Planet of Hats
Donor
Excerpt: Christianity in the Crossing Age - Mark Magnuson, Epic Libropress, AD 1999
The arrival of the Anglish in the Farthest West - late as it was in comparison to the century-long headstart of Western Islam - was nevertheless a product of the numerous advantages the island kingdom held. Of the Christian kingdoms of Europe, Angland was the closest one with the wealth and infrastructure to construct a good-sized stock of ships capable of navigating the Atlantic Ocean. The kingdom's seafaring tradition - in part inherited from the Danish roots of its aristocratic class following the Danish Conquest - ensured a class of wealthy Anglish with enough familiarity with seafaring to expand their knowledge of seafaring.
Contact with the Iberian kingdoms of Santiago and Navarre influenced Anglish shipbuilding from the ground up, most notably in the southwest and in Wales. Basque whalers were among the first Christians to adopt Islamic ship designs such as the qarib and the later saqin, and whalers from cities like Bristow, Cardyf and Berrum[1], competing with the Basques on the high seas, quickly adopted similar designs of their own.
By the early 15th century, the basic Anglish ship designs of the Crossing Period had resolved themselves. The most common ship, the skene, was broadly similar to the Moorish saqin, equipped with lateen sails enabling west Anglish whalers to handle the dangerous Atlantic conditions. By the 1450s, skenes were widespread along the Atlantic coast, and Anglish fishermen and merchants were making regular contact with the Andalusian settlements on the Maghurine Islands. In fact, some of the early letters of Galin Keats suggest his journey west was in part inspired by whalers' tales of islands in the west, suggesting that Anglish fishermen or whaling boats may have sighted Alaska[2] even before Keats and Avezade's journey in 1453. By that time, the skene had been complicated by the larger and wider norry, a type of clinker-built merchant ship loosely derived from Danish ships of prior centuries. These ships could carry larger cargoes across rough Atlantic waters, and they were widely used by merchantmen to conduct trade with the Christian kingdoms of Iberia as well as for trips to Norway or Iceland.
It was these ships which spearheaded the early Anglish exploration of the Farthest West. Just a year later, under the commission of Anglish King Robart II, Keats returned to the new land to chart what he had begun to refer to as King Robart's Land. Sailing south from Elderbeve, he proceeded to explore a stretch of the Alaskan coast down to the land he called Helenia, after Robart's wife, Queen Helene.[3] Here, Keats made landfall at the site known today as Keats' Landing. He did not encounter any of the indigenous Wampanoag people, but he did plant an Anglish flag and carve a cross into a large stone. Today, phony rocks bearing the alleged Cross of Keats are a common hoax item in folk artifact collections across the Anglish-speaking world.
Other Anglish explorers would follow Keats in beginning to explore the new world, pursuing rumours of a lost "Heaven Land" somewhere overseas. The most notable of these mariners was Sir Thomas Holmson, a Berrumite sailor who took three norries over the Atlantic and reached the Moorish settlements in the Sea of Pearls. Holmson's ships stopped off at Mansurat al-Fajr on Al-Gattas, where Holmson reports seeing the minaret of a large mosque, before continuing on around the island and landing in Quwaniyyah, in the formerly Mayan city of Zama.
By this point, Zama was the core of Asmarid Quwaniyyah, a bustling centre in which Mayan architecture had been supplemented and partially replaced by Andalusian building styles. Holmson's crew docked in Zama and traveled inland to Coba before returning. His notes report how impressed the Anglish were with the new land:
Holmson' 1455 voyage roughly coincides with the emergence of a major source of conflict between Angland and the Asmarids: Piracy.
With no rivals on the Atlantic sea, Andalusian and Maghrebi ships crossing between the continents were typically lightly armed. Less scrupulous Anglish sailors saw these trans-Atlantic convoys as opportunities. The first recorded pirate attack on the Atlantic dates from 1455: The notes of the wali of Lishbuna report that a merchant ship arrived in a damaged state, her captain reporting that they had been set upon by "a ship of the 'ingliziyyayn," who attempted to board her and steal their cargo.
Anglish piracy rapidly escalated in both the Sea of Pearls and the Banks of Barshil. With Andalusians dominating productive markets overseas, avaricious Anglish whalers and fishermen turned to less savoury methods, employing early gunpowder weapons and fast skenes to attack unsuspecting Moorish vessels on the high seas. Before long, Moorish ships began carrying increasingly heavy armament, and armed seafaring ships were stationed in ports like Kanza and Nasriyyah to escort merchantmen and interdict this new threat.
Reports of Anglish piracy infuriated hajib Al-Nasr sufficiently that he sent a missive to Robart II in 1459, threatening to "burn your harbours to ashes" should the Anglish King fail to rein in his subjects. Robart seems to have ignored the missive, and indeed, he took a hands-off approach to piracy, more than content to allow local barons and lords even to contract with pirates to raid lucrative Andalusian convoys on the Atlantic.
