Sea book
Under Seebuch , Rutter (English), Routier (French), Leeskaertan or later Paskaertan (Flemish), Roteiro (Portuguese) or Derrotero (Spanish) are certain forerunners of later sea manuals .
details
Nautical books or sailing instructions contain information specially intended for skippers and helmsmen on courses, water depths, basic conditions, tidal currents, harbor times, roads and ports, distances and dangers off the coast. In the 16th century, simple illustrations were added, the so-called settings. In this respect, they differ from so-called sea itineraries , which have been written in the form of a diary by travelers and can also contain nautical information, but are written for a non-nautical reader and do not necessarily stand for nautical competence.
history
The oldest known European work of this kind - apart from ancient forerunners - is the Italian Compasso de Navegare from 1296, whose writing, however, based on criteria inherent in the text, can be assumed to be around two generations earlier. The manuscript provides, as it were, the prototype for a number of similar portolans from the Mediterranean region that appeared in the following centuries.
The writing of the oldest surviving north-western European sailing instructions, the so-called Low German Sea Book, can be dated to the year 1470. It is a compilation of texts of various origins and dates, the earliest of which, based on internal evidence, can be dated up to a century and a half earlier, i.e. the first half of the 14th century.
Between 1502/1510 the first Northern European printed work of this kind appeared in Rouen, the Routier de la mer , which had a considerable influence on the Grand Routier et Pilotage des Piere Garcie, which was distributed in numerous editions from 1520 to 1643 . The Routier de la mer appeared in 1528 as Rutter of the Sea also in English translation by Robert Copland. In 1541 Richard Proude published the New Rutter of the Sea for the North Partes in the island kingdom .
In Dutch, the works whose titles usually begin with the initial formula: " Dit is de Kaerte van ... " are referred to as Leeskaert and later, after the introduction of nautical charts, as Paskaert . The first Kaert vander Zee appeared in print in 1532.
Another notable Derrotero was taken from the captured Spanish ship Rosario in 1680/81 by buccaneer Bartolomew Sharp in the South Pacific . The work preserved today in the Naval Library of the British Ministry of Defense even shows the coastline in its natural coloring.
See also
literature
- Albrecht Sauer: The "Seebuch": The oldest surviving sea manual and the late medieval navigation in northwestern Europe . Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 978-3-8225-0395-9 .
- Leo Bagrow , RA Skelton: History of cartography . Ed .: RA Skelton. 2nd Edition. Transaction Publishers, 2009, ISBN 1-4128-1154-6 .
- Vito Salierno: Il Mediterraneo nella cartografia ottomana . (coste, porti, isole negli atlanti di Piri Reis). Caprone edition. Caprone, Lecce 2010, ISBN 978-88-8349-133-7 .
- Kemp, Peter (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1976, ISBN 0-19-211553-7 .
- Peter Assion : 'The Sea Book'. In: Author's Lexicon . 2nd Edition. Vol. 8 (1992), Col. 1013-1017.