Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Volume I.
complete book, e-book

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V. DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE WAR-GALLEYS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

[Sidenote: Arrangement of the Rowers in Mediaeval Galleys: a separate oar to every man.]

25. And before entering on this new phase of the Traveller's biography it may not be without interest that we say something regarding the equipment of those galleys which are so prominent in the mediaeval history of the Mediterranean.[1]

Eschewing that "Serbonian Bog, where armies whole have sunk" of Books and Commentators, the theory of the classification of the Biremes and Triremes of the Ancients, we can at least assert on secure grounds that in mediaeval armament, up to the middle of the 16th century or thereabouts, the characteristic distinction of galleys of different calibres, so far as such differences existed, was based on the number of rowers that sat on one bench pulling each his separate oar, but through one portella or rowlock-port.[2] And to the classes of galleys so distinguished the Italians, of the later Middle Age at least, did certainly apply, rightly or wrongly, the classical terms of Bireme, Trireme, and Quinquereme, in the sense of galleys having two men and two oars to a bench, three men and three oars to a bench, and five men and five oars to a bench.[3]

That this was the mediaeval arrangement is very certain from the details afforded by Marino Sanudo the Elder, confirmed by later writers and by works of art. Previous to 1290, Sanudo tells us, almost all the galleys that went to the Levant had but two oars and men to a bench; but as it had been found that three oars and men to a bench could be employed with great advantage, after that date nearly all galleys adopted this arrangement, which was called ai Terzaruoli.[4]

Moreover experiments made by the Venetians in 1316 had shown that four rowers to a bench could be employed still more advantageously. And where the galleys could be used on inland waters, and could be made more bulky, Sanudo would even recommend five to a bench, or have gangs of rowers on two decks with either three or four men to the bench on each deck.

[Sidenote: Change of System in the 16th century.]

26. This system of grouping the oars, and putting only one man to an oar, continued down to the 16th century, during the first half of which came in the more modern system of using great oars, equally spaced, and requiring from four to seven men each to ply them, in the manner which endured till late in the last century, when galleys became altogether obsolete. Captain Pantero Pantera, the author of a work on Naval Tactics (1616), says he had heard, from veterans who had commanded galleys equipped in the antiquated fashion, that three men to a bench, with separate oars, answered better than three men to one great oar, but four men to one great oar (he says) were certainly more efficient than four men with separate (...)

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