Channelling violence at sea: States,international trade and the transformation of naval forces from the high Middle Ages to the age of steam

Abstract

Certain late medieval changes in government practices, influenced by political developments and technological changes at sea, led to increasing limitations to acts of violence on European oceans and seas. The motivation of states became more overtly economic through the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. From around 1650 the expansion in trade, and most especially long distance trade, led to changes in the role, composition and size of naval forces. By the first decades of the nineteenth century nations directed their navies and violence at sea in general at protecting domestic commerce and disrupting that of any enemy.