"Galley Warfare - Knights of St John" Topic

Hi.

I am looking for some good reading recommendations for reading up more about Renaissance Mediterranean galley warfare, specifically for Knights of St John. I know that is a niche fleet in a niche period but I want to do some more research.

I started with Osprey title, borrowed a friends Galleys and Galleons but I wanted more on the galleys used by Knight f St John. I have seen some references to the Knights being raiders, raiding the Ottoman Turks in similar fashion to that which the Barbary Corsairs raided the Christians. Does this also mean that they would have used Galliots?

The reason I ask is that my friends and I have just started playing Renaissance galleys. One player has Venetians, another Barbary corsairs, another Spanish and also a mixed Genoese/Papal State fleet.

I was looking at getting some Navwar Renaissance Galley ships and wondered what would work well with Knights of St John. Do I stick with mainly standard galleys with a couple of larger ships? Or do I go for mainly Galliots?

Thanks

You can do no better imo than 'The Galleys at Lepanto' by Jack Beaching wonderfully atmospheric and full of detail.

Thanks- and will that give me details specific to Knight of St John as opposed to just merely Renaissance Gallry warfare in general?

Yes it will do that. I don't think it will disapoint you.

Dear Insomniac,
I'm pondering the same question.

Fortunately the Knights' galley fleet was very small so it is not an expensive endeavour. One Capitana, six galleys and a carrack and you are done. Langton make a suitable Venetian galleon, but one of the Navwar Armada ships would do well.

The best source is Books Distributors Ltd. of Malta which publishes a whole series of monographs, unfortunately many of the more interesting titles are out of print at the moment:

bdlbooks.com/naval.html

This article is also very useful:

mhs.eu.pn/60/60_19.html

The capitana was larger than the other galleys, so I would suggest one Lanterna and six galleys. You will need additional masts so buy a few small galleys because they come two to a pack, to put two and three masts on each ship.

You can "pimp up" your Navar ships by using the Langton galley trappings. It makes them look much better. There is a pic of some of my Tunisian galleys in this article:

link

I haven't done my Knights yet so I'd be interested in anything you come up with. You can PM me if you like.
Cheers,
Bertie

Try "Empires of the Sea", by Roger Crowley. A cracking good read, and while it doesn't exactly focus on the Knights of st. John, they are significant in the book.

You might also want to read The Adventures of Captain Alonso De Contreras: a 17th Century Journey. It is available in a 1926 translation as well as a more recent translation done by Philip Dallas in 1989.

I picked a copy of the latter at a used book sale, thinking it was fiction. But while it reads like fiction it is actually the memoir of the only non-noble member of the Knights of St. John. De Contreras was given this honour by Pope Urban VIII in recognition of his actions against the Turks.

The author gives a great overview of numerous small actions both on land and sea as well as providing a view of the cultural and social milieu of the period. He includes the classic understate of what happened when he suspected his wife of unfaithfulness, "their fate was that I found them in bed together and they died".

As well, thank you Bertie for the link to BDL Books,

Two sources from Melita Historica (MH) : Journal of the Malta Historical Society:
link
Check out MH 13(2001)2 01 Rowers on the Orders Galleys and (1994) 06 The Warships of the Order which is not linked but can be found here:
PDF link

The second article gives lots of great detail but unfortunately two pages are missing on the scan

Cheers,
Bertie

The best book on Renaissance galley warfare yet written is Gunpowder and Galleys by John Francis Guilmartin. It's a complete analysis of the design, equipment, weaponry, training, tactics, and context (strategic, political, social and economic) of galleys in the 16th C. Mediterranean. While you look for a copy of that book with a reasonable price tag, you can also look at some of Guilmartin's papers on the subject, which he published as PDFs on his web site. Guilmartin is not much help with the Knights of Malta, however, and no help at all with 16th C. Mediterranean nautical pageantry or heraldry – which is really the starting point for us miniature wargamers.

Bertie has already mentioned the Maltese sources I know of for information specific to the 16th C. Knights of Malta. There is a lot of Maltese pride in their cultural history, so scholarly publications on Maltese history occasionally reach publication. Spend some time on Google and in university library systems and you will probably turn up more.

I found The Galleys at Lepanto to be a fun read, a nice primer on the period, and good background information about the social and political context from a Spanish point of view, but totally unsatisfying as a wargaming resource. Treatment of strategic movements, tactics, design and weaponry was light at best, and totally superseded by Guilmartin (even Guilmartin's free PDF articles have more information). I also don't recall any significant information about the Knights of Malta.

