, what distinguished the Puritans was not that they had such a highly developed sense of sin; the Catholics matched them for that. What distinguished them was how they looked at their neighbors' sins. Old-style Catholicism was all about utilizing the goodness of your neighbors to make up for your own sins: getting absolution from the priest in return for penance, getting holy-living monks and nuns to pray for you, bringing the saints in on your side, and of course accepting the sacrifice of the ultimate good neighbor, Jesus.

The Puritans concentrated so much more on repressing the neighbors' sins and keeping them from ever happening, rather than getting them forgiven. Ultimately it was almost like they wanted to get everybody in their whole society to be disciplined and regimented as harshly as the monks and nuns of the Catholic church, (with the exception that marriage would be allowed so the church could continue).

Yeah, Lee's book was published in 1974. His full name is Robert Earl Lee, unlike the Confederate general who I think was named Robert Edward Lee.

I was going to mention, there's a certain appropriateness in the pistols you've given Blackbeard: Queen Anne pistols on the Queen Anne's Revenge. Is that a normal size shell guard on the cutlass, though? It looks small to me, but that's not my area of expertise.

Looking forward to seeing the map. Thanks again for the excellent work, Josh.

...a 1709 map of the town which is the only GAOP era imagery we have of Charleston, including the famous half-moon battery.

Half moon battery? Really?

When I was reading through Robert E. Lee's Blackbeard: A Reappraisal of his Life and Times, I was struck by his claim that Charleston had no artillery to defend against Blackbeard's ships. I thought it was odd that such an important port would have no shore batteries. So in fact the map does show that Charleston had a battery?

Josh, that's amazing! Thanks!

Alas. Thanks for catching that one quickly, Joshua; it would have been a shame to raise Petee's hopes only to dash them again.

At least that takes some of the onus for the bucket boot image off of poor Howard Pyle, if they were already being shown in boots by 1830.

Hey, Petee, did you see this one?

This same picture appears in Angus Konstam's Osprey book Pirates: 1660-1730. It says it represents William Phillips, active off England from 1722 to 1724. The figure of Phillips is wearing bucket boots, and a pirate seated at the left also has them.

Of course, it doesn't prove anything unless it can be traced to the period. Anyone know the origin of this one?

This is great stuff, especially the pictures by Callenish and Mrs. Barbossa. More, please!

I wish I could draw like this. I've tried drawing some of the characters from my pirate stories, but all my faces look like Jack-o-lanterns.

Real men wear pink!

I'm just curious. Seeing that the GAoP is acknowledged as height of pyracy, exactly how many ships do we know the locations of their wrecks? I may have missed that somewhere...

Also, assuming the sailor aboard those ships all died, how far would the sea have swept them from the ship? Surely no one would believe the entire crew would have been in the bowels of the ship. Entirely opposite - I would suppose a ship that was going down would be vacated even to the possibility of the crew press-ganged into service aboard the opposing ship. (Assuming the ship was lost in battle.)

Just a couple questions to satisfy my curiosity.

Well, remember most ships taken by pirates were not wrecked. The pirates usually either took the ship for themselves or let the ship go after ransacking it. The three exceptions that come instantly to mind are a ship that Stede Bonnet destroyed to keep news of his piracy from Barbados, a slave ship Bartholomew Roberts destroyed as a warning to the port he was attacking, and a Boston ship Blackbeard destroyed because Boston authorities had recently hanged some pirates. In all three cases, the pirates burned the ship, so there would be very little wreckage left.

It's interesting, I think more wrecks of pirate ships than prize ships have been located today. I know of four pirate ship wrecks that have been located: Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge, Billy One-Hand's Fiery Dragon, Kidd's Adventure Galley, and Bellamy's Whydah. I don't know of even one wreck of a pirate prize that has been located, though maybe someone else does...

You wrote: "One thing that I believe qualifies..." Well, belief certainly doesn't qualify for fact.

We've had so many beliefs and opinions here that it'd take a cutlass to hack through them and get to the bottom of things.

But even if it isn't, it still can't be a ship, in 1625, without three masts.

This is so silly that I will not even respond to it.

You believe what you want, leave the knowledge to others.

I hadn't see those pictures of the beurtschip you found. You're right, it does have lower decks on it, which would disqualify it from being a boat under Falconer, though maybe not by the sources Foxe quoted.

It is true that belief does not qualify as fact. Since, in regard to sailors and ships, all you have done is state your belief, it indeed does not qualify as fact. I, on the other hand, have provided sources as close to the period as I can find, that so far stand unrefuted.

