"Medieval & Early Modern Marines" Topic

When were the first soldiers in Western Europe who were employed primarily as marines on-board ships since Roman times? As opposed to being ordinary soldiers used as an expedient?

I would look at the Italian city states.
Since the maritime cities relied upon overseas trade, warships and merchant ships with high value cargo would have dedicated soldiers

My impression is that the presence of marines is largely tied to the presence of long term navies, which tended to be costly to maintain. At times when navies could consist largely of temporarily acquired merchant ships, it would be difficult to maintain dedicated naval troops. However, if resources could be gathered to assemble and maintain a dedicated navy, then it would be also sensible to assign dedicated sailors and soldiers on it.

If I recall correctly, one of the Saxon rulers actually assembled a dedicated navy of some sorts to protect the English coasts in the 10th century. I would need to check my sources see how it was manned, though.

Later on the Hanseatic League, who were heavily dependent on sea trade in north-western Europe, regularly needed armed men to protect their ships and combat piracy. While some of the armed men may have been drawn from the city militias, there were also mercenaries employed with shorter and longer term contracts, and some of those may have ended up serving primarily aboard ships.

The Byzantines employed marines (there's an Osprey book). The English of King Harold Godwinsson's time employed Butsecarles specific to the navy; I don't know whose reign they 1st appeared in though.

Any images of these early sailor and marine fighting types?

-Eli

The Venetians hired Schiavoni (a word meaning Slav) from Dalmatia as marines. Schiavone also became the name of the sword some used.
An illustration of a Dalmatian Schiavone (Schiavoni) by Cesare Vecellio, 1590

Druzhina
16th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

If I recall correctly, one of the Saxon rulers actually assembled a dedicated navy of some sorts to protect the English coasts in the 10th century. I would need to check my sources see how it was manned, though.

Unfortunately my sources did not provide much detail about the manning of the ships, other than that a number of foreigners, especially Frisians, served in the crews of the new warships that were built in the late 9th century. Unfortunately my source did not provide much information about what was the role of those men aboard the ships – leaders, sailors or soldiers – though a number of the Frisians ended up getting killed when those ships engaged several ships worth of Viking raiders.

Not sure. If you define Marine as a man who is a shipmounted soldier, and not a "fighting sailor" or a "infanstrist aboard" (like the Janissaries that used to get shipped with the Berbers on their trips)…

If I had to look, I would probably research the Hanse (as in trade caravan guards, just aboard) or the Portugese starting around 1400. These definitely had the need to justify such a profession – though many others likely had, too.

Looking to our region, in medieval times there were foot troops accompanying ships on their missions, e.g. on several crusading actions.

Philip of Kleve, who was appointed Admiral of the Sea in 1485, wrote a manual in which he clearly made a difference between 'gens de guerre' and 'gens de mer', although I've found no proofs of practicing it.

Also the Hanze ships during the 14th and 15th centuries were often accompanied by foot soldiers, although no real marines.

Also during the Dutch Revolt when the Sea Beggars where incorporated into the marine, a difference was made between officers, sailors and soldiers. This is the first real reference in practice to a kind of predecessors of marines in the Low Countries.

In 1628 some 1.000 soldiers were seperated from their parent regiments and allocated to the marine.
However in december 1665 the States of Holland, following a proposal by Admiral de Ruyter, decided to raise a permanent regiment of ship-soldiers, later to be called marines.

Le Duc