Space and Environment: Secret Lairs Key Character: Medieval Pirate

Initial Research
Medieval Adjective: of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or in the style of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages: 5th to 15th century Europe

Medieval Shipping: Keels (or Ceols): These were the descendants of the Scandinavian tradition of shipbuilding, with the familiar lines of the Viking longboats. Keels were open decked with a single mast and square rigging. They were generally small (up to 100 tuns), and had a extremely shallow draft which made them very suitable for coastal, estuary or river work, as well as for raiding. They seem to have had an unsavoury reputation for piracy right into the Middle Ages. They were the most common sea vessels in Anglo-Saxon timesCogs: This design is associated with Germanic and Danish traditions, but there is some speculation that it may have ancestry in the Roman ships of northern waters. It has much straighter lines, with a integral sterncastle and sometimes a forecastle. It was usually single masted (square rigged) and sometimes had a lateen (triangular) rigged mizzen (stern) mast. It was commonly built up to 500 tuns, a few Royal Great Cogs were built up to 1000 tuns and one flagship, the Grace Dieu, took the design to its technical limit of 1,400 tuns. They dominated late Medieval shipping until a merging of northern and southern European shipbuilding techniques in the 15th Century produced an entirely new breed of ships. The clinker building of northern ships had problems when scaled up to great warships. The overlapping planks are held together by clenching nails, and on very large ships the shear pressure could deform these nails. The Grace Dieu was triple thickness clinker built and proved to be extravagant in its use of iron: account rolls show that 17 tons of nails were ordered for her construction. (It might be significant that her eventual demise was due to being struck by lightning and burnt while laid up on the mud flats of the River Hamble. Her remains are still visible at low spring tides.) http://www.waylands.net/public/games/Linrodeth/Navy/history.htm

Medieval Torture: The Medieval period of the Middle Ages was violent and blood thirsty. In barbarous times the cruel and pitiless feeling which induced legislators to increase the horrors of tortures, also contributed to the aggravation of the fate of prisoners. Torture chambers were included in many castles. Law or custom did not prescribe any fixed rules for the treatment of hapless prisoners who faced torture. Different types of torture were used depending on the victim's crime and social status. Torture was seen as a totally legitimate means for justice to extract confessions, or obtain the names of accomplices or other information about the crime. Torture was a legitimate way to obtain

testimonies and confessions from suspects for use in legal inquiries and trials during the Middle Ages. There were many methods of torture which were practised during the Medieval era of the Middle Ages: - Ripping out teeth/nails - Drowning - Beating - Flagellation, whipping and beating - Blinding - Flaying - Boiling - Roasting - Bone breaking - Genital mutilation - Branding and Burning - Limb/finger removal - Castration - Starvation - Choking - Tongue removal - Cutting - Disfigurement A skilled torturer would use methods, devices and instruments to prolong life as long as possible whilst inflicting agonising pain. However, the customs of the Medieval period dictated that many prisoners were tortured before they were executed in order to obtain additional information about their crime or their accomplices. There were many forms of torture and execution. The execution method itself was part of the torture endured by prisoners. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/middle-ages-torture.htm

The Black Death: The first outbreak of plague swept across England in 1348-49. It seems to have travelled across the south in bubonic form during the summer months of 1348, before mutating into the even more frightening pneumonic form with the onset of winter. It hit London in September 1348, and spread into East Anglia all along the coast early during the new year. By spring 1349, it was ravaging Wales and the Midlands, and by late summer, it had made the leap across the Irish Sea and had penetrated the north. The Scots were quick to take advantage of their English neighbours' discomfort, raiding Durham in 1349. Whether they caught the plague by this action, or whether it found its way north via other means, it was taking its revenge on Scotland by 1350. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml

Myths and Legends: In medieval times, the Scandinavians described swimming dragons and the Vikings placed dragons on the front of their ships to scare off the sea monsters... Numerous such stories have been recorded from the age of sailing ships (1500-1900 A.D.). The familiar story of Beowulf and the legend of Saint George slaying a dragon, which are well-known in the annals of English literature, likely have some basis in fact... Dragons were even described in reputable zoological treatises published during the Middle Ages. For example, the great Swiss naturalist and medical doctor Konrad Gesner published a four-volume encyclopedia from 1516-1565 entitled Historiae Animalium. He mentioned dragons as

very rare but still living creatures. (p.224) http://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/historical/dragons/ The Crusades: The Crusades were a series of Holy Wars launched by the Christian states of Europe against the Saracens. The term 'Saracen' was the word used to describe a Moslem during the time of the Crusades. The Crusades started in 1095 when Pope Claremont preached the First Crusade at the Council of Claremont. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-crusades.htm The main series of Crusades, primarily against Muslims in the Levant, occurred between 1095 and 1291 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

Pirate Noun: 1. person who robs or commits illegal violence at sea or on the shores of the sea 2. a ship used by such persons 3. any plunderer or predator
History of Piracy: The most widely known and far reaching pirates in medieval Europe were the Vikings, warriors and looters from Scandinavia who raided mainly between the 8th and 12th centuries, during the Viking Age in the Early Middle Ages. They raided the coasts, rivers and inland cities of all Western Europe as far as Seville, attacked by the Norse in 844. Vikings even attacked coasts of North Africa and Italy. They also plundered all the coasts of the Baltic Sea, ascending the rivers of Eastern Europe as far as the Black Sea and Persia. The lack of centralized powers all over Europe during the Middle Ages favoured pirates all over the continent. In the Late Middle Ages, the Frisian pirates led by respectively Pier Gerlofs Donia and Wijerd Jelckama, fought against the troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Empire with some success, capturing as many as 28 ships in one battle earning Donia the title "Cross of the Dutchman" and making him one of the most famous and iconic pirates of the era. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy During the Middle Ages, piracy flourished throughout the Baltic and Mediterranean. After several centuries of Scandinavian maritime dominance, a new age of piracy was born. In the Baltic Sea, a new power emerged in the form of the Hanseatic League, a Germanic guild of naval and merchant ships that worked together to gain riches through extensive commerce and trade while also fighting off the inevitable contingents of pirates. At the same time, pirates were running rampant during the fading years of the Byzantine Empire, which in its prime ruled the Mediterranean for hundreds of years while fighting off the imminent threat of the Islamic religion. With the fall of the empire's primary city, Constantinople, in 1204, the Byzantines suffered at the hands of Italian pirates, who at one time served on Byzantine naval forces but turned to piracy against the empire after a dispute

with Venice. By the mid-thirteenth century, with Constantinople again under Byzantine control, many of these Italian pirates were recruited and ultimately turned allegiance, wreaking havoc on their fellow Italian countrymen. http://www.netplaces.com/pirates/hellfire-and-brimstone/medieval-piracy.htm Piracy has been an iconic event since the beginning of time. Romans suffered attacks from pirates when they traveled by sea. The Vikings were some of the most fierce pirates that ever sailed the seas. They looted Europe with wreckless abandon in their powerful sailers. http://www.medievalweaponinfo.com/medieval/156-medieval-pirates/

Bibliography
Definitions: http://dictionary.reference.com/ http://www.waylands.net/public/games/Linrodeth/Navy/history.htm http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/middle-ages-torture.htm http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml http://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/historical/dragons/ http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-crusades.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy http://www.netplaces.com/pirates/hellfire-and-brimstone/medieval-piracy.htm http://www.medievalweaponinfo.com/medieval/156-medieval-pirates/