The Naval Battle of La Rochelle, 1372 (MED0059)

La Rochelle, 1372: galleys against sailing ships

Burning rigging, longbowmen shooting from a crowded deck, pavises painted with the cross of St George along the rail, and alongside them the low hulls of oared galleys with men swarming across. In the distance the towers of the harbour. Two completely different kinds of ship are fighting each other, and that is the whole battle.

Oars beat sails in a flat calm

An English fleet of this period was built of high-sided sailing ships with timber castles fore and aft: excellent platforms for archery, dependent on wind. A Castilian war galley was long, low and rowed. It could choose its moment, come in on the quarter where the castles could not bear, put men aboard where it liked, and back off again. In the open Atlantic the sailing ship had the advantage; in the roads outside a harbour, in variable airs, the galley owned the water.

The tide finished it

The fight ran over two days, and overnight the English ships settled aground as the water dropped. A grounded ship cannot manoeuvre, cannot be trimmed and cannot run. In the morning the galleys came back to vessels that were fixed in place, poured oil on the decks and set them alight.

What was actually lost

Not just ships. The fleet was carrying the money to pay the English forces in Aquitaine, and it went to the bottom with them; its commander, the Earl of Pembroke, was taken and died a prisoner. Without a payroll there are no garrisons, and without command of the sea reinforcement stops. The English position in south-western France unravelled over the following years, and this afternoon at sea is where the process started.