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1344.]
IMPROVEMENTS IN SHIPS.
145

2s., and 200 pounds of Spanish iron were bought "to make two chains for her rudder."

That rudders very much resembling those of the modern type, and, like them, hung by means of pintles and gudgeons, were in use in the English navy at about this time, is clear from the details shown in good copies of the gold noble which
GOLD NOBLE OF EDWARD III., 1344.
was struck by Edward III., soon after the battle of Sluis, in 1340. There, although the tiller is not visible, the rudder itself is plainly very similar to that which, in the ordinary course, would be fitted today to a fishing-smack or collier-brig. After the middle of the fourteenth century, the clavus disappeared from all save very small craft in England. From the wording of the account, there is little doubt that the rudder of La Phelipe was of the modern type. The daily pay of the builders of this galley was as follows: master carpenter, 6d.; other carpenters, 5d.; clinkerers, 4d.; holderers, 3d., and servants or labourers, 2½d.

From other accounts,[1] we learn that ships had capstans and "helms," or tillers; that bowsprits were very small, probably not yet supporting any sail; that one mast was still usual even in vessels of some size, although two masts were carried by a few craft; and that "triefs" or sails were furnished with "bonnets,"[2] or additional parts made to fasten at the foot with latchings, so as to increase the sail area in moderate winds. Some masts carried two sails, a course and a topsail, but fore-and-aft sails seem not to have been employed.

The fore and stern castles were not necessarily structural portions of the vessel fitted with them, and they were built by special artificers called castlewrights, and by them added to merchant vessels that were called out for war service. Thus, in 1335, the Trinity, of two hundred tons, was furnished with an "aftcastle, topcastle, and forecastle," or as we might say, with a poop, a

  1. Chiefly Rolls at Carlton Ride, cited by Nicolas.
  2. A sail might have two or even three bonnets. The term is used by Chaucer in The Merchant's Second Tale,' i. 868-871:—

    "Lodisman,
    Stere onys into the costis as well as thou can;
    When our shippis be ycom, that we now pass in fere,
    Lace on a bonnet or tweyn, that we may mowe saile nere."