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Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000-1500. By Susan Rose. New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-23976-1. Maps. Illustrations. Glossary. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 155. $80.00.
This slim volume is packed with information and insight. Author Susan Rose is known to students of medieval maritime history for her work on the English navy of the fifteenth century. She has also edited the accounts of the keeper of the king's ships for 1422-27. Her work is firmly rooted in the primary sources held by the Public Record Office and other repositories. In this volume she expands her range to include "the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the so-called Western approaches and the North Sea" (p. xv).
The definition of naval warfare between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries is explained with a stress on the common structural elements of ships used in war and trade. Some readers will want to see this expressed through the archaeology of medieval ships and perhaps a reference to the twelve-- volume Conway's History of the Ship, especially the volume edited by Richard Unger, Cogs, Caravels, and Galleons (1994). But the author makes clear that the construction and design of ships is not the main consideration. The...