fighting top, and a forecastle. Chaucer[1] calls the forecastle the "forestage." In ships carrying royalties the minstrels seem to have played on or in the forecastle. As to the size of masts, some little indication is furnished by a record that in 1338 sixty masts, each fifty feet long at the least, were purchased. Blocks, almost exactly similar to the simplest forms still in use, existed, and were called "polyves" (pulleys). In a notice of a hulk called the Christopher of the Tower, a "david" is mentioned, but a davit does not seem to have been meant.
The receipts of the clerk of the George in 1345 show among the payments: To a mariner called a lodsman (pilot), for conducting the ship from Bursledon near Southampton to the Solent, 2s.; for piloting her from the Downs to Sandwich, 6s. 8d.; for twelve glass horologes (? hour-glasses), bought at Sluis in Flanders, 9s.; for three lanterns for the ship, 4d.; for brooms for washing the ship, 3d.; for oars, 8d. each; for four large and long oars called "skulls," 4s. 8d. Five years later the George was apparently one of the vessels to be engaged in the battle of Sluis, and another ship of the same name was taken from the French in that action.
As in earlier times ships, seamen, soldiers, and stores were obtained by impressment,[2] with payment. The right to impress was incidental to the office of admiral, but it was also occasionally given to particular captains.[3] In 1337, an attorney was ordered by Admiral Sir John Roos to fit himself out as a man-at-arms. The lawyer petitioned the king that to obey the order would be to injure his clients and to ruin himself, and Sir John was directed not to insist upon compliance.[4]
The officers of the navy remained as in the previous reign, with the addition of clerks and carpenters. The masters or commanders began to be called captains towards the end of the reign, but it must not be therefore supposed that the rank of "master and commander" then had its origin, or was then conceded the courtesy style of "captain." "Master and commander," as a distinct rank, was an invention of the latter part of the seventeenth century. The clerk represented the purser, or the more modern paymaster. The carpenter was regarded as an important officer, seeing that his pay of 6d. a day was the same as that of the master, the constable, and the clerk. The nearest equivalent to the modern gunner was