The standard 16th C. national galley fleet included a battleline of standard galleys (21-24 oar banks, 3 rowers per oar), and a small number of light galleys, galiots, fustas, etc. as auxiliary support craft (except the Algerians and Moroccans, who used galiots as line galleys). The big, rich countries (Spain, Turkey, Genoa, some Italian states) also deployed oversized flagship galleys (27-36 oar banks, 5-7 rowers per oar), but these were a liability for almost any activity other than anchoring a big battleline or as an overt demonstration of national power and prestige (more guns, more oars, more soldiers, more masts, more flags, etc.). Since the Knights of Malta had fewer than a dozen galleys in service at any time, and concentrated on piracy (conducting it and preventing it), I doubt they kept anything larger than a galea sottile around. Even the Venetians viewed oversized lanternas and bastardas as a wasteful extravagance, and they could have afforded some. For the Knights of Malta I would make 6-8 standard galleys and a few galiots and/or fustas and call it done.

The 1/1200 Navwar models have no rowers (nor even oar benches) and look very blobby and indistinct. I wanted to play large games and Navwars are cheap, so I bought a bunch of them, but I plan to modify them extensively: add rowers, replace the stern awnings, add paper arming cloths and rigging and of course plenty of flags, but that's all a lot of work. There's no easy way to fix the oars.

The 1/1200 Langton galleys are hair-whiteningly expensive, but gorgeous. The Knights of Malta is a small fleet, just the right size to splurge on the nicer miniatures. I bought enough Langtons to use for flagships, then enough Navwars to fill out the battleline.

- Ix

A few other notes about choices in Miniatures:

The galleys in the Valiant Spanish Main range are too small and come without oars. They might work as galiots or light galleys, but they're expensive and I'm not sure they're a better value than the Navwar Small Galleys.

The Valiant galleasses actually look pretty nice, and the round ships (galleons, carracks, caravels, etc.) make excellent supplementary ships for your Renaissance galley fleets. All of these look way better than the equivalent Navwar castings, and blend in with the Langtons nicely.

The Navwar bergantinas are an excellent value for the money, and a much better value than the Langton bergantines. All galley fleets should have a bunch of little oared boats like these hanging around.

- Ix

Thanks all.

I was wanting to order one Navwar Renaissance Naval Starter Pack, and then add some extra packs for variety.
Each Starter Pack contains 19 of navwar's 1:1200th scale white metal miniature ship models (with oars and masts). 1 Lanterna (flagship), 1 Large Galley, 1 Galleass, 4 Galleys, 8 Small Galleys and 4 Bergantinas (despatch vessels).
link

Thanks for the links. One friend has lent me Guilmartin's later work Galleons and Galleys, which I am reading now. Another has recommended his earlier work Gunpowder and Galleys which he has said he will be able to dig out for me to read in a month or so.

Further reading has shown that the Knights had a Galley squadron with between 3 and 8 Galleys. They mention a Capitana command ship and Padrona 2nd in command. So I think I could justify one Laterna, one Bastarda and 6 Galleys, most of which are in Navwat starter pack.

Then I found some notes on the Knights sponsoring corsair squadrons to raid Turks. They specifically mention that the corsairs used Galliots, which will be a great way to sue up the 8 Galliots in Navwar starter pack/

So I think with that help given so far I am ok to place initial order and then do some more reading up over time.

Thanks again

James

They mention a Capitana command ship and Padrona 2nd in command.

In period terminology, "capitana" just means "flagship", and doesn't imply a larger ship, regardless how the miniatures are labeled. Likewise, "patrona" translates as "vice-flagship" or ship-of-the-second-in-command (there really isn't an equivalent English term), which also implies nothing about size. Many Mediterranean fleets used standard galleys as capitanas (and patronas), including the Venetians – the galea sottile was essentially already the optimized battle galley design in the period, sorta like the 74 of the Napoleonic era. The Knights of Malta almost certainly had no heavy, slow, unmaneuverable, short-range, expensive, oversized bastardas, the line galleys were better in all the roles they needed galleys to perform.

I've found this page to be of some help studying the period: link

- Ix

The Muscat article above gives 28 benches for the Capitana, 27 benches the Padrona and 26 benches for the standard galleys, so there was a slight size difference in the Maltese Ships.

The Venetian galleys were built on a production line basis at the Arsenal to a standard design so, apart from the galleasses, they would be identical in size, but Alberto Teneti in "Piracy and the Decline of Venice" mentions that rich sons of the oligarchs doing their service used to "pimp their rides" by richly decorating, out of their own pocket, the standard galleys that they were issued with.

The Navwar "small galleys" can be used as Maltese galliots but you only need one sail and need to file off the rambata gun position behind the bow which shouldn't be too difficult.

Cheers,
Bertie

That Joseph Muscat article has a lot of good info in it, even down to color schemes and small technical details.

This article about Piri Reis has a little bit of background about the ships of the 16th C. Mediterranean, including some extra details (like names!) of the Muslim vessels that would have opposed the Maltese. It's not terribly exhaustive or detailed, but it's helpful.

- Ix

Thanks for that Muscat link.

Now I'm on my laptop rather than my phone I could read it.
Great stuff. Have bookmarked it to read and read. Plus thanks for the link re Piri Reis.