What were these old "matlows"[12] like, and how were they raised? The second question is easily answered. As Lord Haldane has stated, compulsory service was never foreign to the English laws and constitution. But we may observe that it has never been carried out in the fair and impartial manner which is now universal on the Continent of Europe, where "duke's son, cook's son", and everybody else has to serve his country alike. No; ours has always been a kind of bullying system or want of system.

In the old days of the Cinque Ports, if more ships were required than they had to provide, their ships were just sent out to "commandeer" any suitable craft they could lay hands on. So with men. Certain places and counties had to provide a regulated quota of soldiers or sailors, or both. If they were voluntarily forthcoming, well and good; if not, the magistrates, the port-reeves, or bayliffs had authority to take as many as they required to make up the number by force, and made no bones about doing so. So while Jones got off free, Brown and Robinson were pressed. But it was all a matter of luck—at any rate ostensibly. That was the hardship of it, not only then, but in the later "press-gang days".

But, once caught, the mediÆval seaman had little to complain of in the way of pay. That, no doubt, made up for a good deal of severe discomfort. A mariner or seaman in 1277 got 3d. a day—a penny more than an ordinary soldier[13]—and in 1370 it was raised to 4d. Now, if we bear in mind that it has been estimated that money at that time was worth something like fourteen times what it is to-day, we must admit that the seaman did not do so badly. The master of the ship at this time was called the "rector", and received 6d. a day, while his second in command got the same amount. There were no admirals then, but the senior sea officer of the fleet was termed "captain" and paid 12d. per diem. The knight who was in actual military command of a warship would draw 2s. a day if he was paid the same rate afloat as ashore.

Whether there was a regular scale of provisioning before John Redynge was appointed "Clerk of the Spicery" in 1496, to look after the victualling of both army and navy, I am unable to say, but it appears that the usual "sea-stock" laid in for a voyage in mediÆval times consisted of bacon, salt meat, "Poor John" or salted herrings, flour, eggs, and poultry.

We have little information as to the personality, manners, and customs of the seamen of mediÆval ages. In the earlier period they were pretty certainly more of the long-shore or fisherman class than deep-sea sailors. When not engaged in legitimate trading or warfare they generally took a hand at rank piracy. There was a saying about them that the British sailors were "good seamen, but better pirates"! Even the Cinque Ports, which provided the nearest approach to a national navy, achieved a most scandalous notoriety in this respect. But at the same time there is no doubt that the Normans, Basques, Flemings, French, and other seafarers were just as bad, though perhaps not quite so expert. It was the fashion afloat in those days.

We may gather some small idea of what seamen and sea-going were like in the Middle Ages from the pen of one Brother Felix Fabri, a Dominican of Ulm, who went from Venice to Jerusalem somewhere about 1480. Space forbids as long an extract as could be wished, for his experiences are both interesting and amusing. The seamen with whom he came in contact were not Englishmen, but "sea ways" are generally much the same all over the world. He and his fellow pilgrims chose their berths before starting, and had their names chalked over them. He gives many warnings, which those of us who have been to sea can well appreciate. To the would-be traveller he says: "Let him not sit on any ropes, lest the wind change of a sudden and he be thrown overboard". And "Let him beware of getting in the way of the crew, for however noble he may be, nay, were he a bishop, they will push against him and trample on him". "He should also be cautious where he sits down, lest he stick to his seat, for every place is covered with pitch, which becomes soft in the heat of the sun". Inadvertently to "steal the commander's paint" is a mishap which may easily overtake the unwary on board His Majesty's ships in these latter days.

