British Flags: Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea: With an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National DevicePerrin, William Gordon
History
British Flags: Their Early History, and Their Development at Sea: With an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National Device
Perrin, William Gordon
Flags -- Great Britain
But while in the English fleet the Banner of Council signal
underwent no development until the end of the sixteenth century, the
Mediterranean instructions of 1366 contain three signals of this
nature: one to call the council, another to call all the ships when
some order had to be communicated, and a third to call one or more
particular vessels. These, with the addition of one signal for calling
aid, one manoeuvring signal, and a recognition signal, to which were
added signals by sails and, at night, by lanterns, contain the germ of
a complete system of signalling.
It is not until the middle of the seventeenth century that we meet
with so advanced a system in the English navy. If an explanation of
this be sought it will be found in the fact that the rowing galley was
not suited to the waters of the English Channel and North Sea. If the
Mediterranean nations had, in the Middle Ages, a comparatively advanced
system of tactics and therefore--for the one inevitably follows the
other--a comparatively complete method of signalling, it was because
they had inherited the foundations of it with the galley from the
Romans and Greeks. The sailing-ship did not assert its superiority over
the older weapon until the early part of the sixteenth century, and it
was another century before the seamen who manned it could be persuaded
that the methods of tactics invented for the despised galley could be
of use when applied to vessels whose motive power was of another order.
It was the soldier-admirals, who were well acquainted with the value of
formal tactics on shore, who taught the English navy the lesson it was
so loath to learn.
The Instructions of 1366 just quoted may be taken as representative
of the fourteenth century. For the fifteenth century we have at least
two good examples; the orders for the Venetian navy drawn up by
Mocenigo[351] in the year 1420 and the orders for the navy of Castile
drawn up by Fadrique Henriquez[352] in 1430. It will be sufficient to
extract from the Venetian orders, which are the more interesting for
our immediate purpose, the various articles relating to flag signals.
Questi sono i ordeni et commandamenti
dati per il magnifico
M. Piero Mozenigo del mar Zeneral
Capitan--1420--
5. Quinto che andando à uela nulla
Galia ardisca passar el fogo à Misser
lo capetanio saluo quella Galia che
sarà de guarda, ma tuttauia debia
attendere à non spartirse da lui sotto
pena de lire diese à zaschedun che
contrefarà, massime quando se uorà
raggattar. Misser lo capetano farà
metter la bandiera al mezzo. In
quella uolta à chi piaserà ragattar
habbi libertà di poterlo fare non
si luntanando da lui mia dò al più,
sotto la detta pena.
13. Quando messer lo capitanio
uorà domandar da parte el farà
meter una bandiera in la popa, in
quella fiada tutte le Galie se debia
accostar à lui perche el possa saper
el sò parer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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