Sailor's possessions

[Elena]

I heard that when a sailor died in battle, it was common to sell his things for auction among the crew. Was it customary even if the sailor had left a will?

And what could have been in his trunk, what did they find after his death?

[Fox]

Not just in battle, but often when any sailor died. We have enough sailors' wills to know that frequently particular items were bequeathed to specific friends and relatives, but even so, it's likely that many items (knife, spare underpants, bits of hard cheese...) were not included in wills and were sold at the mast. If a sailor died intestate then his gear might also be sold.

Mast sales were common. There are plenty of mentions of sales taking place by the main-mast, including pirates selling off small items of plunder for the common fund, and there is definite evidence that dead men's good were also sold this way.

The concept of mast sales illustrates the difficulty of determining what was in a sailor's chest - not everything made it into the written record. Wills usually record between two and four sets of clothing, and often valuables such as watches, buckles and buttons, things like thread and needles, books, technical instruments, and other oddments. As for what might have been sold at the mast, we can only speculate (to my knowledge, only one set of dead man's goods sold at mast is recorded in detail - see below). There are certain things that seamen must have had but that I've never seen in any list to my recollection, including eating kit (plate, spoon, mug) and tools (knife etc.), for example.

There are various sailors' wills and probate inventories floating around on the net. Several, including the record of the mast sale mention above, can be found on this thread: http://www.piratebrethren.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=544

[Elena]

Thank you very much! Extremely useful! <3