This piracy culminated in 1462 with the First Anglo-Asmarid War. In truth the war did not touch either kingdom's landmass, but began when three pirate skenes out of Bristol sailed through the Banks of Barshil and attacked ships in the harbour outside Al-Jadida. Five fishing boats were put to the torch before being driven off by a pair of safinas - large armed ships derived from the tur, sporting lowered forecastles and blackpowder weapons. The incident, while brief, proved a step too far for Al-Nasr, who gathered a fleet of safinas with the intention of burning ports along the Anglish coast.
The punitive expedition - about 20 ships - made it close to the Isles of Scilly before being intercepted by a fleet of about 30 smaller armed skenes under the Anglish flag. The so-called Battle of St. Agnes was the first known full-scale battle between oceangoing warships, and it proved a surprising humiliation for the Asmarids: The safina fleet had come with only a few blackpowder weapons, while the Anglish made ample use of them, largely throwing fireballs and utilizing large tannants[4] to inflict serious damage. Andalusian combat doctrine had been heavily influenced by the threats they'd faced in the new world, among them the Tapajos, who had inflicted heavy losses on explorers by packing archers into boats. Safina-type ships were built for similar tactics: While carrying some blackpowder weapons, they tended to have high aft castles from which crossbowmen would attack the enemy crews. The Anglish use of blackpowder was more comprehensive, and it allowed them to cut off the Asmarids and rout their flotilla.
The small Anglish fleet pursued the Asmarid survivors south, but poor weather off the Santiagonian coast caused their fleet to become scattered. Only a dozen ships arrived off the Andalusian coast, where they were met by another group of safinas. This time the Andalusian ships were able to scatter the remnants of the Anglish battle group, largely through the use of tanins.
The war flickered on back and forth until 1465, with both sides attempting to launch raids on the other's port infrastructure. Ultimately the conflict petered out after Asmarid ships managed to blockade the mouth of the Severn estuary. Ricard's successor, Ricard III, settled the conflict by paying a sum of gold to the Asmarids and agreeing to crack down on piracy - a hollow promise he would have no hope of enforcing.
[1] Barnstaple.
[2] North America.
[3] Cape Cod.
[4] The Anglish form of the cannon.
The arrival of the Anglish in the Farthest West - late as it was in comparison to the century-long headstart of Western Islam - was nevertheless a product of the numerous advantages the island kingdom held. Of the Christian kingdoms of Europe, Angland was the closest one with the wealth and infrastructure to construct a good-sized stock of ships capable of navigating the Atlantic Ocean. The kingdom's seafaring tradition - in part inherited from the Danish roots of its aristocratic class following the Danish Conquest - ensured a class of wealthy Anglish with enough familiarity with seafaring to expand their knowledge of seafaring.
Contact with the Iberian kingdoms of Santiago and Navarre influenced Anglish shipbuilding from the ground up, most notably in the southwest and in Wales. Basque whalers were among the first Christians to adopt Islamic ship designs such as the qarib and the later saqin, and whalers from cities like Bristow, Cardyf and Berrum[1], competing with the Basques on the high seas, quickly adopted similar designs of their own.
By the early 15th century, the basic Anglish ship designs of the Crossing Period had resolved themselves. The most common ship, the skene, was broadly similar to the Moorish saqin, equipped with lateen sails enabling west Anglish whalers to handle the dangerous Atlantic conditions. By the 1450s, skenes were widespread along the Atlantic coast, and Anglish fishermen and merchants were making regular contact with the Andalusian settlements on the Maghurine Islands. In fact, some of the early letters of Galin Keats suggest his journey west was in part inspired by whalers' tales of islands in the west, suggesting that Anglish fishermen or whaling boats may have sighted Alaska[2] even before Keats and Avezade's journey in 1453. By that time, the skene had been complicated by the larger and wider norry, a type of clinker-built merchant ship loosely derived from Danish ships of prior centuries. These ships could carry larger cargoes across rough Atlantic waters, and they were widely used by merchantmen to conduct trade with the Christian kingdoms of Iberia as well as for trips to Norway or Iceland.
It was these ships which spearheaded the early Anglish exploration of the Farthest West. Just a year later, under the commission of Anglish King Robart II, Keats returned to the new land to chart what he had begun to refer to as King Robart's Land. Sailing south from Elderbeve, he proceeded to explore a stretch of the Alaskan coast down to the land he called Helenia, after Robart's wife, Queen Helene.[3] Here, Keats made landfall at the site known today as Keats' Landing. He did not encounter any of the indigenous Wampanoag people, but he did plant an Anglish flag and carve a cross into a large stone. Today, phony rocks bearing the alleged Cross of Keats are a common hoax item in folk artifact collections across the Anglish-speaking world.
