The Naval Service of the Cinque Ports

It was for long an accepted truth of medieval history that the Cinque Ports, furnished the essential core, if not actually the whole, of the naval strength available to the kings of England. By contrast the ships of the Cinque Ports often served on ordinary transport service. The Cinque Ports’ ships were small, but not that small. The thirteenth century was certainly the Cinque Ports’ naval heyday, and the charters of 1278 and 1290 are the only ones which make any explicit mention of gratitude for naval services performed, but even so it was only in the smaller campaigns that they provided a major component of the English effort at sea, and for the most part their service was paid like that of other ports without special privileges. It is clear from all this that the Cinque Ports, individually and collectively, contributed to English strength at sea little if anything more than other ports of similar size

Aeronautics · Business · Marine engineering · Computer Science · Engineering · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis