bounty. To certain galley-men, brought into his service by Thomas of Galway in 1205, the king granted moiety of their takings, besides other recompenses.[1] A few years afterwards, a sum of £100 was advanced to mariners and galley-men, on account of the sale of the goods of a ship from Norway, captured in Wales.[2] And the promise to the crews of the galleys lent to Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles, and Orford has been already cited. There was, however, no accepted principle of division, and occasionally the king seems to have taken everything. This was only what was to be expected from a monarch who more than once nearly lost his crown in consequence of his stubborn objection to compromise more important privileges, which he assumed to belong to him, but which were disputed by sections of his subjects.
Seamen were enlisted as well as impressed. In May, 1206, the king ordered Geoffrey de Lucy, and Hascuil de Suleny, and his other subjects in the Norman islands, to send him one knight and one clerk, qualified to induce steersmen and mariners to enter his service.[3] But when seamen were impressed, the penalty for failure to obey a summons to serve was severe. In 1208, certain sailors on the coast of Wales were forbidden to make a voyage to Ireland, or elsewhere, for their own purposes, but ordered to repair to Ilfracombe by the middle of Lent, to convey men to Ireland; and it was added: "Know for certain that if you act contrary to this, we will cause you and the masters of your vessels to be hanged, and all your goods to be seized for our use."[4]
The crews of vessels consisted of "rectors," or masters, who seem to have been also called domini; "sturmanni," steersmen or pilots; "galiotæ," galley-men; "marinelli," mariners; and "nautæ," sailors. There was, in the case of some large ships, a "head-master" above the rector. Hardy, in his preface to the Close Rolls, says that steersmen received 7d. a day, but does not cite his authority.[5] A galley-man was paid 6d. a day in 1205;[6] a mariner was paid 3d. In 1206, a sum of £138 was issued to pay 275 mariners for forty days.[7] Knights received 2s. a day, and cross-bowmen (the famous Genoese cross-bowmen were introduced to the English service by John) from 3d. to 6d.[8] Before sailing,