I will add that of course I would not apply the period definition of a ship to modern ships. But we are talking about a period vessel here.

"A boat can fit on a ship, but a ship can't fit on a boat"

Well, so you say, but on what basis? Did somebody in period say that?

One thing that I believe qualifies the beurtschip as a boat is that it appears to be open. I don't see any portholes or any other sign of a lower deck. But even if it isn't, it still can't be a ship, in 1625, without three masts.

From Wikipedia, Sailor:

A sailor is also specifically an enlisted member of a naval force.

I'll agree with Wikipedia that that is one meaning of "sailor." But that would in no way disqualify waisters, foc'slemen or afterguard, all of whom could be found enlisted in the Navy and serving in those roles on Navy ships.

As I understand it, "brig" the shipboard prison and "brig" the sailing vessel share a common origin. In the 18th century (post-GAoP, I think), old brigs that weren't seaworthy anymore would be dismasted and used as prison hulks for miscreant sailors. Thus brig acquired its second meaning as a prison, which was later applied to a prison room aboard ship. Its use in movies set in early 18th century or before is probably anachronistic.

I do recall reading in GAoP sources about sailors being confined in iron "bilboes" that held their feet. I'd have to dig out old notes to know the names of the sources though, and I never found out where aboard ship the bilboes were.

One aspect of "pirate costuming" at faires etc. that I find amusing is the preponderance of the skull and crossbones motif. I doubt that pirates would have so blatantly advertised their illegal status, no matter how pirate-friendly the port. Perhaps the bolder fellows sported discrete symbols; but "most," no. Thoughts?

I agree that it wouldn't make much sense for the pirates to have a skull and crossbones in town. The Jolly Roger was intended to warn your victims to surrender while there was still time. When you're not actively robbing people, there's no point in displaying it.

If I were actively seeking to justify bringing a Jolly Roger to the ren faire, I would say I was plundering the fair. Granted, Jolly-Roger-era pirates usually didn't attack shore settlements. But George Roberts did report that Ned Low's pirates robbed a small island settlement somewhere (Tenerife, was it?). Granted, even Roberts does not say that Low flew a Jolly Roger at the time. But I suppose you could kinda sorta justify a Jolly Roger ashore that way. And for faire purposes, it does have the great virtue that it tells people right away what your persona is.

In this thread I found myself falling afoul of our good Capn Enigma, who protested my use of nautical terms.

First, we disagree about the use of the words "ship" and "boat," when I described the beurtschip as a "cargo boat."

Now, frankly, I never heard of a beurtschip before that thread. But Gentleman of Fortune gave us a picture of one, and from what I see, that is no ship, because it only has one mast. I don't know what to call that spar holding up the weather clew of the sail, but it clearly can't support the sail by itself, so it's not a mast.

A ship, in the 17th, 18th cand early 19th centuries, was a vessel of three or more masts, square-rigged on all masts. Falconer, for example, says that a ship is properly a "vessel furnished with three masts, each of which is composed of a lower mast, top-mast, and top-gallant-mast, with the usual machinery thereto belonging. " Lauchlan McKay's Practical Shipbuilder from 1839 defines a ship as a "three-masted vessel," which would include barques and barquentines, but still would not include our beurtschip.

Is the beurtschip a boat? I think so. Darcy Lever's A Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor defines boats simply as "small vessels." Falconer says a boat is "a small open vessel, conducted on the water by rowing or sailing." Only Brindley's Naval Architecture would exclude the beurtschip from being a boat.

Capn Enigma and I also clashed on the word "sailor." It went like this.

Capn Enigma: "You did not seriously consider that those kind of boots were worn by a sailor (the guys working in the rigging) for one second, right? "

Daniel: "Certainly I did. Not every sailor is a topman; there are fo'csle hands, waisters, afterguard, and officers too. "

Capn Enigma: "Those are in ascending rank order servants, NCOs, warrant officers and officers. They are emphatically not sailors. "

I have always used "sailor," "seaman" and "mariner" interchangeably, as a general word for the guys who are attached to the ship and know how to work it. Maybe I was wrong about that. But what Capn Enigma has said can't be right.

Starting with Harland, Seamanship in the Age of Sail, chapter 6, this is what we find about waisters. "'[W]aisters' were 'green hands and worn seamen, employed as sweepers and cleaners.'" There's no way these green hands could be "NCOs" as Capn Enigma has it. Furthermore, NCO is an exclusively military rank, so that would suggest there could never be waisters on merchant ships.