Other Anglish explorers would follow Keats in beginning to explore the new world, pursuing rumours of a lost "Heaven Land" somewhere overseas. The most notable of these mariners was Sir Thomas Holmson, a Berrumite sailor who took three norries over the Atlantic and reached the Moorish settlements in the Sea of Pearls. Holmson's ships stopped off at Mansurat al-Fajr on Al-Gattas, where Holmson reports seeing the minaret of a large mosque, before continuing on around the island and landing in Quwaniyyah, in the formerly Mayan city of Zama.
By this point, Zama was the core of Asmarid Quwaniyyah, a bustling centre in which Mayan architecture had been supplemented and partially replaced by Andalusian building styles. Holmson's crew docked in Zama and traveled inland to Coba before returning. His notes report how impressed the Anglish were with the new land:
"The people here seemed most rich and content. The Moors and the native people, the Mayans, live side by side. All of them are Mohammedans, though we saw many women with their heads uncovered. The port we beheld was busy and full of traders exchanging goods, and we saw many fat vessels laden with wealth arriving and departing. Thus we knew that there was a great wealth in the land, one which the Mohammedans must have kept secret for many generations, for the cities we saw appeared ancient. Many of the buildings are as great tiers of steps, and they had the appearance of great antiquity."
Holmson' 1455 voyage roughly coincides with the emergence of a major source of conflict between Angland and the Asmarids: Piracy.
With no rivals on the Atlantic sea, Andalusian and Maghrebi ships crossing between the continents were typically lightly armed. Less scrupulous Anglish sailors saw these trans-Atlantic convoys as opportunities. The first recorded pirate attack on the Atlantic dates from 1455: The notes of the wali of Lishbuna report that a merchant ship arrived in a damaged state, her captain reporting that they had been set upon by "a ship of the 'ingliziyyayn," who attempted to board her and steal their cargo.
Anglish piracy rapidly escalated in both the Sea of Pearls and the Banks of Barshil. With Andalusians dominating productive markets overseas, avaricious Anglish whalers and fishermen turned to less savoury methods, employing early gunpowder weapons and fast skenes to attack unsuspecting Moorish vessels on the high seas. Before long, Moorish ships began carrying increasingly heavy armament, and armed seafaring ships were stationed in ports like Kanza and Nasriyyah to escort merchantmen and interdict this new threat.
Reports of Anglish piracy infuriated hajib Al-Nasr sufficiently that he sent a missive to Robart II in 1459, threatening to "burn your harbours to ashes" should the Anglish King fail to rein in his subjects. Robart seems to have ignored the missive, and indeed, he took a hands-off approach to piracy, more than content to allow local barons and lords even to contract with pirates to raid lucrative Andalusian convoys on the Atlantic.
This piracy culminated in 1462 with the First Anglo-Asmarid War. In truth the war did not touch either kingdom's landmass, but began when three pirate skenes out of Bristol sailed through the Banks of Barshil and attacked ships in the harbour outside Al-Jadida. Five fishing boats were put to the torch before being driven off by a pair of safinas - large armed ships derived from the tur, sporting lowered forecastles and blackpowder weapons. The incident, while brief, proved a step too far for Al-Nasr, who gathered a fleet of safinas with the intention of burning ports along the Anglish coast.
The punitive expedition - about 20 ships - made it close to the Isles of Scilly before being intercepted by a fleet of about 30 smaller armed skenes under the Anglish flag. The so-called Battle of St. Agnes was the first known full-scale battle between oceangoing warships, and it proved a surprising humiliation for the Asmarids: The safina fleet had come with only a few blackpowder weapons, while the Anglish made ample use of them, largely throwing fireballs and utilizing large tannants[4] to inflict serious damage. Andalusian combat doctrine had been heavily influenced by the threats they'd faced in the new world, among them the Tapajos, who had inflicted heavy losses on explorers by packing archers into boats. Safina-type ships were built for similar tactics: While carrying some blackpowder weapons, they tended to have high aft castles from which crossbowmen would attack the enemy crews. The Anglish use of blackpowder was more comprehensive, and it allowed them to cut off the Asmarids and rout their flotilla.
The small Anglish fleet pursued the Asmarid survivors south, but poor weather off the Santiagonian coast caused their fleet to become scattered. Only a dozen ships arrived off the Andalusian coast, where they were met by another group of safinas. This time the Andalusian ships were able to scatter the remnants of the Anglish battle group, largely through the use of tanins.
The war flickered on back and forth until 1465, with both sides attempting to launch raids on the other's port infrastructure. Ultimately the conflict petered out after Asmarid ships managed to blockade the mouth of the Severn estuary. Ricard's successor, Ricard III, settled the conflict by paying a sum of gold to the Asmarids and agreeing to crack down on piracy - a hollow promise he would have no hope of enforcing.
[1] Barnstaple.
[2] North America.
[3] Cape Cod.
[4] The Anglish form of the cannon.
