Even coasting voyages during the Middle Ages were risky proceedings, with no charts of the English coast--at any rate, none that were of much good--and with no regular lighthouses to warn the mariner off outlying dangers: only through the charity of the monastic establishments, such as that on St. Albans Head, were lights kept burning at night on a few promontories. It may be that it was out of gratitude for such kindness that the mariner lowered sail when he passed a monastery on the shore. As to the ships themselves of this time, we know that the planking was fastened not by iron and copper nails, but by wooden pegs called treenails. The hulls were painted with pitch, tar, oil, and resin. In these early accounts there is a reference to the “seilyerdes,” and the sail itself consisted of twenty-six cloths. The latter was painted red, possibly tanned something like the modern sailing trawlers, and the canvas was fitted with “liche-ropes,” “bolt-ropes,” and “rif-ropes.” From Viking times bonnets were laced to the foot of the sail to give increased canvas for use in fine weather. When it was that the word reef was first employed cannot be ascertained, but it is found in literature (“Confessio Amantis”) in the year 1193, or three years after Richard’s fleet set out to the Mediterranean. Here the word “ref” or “rif” clearly denotes something that could be slacked off. But there seems to be some possibility of confusion between the device by which sail can be shortened and that “bonnet” by which the sail’s area can be increased. During the early part of the fourteenth century the rudder began to disappear from the quarter where it had been since the times of the Egyptians, and to be placed astern in the position it occupies to-day. This necessitated the use of chains, the iron for which, as also for the anchors, was fetched from Spain. But there is reference concerning these medieval ships to such items as “steyes” and “baksteyes,” “hempen cordage,” “cranelines” for securing the forestay at its foot, “hauceres” (hawsers), “peyntours” (painters, derived from the French word signifying a noose), “boyeropes,” for the cables, “seysynges,” “botropes,” “schetes” for the clews of the sail, “boweline,” “saundynglyne” for the use of the pilot-leadsman, “shives” and “polives,” tallow, hooks, and so on. The anchors of the king’s galleys were 7 feet long, and his great ship carried five cables. Under the “rectores” were the “sturmanni” or steersmen, who were responsible for the supervision of the seamanship on board. Next in order came the “galiotæ” or galley-men, and finally the “marinelli” or mariners and the “nautæ” or common sailors. Later on the “rector” became “magister,” a constable was chosen to look after the arms, and there were added also a carpenter, a clerk who presently became purser, and a boatswain. [Illustration: A MEDIEVAL SEA-GOING SHIP.]