Shipping Communities in a Mediaeval Thalassopolis (Caffa from the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Century)

Abstract

This article explores the phenomenon of shipping communities and the development of various forms of micro-spatial group identification among the sailors in the Pre-Modern world. The key research method is the heterotopia. From the late thirteenth century on, the port of Caffa possessed more than 100 large and medium vessels, each forming separate movable space which circulated between Caffa and the ports in the Black, Azov, Marmora, and Mediterranean Seas, and housing 12 to 200 sailors. The initial principle in the universal identity was the type of the ship. Her image was sometimes a marker of micro-group and individual identity. When the ship type was shown, there was need in clarifying descriptors. The most common form of identification covering two thirds of the vessels was attribution by the name of patron or owner who possessed the decisive share of the ship’s property. The patron’s naval jack and coat of arms were the identification markers of himself and the entire ship’s crew. The second of importance identification form that spread on one-third of the ships was vessel’s name by her patron saint. Here the identity marker was the saint’s icon on the ship altar, sometimes its duplicate on a foremast sail, and personal icons of the sailors. Finally, the third form was the naming of ship by moral and ethical values as a kind of motto.