century. By the early 16th century, gun ports were cut into the hull of a ship so that heavy
cannon could be carried lower in the vessel for better stability.
Heading the French navy was an admiral who often was an Italian or an important
French noble. The crown long avoided building ships at its own expense and preferred to
employ foreigners or rely upon merchant vessels for military service. Advancing
technology, however, finally required purpose-built men-of-war with cannon, and these
in turn prompted the establishment of a royal navy with a professional officer corps in the
16th century.
Timothy J.Runyan
[See also: ADMIRAL OF FRANCE; HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR; SHIPS AND
SHIPPING]
Bernard, Jacques. Navires et gens de mer à Bordeaux (vers 1450—vers 1550). 3 vols. Paris:
SEVPEN, 1968.
Farrère, Claude. Histoire de la marine française. Paris: Flam-marion, 1962.
Haywood, John. Dark Age Naval Power: A Reassessment of Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Seafaring
Activity. London: Routledge, 1991.
La Roncière, Charles de. Histoire de la marine française. 5 vols. 3rd ed. Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1909–
32.
Mollat, Michel. Le commerce maritime normand a la fin du moyen âge. Paris: Plon, 1952.
——. La vie quotidienne des gens de mer en Atlantique, IXe–XVIe siècle. Paris: Hachette, 1983.
Touchard, Henri. Le commerce maritime Breton a la fin du moyen âge. Paris: Les Belles Lettres,
1967.
NECROMANCY
. Term widely used in the later Middle Ages for the conjuring of demons with the intent
to harm enemies, to secure the favor of powerful individuals, to learn future or secret
things, to gain wealth, to succeed in romantic exploits, or to create illusions.
Necromancers (or “nigromancers”) typically stood inside magic circles and recited
conjurations, otherwise known as “adjurations” or “exorcisms” and often virtually
identical to the exorcisms used for expelling demons; frequently, they used fumiga-tions,
astrological symbols, and other elements of the as-tral magic that had been imported from
Arabic culture. They often combined these techniques with image magic—piercing wax
images with needles or melting them over fire. Necromancy seems to have been chiefly a
clerical form of magic, but clergy who engaged in it appear often to have done so for
clients, and frequently these clients were public figures of some prominence.
Important trials for necromancy occurred in France during the early 14th century. In
any particular case, it may be questioned whether necromancy was in fact being
practiced, whether the charge was a fiction cynically used to attack political adversaries,
or whether it expressed the sincere but erroneous apprehensions of potential victims.
What we can say is that necromancy was studied (manuscripts survive giving detailed
guidelines for conjuring “malign spirits”) and surely at least sometimes practiced by
members of a kind of clerical underworld.
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