Ports in the Medieval European Atlantic: Shipping, Transport and Labour, ed. Ana María Rivera Medina

Abstract

The synergy of legal, environmental, slavery and socio-economic historians marks this book, edited by Ana María Rivera Medina, as an important addition to existing scholarship. The book consists of seven chapters, each meticulously prepared. The opening chapter, by Mathias Tranchant, examines the jurisdictional frameworks of the Atlantic ports of medieval France. Tranchant stresses that ports had three geographical layers: the supralittoral zone (land the tide never reaches), the intertidal zone (area covered by the tide range), and the infralittoral zone (shallow water region closest to the shore). From the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries a series of overlapping prerogatives had been collected by lay and ecclesiastical lords (seigneurie rivagière) which created a complex web of rights and jurisdictions. Tranchant carefully describes this process through an in-depth analysis of the available source material. Ana María Rivera Medina’s chapter discusses Basque stevedoring and analyses the port services which ensured the safety of ships, such as placing buoys over sandbanks and employing pilots who knew local sea conditions. She carefully reconstructs the busy working lives of port workers, the intricacies of using lighters to unload ships, and how storage spaces provided opportunities to collect revenues from maritime trade. The chapter by María Álvarez Fernández complements Medina’s essay by discussing port infrastructures and cargo handling in Asturias and Galicia in the later Middle Ages. These were small ports that focused on fishing, but which, nonetheless, contributed to local economies in a variety of ways. Amândio J.M. Barros’s chapter on the slave trade and Portuguese ports in the sixteenth century is an important contribution. His focus is on the smaller ports involved in the slave trade and through this fascinating study draws our attention to black sailors, and how the presence of enslaved people in port communities supported the maritime economy through activities such as carpentry and shipbuilding. Also focusing on Portugal, Sara Pinto examines transport and shipping in the port of Caminha. Pinto pays close attention to the environmental conditions that affected Caminha and examines the administrators employed to supervise port services. Enrique José Ruiz Pilares’s chapter analyses the development of port infrastructure in the coastal regions of Atlantic Andalusia. He points out that, prior to the fifteenth century, much of the infrastructure was built in wood, but from the mid-fifteenth century a significant expansion in trade encouraged authorities to undertake initiatives to improve facilities. Drawing on a case-study of Jerez de la Frontera, Pilares shows that these building projects led to labour specialisations and the development of warehouses, lodgings and markets, which encouraged the growth of a vibrant merchant community. Roberto J. González Zalacain focuses on the development of Tenerife’s ports from the late fifteenth century through to the sixteenth century. The author’s focus here is on showing how Tenerife was integrated into the ‘Atlantic Mediterranean’ and how it facilitated links between Europe, Africa and America.