Harland further notes that the afterguard is the "men who are stationed on the quarterdeck and poop, to work the after sails. It was generally composed of ordinary seamen and landsmen, constituting with the waisters the largest part of the crew, on whom the principal drudgery of the ship devolved." Again, these were ordinary seamen and even landsmen, not "warrant officers" as Capn Enigma has it.

I can find no warrant for the idea that fo'csle hands, waisters, and other guys who spend most of their time down on deck heaving braces, tacks and sheets aren't sailors. As described in Harland, most of them are "seamen." Falconer's entry on "seaman" uses the term interchangeably with "sailor." "SEAMAN, (homme de mer, Fr.) a mariner or person trained in the exercise of fixing the machinery of a ship, and applying it to the purposes of navigation. The principal articles required in a common sailor to intitle him to the full wages, are, that he can steer, found, and manage the sails, by extending, reefing, and furling them, as occasion requires. When he is expert at these exercises, his skill in all other matters relative to his employment is taken for granted. "

So to sum up, foc'sle hands, waisters, and afterguard were usually seamen, and seamen were sailors. Over to you, Capn.

I don't have the vocabulary to understand a lot of that. Was was a "toutpie?" "Surtout" I assume is French for "overall," but does that mean something like what we call overalls?

"Chapeau" is a very old word. "Chapeau de fer" was a word for a style of steel helmet as early as the 13th century.

The spelling in the original text is "dublet." I modernized it to "doublet," I hope correctly.

I included the children's clothes in the list because some percentage of pirate crews were young boys, although I don't know whether it was a significant percentage or not. My colleague Tony Malesic mentioned one pirate trial where a boy of 14 was hanged, and his lawyer claimed him to be even younger. I believe Douglas Botting's The Pirates reports a captured pirate crew that included boys as young as 10, though I'll have to double-check to be sure. Finally, in keeping with the standard maxim that the characteristics of pirates are largely the characteristics of seamen generally, there are certainly many recorded instances of boys going to sea at quite a young age. So while there certainly weren't many physically immature pirates (average age of a pirate was 27 per Cordingly), there could have been enough for it to make a difference what clothes they had available.

Adult female pirates, in contrast, were not only vanishingly rare, but almost certainly wore men's clothing when they did occur, so I excluded women's clothes.

GoF, demity waistcoats and scarlet parragon coats were not fancy? I have no basis to contradict you; I'm just surprised to hear that such items were in financial reach for the general public.

... there are fo'csle hands, waisters, afterguard, and officers too.

Those are in ascending rank order servants, NCOs, warrant officers and officers. They are emphatically not sailors.

Your various objections merit a thread of their own, which I am going to open when I have time. But I don't want to get this thread too far away from these boots. In the interests of keeping the thread on topic, Falconer's Marine Dictionary says that the word crew "comprehends the officers, sailors, seamen, marines, ordinary men, servants and boys." So if I amend my above statement to "these boots might have been meant for sale to landsmen, rather than being worn by a crewman," will we all be cool?

I will agree with Foxeand GoF that these boots do not by themselves prove that seamen wore boots pre-GAoP. And so far they are, indeed, by themselves. I have no brief to carry in favor of bucket boots on seamen or pirates.

I've received no communication, but my posting ability has apparently been restored. Thank you to my unknown benefactor.

Well, here's a clue from Cane Quest.

16th century sword canes were often bequeathed in wills.  With a French ordinance issued in 1661-1666 forbidding carrying such "blades in sticks," one can assume by that time that sword canes were well into fashion.

I have no independent confirmation of this. The page refers to Kurt Stein's Canes and Walking Sticks and to Francis Monek's Canes Through the Ages, but the inadequate footnotes do not make it clear which, if either, of these sources leads to the purported wills and French ordinance.

Barring outright fraud, there is a picture of Robert Burns' sword cane at SCRAN, from when Burns was an excise inspector c. 1789, so there is at least one pre-Victorian sword cane visible on the Web.

I realize that the persuasive value of any novel is zero, but merely for the record I'll mention that Louis L'Amour's Fair Blows the Wind has the gypsy Kory armed with a sword-cane.

But perhaps there's a point there. Would it be worthwhile for petty merchants, gypsies, Jews, and other fellows low on the social scale to have sword-canes? People who were generally considered not to be socially entitled to wear a sword, or who may even have been prohibited by law from doing so, but who wanted to defend themselves?

This is speculative, I realize, unless someone actually can find evidence of a pre-Revolutionary sword-cane.