Holk
The medieval sailing ship type Holk or Hulk describes a ship that is usually relatively wide and flat-bottomed and only has a flat beam keel .
The word Holk / Hulk for a type of ship has been used differently throughout history.
At first - especially in western Central Europe - at the end of Roman times and in the Middle Ages, it referred to a (grained) river ship with a flat bottom pulled from the land. A corresponding ship from around 800 was found near Utrecht , for example . Coins from Dorestad with the depiction of the Holks and the inscription "Dorestatus" show the ship.
Around the year 1000, English customs lists differentiated between keels and hulks , both of which had to pay the same duty. A seal of the city of Hulkesmouth from the year 1295 expressly designates the externally cog-like ship depicted on it as the Hulk . At that time, Holke with around 50–60 loads (100–120 tonnes load capacity) were rather smaller than cogs, but in the 14th century they were the same size.
In the 15th century Holke achieved a load capacity of up to 350 tons. In terms of construction, they represented a hybrid of the cog and the traditional Holk and combined the keel of the cog with the wider, more rounded hull of the traditional Holke. The side paneling was done in clinker construction , the ship's floor was often carried out in Kraweel construction. The fore and aft fort were drawn up from the hull with planking.
In addition to the one-masted basic type, two-masters and three-masters also appeared. This type of ship represented an important part of the Hanseatic League's merchant fleet in the 15th century and, with its reinforced front forts and at least one Mars , i.e. a protected masthead, replaced the cog as a warship.
The Holk was increasingly replaced by the Kraweel from the end of the 15th century .
literature
- Reinhard Paulsen: Shipping, Hanseatic League and Europe in the Middle Ages . Ships using Hamburg as an example, European development lines and research in Germany. Cologne, Weimar 2016, pp. 139–142.
Web links
- Timm Weski: Fiction or Reality? Notes on the archaeological evidence of late medieval ship names. In: Skyllis, Zeitschrift für Unterwasserarchäologie, 2nd vol. (1999), Heft 2, pp. 96-106.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Reinhard Paulsen: Shipping, Hanseatic League and Europe in the Middle Ages . Ships using Hamburg as an example, European development lines and research in Germany. Cologne, Weimar 2016, pp. 139f.
- ↑ Robert Bohn: History of seafaring . Munich 2011, p. 41.
- ^ Norbert Fischer, Hanna Vollmer-Heitmann: The Chronicle of Hamburg . Dortmund 1991, p. 64.
- ^ Konrad Fritze, Günter Krause: Sea Wars of the Hanseatic League. Berlin 1997, p. 38.