The chronicler explains that the captain's authority is absolute; though ignorant of navigation, he commands what course the ship will take. He has under him a master-at-arms, a "caliph" or "ship's husband", and a "cometa" or "mate", who sets the crew in motion—like the commander in a modern man-of-war. "The mate's subordinates", says Brother Felix, "fear him as they would fear the devil." The crew—bar the wretched slaves who worked the oars, and of whose tortures "he shuddered to think"—consisted of "compani", nine in number, who were employed on all dangerous work aloft, and others termed "mariners", who, according to him, "sing while work is being carried on to those who do it". This sounds like a "soft job", but the "mariners" probably may be classed with the so-called "idlers" in our war-ships, who are anything but idle. There was a "scribe", with the duties of the purser on a mail steamer of our day, who "arranges disputes about berths, makes men pay their passage-money, and has many duties. He is, as a rule, hated by all alike." We must not omit mention of the pilot, or navigating officer, with whom were associated "certain cunning men, astrologers and soothsayers, who watch the signs of the stars and the sky". They have a chart, "an ell long and an ell broad, whereon the whole sea is drawn with thousands of lines". One of them was always on duty, watching the compass and chanting "a kind of sweet song, which shows that all is going well, and in the same tone he chants to him that holdeth the tiller of the rudder, to which quarter it ought to be moved".

The mention of "astrologers and soothsayers" reminds us that sailors have always had the reputation of being exceptionally superstitious. I doubt if this is still true—at any rate as regards the Royal Navy. Take the proverbial bad luck of sailing on a Friday. My own sea experience, which goes back for a good many years, is that Friday was a very favourite day for going to sea. We often left harbour on Fridays. I think it was because on Saturday we got a good clear day for cleaning up the ship, then came Sunday—a quiet day—so that everything and everybody was nicely settled down by Monday morning, and we could start fair on the weekly routine.

But from what we know of life in the Middle Ages it would have been indeed strange if seamen had not been superstitious. The wonders and dangers of the deep were very real and close in those days of cogs and galleys—veritably mere specks on the ocean. It is to be feared that seamen of later ages had not the same dread of going to sea in debt as De Joinville the Crusader,[14] or the expression "to pay with the fore-topsail" would never have arisen. Like Chaucer's seaman, some of them "of nice conscience took ... no keep", and were very glad to escape their creditors by hoisting sail and putting to sea.

"Sailors have ever been superstitious," says a French writer on the Middle Ages;[15] "their credulous brains are the parents of all the fantastic beings and animals that they persuade themselves that they have seen in their wanderings, and with which they have peopled the mysterious depths of the ocean. The syrens of antiquity, the monsters of Scylla and Charybdis, have been far surpassed by modern legendary creations, such as the 'Kraken', a gigantic mass of pulp which attacked and dragged down the largest ships; the 'Bishop Fish', which, mitre on head, blessed and then devoured shipwrecked mariners; the 'Black Hand', which, even in the days of Columbus, was despicted as marking the entrance to the 'Sunless Ocean'; and the numerous troops of hideous demons, one of whom, in the sight of the whole French Fleet of Crusaders, on their way to attack the Island of Mitylene, in the reign of Louis XII, clutched and swallowed up a profligate sailor who had 'blasphemed and defied the Holy Virgin'."

Strange to say, the St. Elmo's light, or "corposant", was regarded as a heaven-sent vision prognosticating favour and protection. Knowing nothing of electricity, and being unaware that the gradual collection of the electric fluid into the weird luminous balls of light which, during thunderstorms, sometimes collect at mast-head or yard-arm, is supposed to render the ship less likely to be struck by lightning, one cannot help thinking it remarkable that this phenomenon, which certainly has quite a supernatural appearance, did not inspire more terror than confidence in the seamen of the Middle Ages. I remember two "corposants" appearing at the fore-top-mast head and at the yard-arm on board the old Nelson in a storm of thunder and wind, off the Australian coast. They remained—occasionally shifting their position a little—for some considerable time.

It was doubtless something of this kind which William, Earl of Salisbury, saw one night, in a hard gale of wind, on his way back from the Holy Land in 1222. The storm was so fierce that he gave up hope of life, and threw his money and richest apparel overboard. Suddenly, when the tempest was at its height, all hands saw "a mighty taper of wax burning brightly at the prow". They also thought they saw the figure of a celestial being standing beside it, screening it from the wind. The ship's company were at once reassured of ultimate safety, but the Earl was the most confident of all, because he felt certain that he was being repaid for his piety at the time of his initiation into the honour of knighthood, on which occasion he had brought a taper to the altar, and arranged for it to be lighted every day in honour of the Holy Virgin.