Father Christmas - Patron Saint of Sailors
- Richard Crooks
- May 24
- 6 min read
In his book, ‘A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages’, Anthony Bale describes the trials and tribulations of pilgrims heading from northern Europe, including Britain, to the Holy Lands. It does cover, albeit rather briefly, the rather challenging and grubby conditions onboard ship, ‘sailing’ from ports such as Genoa, Venice, Rome, and even Constantinople. Bad food, dirty water, seasickness, smelly neighbours, and piracy were just some of the downsides.
This got me thinking about the logistics and practicalities of such a long trip.
Prior to passage via the sea, most pilgrims would have travelled on foot, via Salonika and Constantinople, and then over the Anatolian peninsular, towards and through modern day Syria. This was treacherous for many obvious reasons, but became even more so as the Muslim Seljuk Turks had taken control of the peninsular from the eastern Roman Empire (aka Byzantium). A historic irony is a primary mission of some Crusades was simply to increase the safety of the overland passage for Christian pilgrims.
Wealthier travellers could avoid some of the land-based risks by securing passage on a galley, say from Venice.
Now, it is about 1,300 NM from Venice to the Levantine coastal ports. From what I can gather, a typical journey took about six weeks. That equates to 216 NM a week, or about 31 NM a day. That’s an average boat speed of just 1.3 knots.
But that excludes re-victualling stops, of course. Many of the Venetian galleys may have called into safe ports around the Peloponnese, and then the Cyclades islands, or Crete, then Rhodes, with final call into Cyprus. Take five days off for such stops, and the average speed approaches 1.5 knots. This seems easily achievable.
But this assumes a further four factors, to my mind: i) that you are travelling 24-hours a day; ii) that you have a following wind; iii) that you have any wind at all; and iv) that you are heading in the correct direction.
None of these factors is a difficult hurdle for a modern yacht like Missy Bear with an auxiliary diesel engine, even with only two crew. But in the early middle-ages, these factors were significant obstacles:
i) Prior to the invention of the earliest compasses (by the Amalfitans in the early 16th century), one navigated by the sun, or stars, and/or by the direction of the expected prevailing wind for that location and season.
For the most part, navigation from the Ionian islands all the way to Rhodes is line-of-sight, i.e. you can pretty much see the next island on your path, or the clouds building above it. At least by daylight. And the distances would normally be achievable in a full day’s sail and row.
That’s all very well until you get to Rhodes if your next stop is Cyprus. At some point you will be 90 NM from the nearest land, which will be completely out of sight;
ii) Old lateen-rigged galleys sailed best when the true wind direction was ‘abaft’ (behind) the beam. Although they might make some progress to windward, they could not sail anywhere near as close to wind as Missy Bear can (~45 degrees). A trip directly upwind on Missy Bear, by tacking back and forth, basically doubles the distance travelled to the destination;
iii) In this part of the Mediterranean in the old sailing season (summer), winds can be fickle. They tend to blow from early afternoon through to early evening as the sun powers the system. Nights can be dead calm, except for the odd cooler, katabatic winds, that might descend from higher mountains and plateaus. I suspect that a galley might be ‘becalmed’ for the majority of its journey. This explains why galleys depended on oarsmen – often slaves – in one or two tiers/banks.
Having trialled being such an oarsman, I’m not sure how many hours a day I could have kept-up rowing effectively. It’s also hellishly difficult to manage an oar in a choppy sea; rowing when there has been no wind is much easier. And I can’t imagine rowing steadily for over 12-hours overs many days and nights. But I guess mad people still do so crossing the Atlantic for charity. And they aren’t even being whipped…;
iv) And what if your navigator got it wrong, or fell sick?
I conclude that the galleys, carrying pilgrims to the Holy Lands in the middle-ages, would have travelled mostly by day, with oarsmen rowing from dawn through the morning, when the wind was light and sea-state was flat. As the afternoon breezes built-up, and the chop increased, the sails could be unfurled and the oarsmen given a rest. Perhaps if the galley was offshore, and out of sight of land, the oarsmen might work again over-night to keep the ship moving forward – eastwards - against the adverse currents here.
Otherwise, if I was captain, I would hop along the coast, from one safe-haven to the other, until I must brave the open sea, and rely on the skills of my navigator to get me to Cyprus, from the nearest and easiest point on the Anatolian mainland.
Island-hopping and coastal hopping, would have meant that a pre-16th-century, Venetian galley would anchor in safe havens, during the hours of darkness. This would have reduced the time spent travelling by at least a third. So, the original 42-days travel time - reduced to 37 days for the five main victualling stops - is now reduced to 24 days. This equates to an average boat speed of 2.2 knots. Given an adverse, west flowing current of 1 knot during the summer, the galley would have had to maintain an average speed of over 3 knots, and this seems to me to be quite realistic, given the technologies of that time.
The southern Anatolian coast is one such stretch of that pilgrimage route, and where Missy Bear has been coastal-hopping in a similar manner, (although I have never made Alix row.)
In general, this coastline is rugged and inhospitable, comprising vertiginous, limestone cliffs, that carry-on vertically below water, neither offering shelter nor anchoring opportunities.
But there are respites regularly on the way, that do not take the navigator miles off the Rhumb line. There are little bays and river estuaries with sandy bottoms - good holding for when the anchor was thrown overboard. These would have been the same locations that the native Anatolians (Carians, Caunians and Lycians) would have inhabited, followed by the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, then the Eastern Romans.
The Venetian captain would have to remain vigilant. The local Muslims might have been antagonistic, and there were local, indigenous pirates. Indeed, there are several references to the indigenous Anatolians being the imfamous “Sea Peoples”. But the Turks in general around this time, were landlovers, and not great seafarers. And this part of the coast would have seemed very distant, remote and of less value to them.
One such safe haven, a day’s passage due east from Rhodes Town, would have been Gemiler island, in a bay just south of Fethiye. The Island became inhabited during the early Eastern Roman period. Early Christians had come here to flee Roman persecution. Some medieval sources claim that Saint Nicholas (the Saint Nick) and lived here, or at least that his original tomb was here.
He was born around 270 AD, in Patara further eastwards on the coast, and inherited great wealth from his parents, who died when he was young. Inspired by Christian teachings, he dedicated his life to charity, and service to others. He is said to have helped three sisters, by secretly providing their poor parents with a dowry so that the girls could avoid prostitution. He secretly placed bags of gold in the shoes – or socks! - that were drying by the fireplace!! He eventually became Bishop of Myra, near modern Demre.
His saint’s day is December 6th (not December 25th), despite other aspects of his legend being subsumed into the western legends of Santa Claus or Father Christmas. He also earned a reputation for protecting sailors, after miraculously calming storms to save troubled ships. He is also the patron saint of brewers. What a great combination.
From the Eastern Roman period until the 12th century, the island was inhabited and an important port of call for vessels sailing from the western Mediterranean, carrying pilgrims destined for the Palestine. The island was deemed worth seeing partly because it is an excellent sheltered anchorage.
But also because of the legendary powers of St Nicholas!
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