Well, let me take you back about 100 years because it’s very important to talk about the 1200s and the events leading up to before talking about the 1300s and the evolution of Venice. Of course, whoever is reading this is already thinking about the Fourth Crusade; however, I am actually not going to focus on this much at all. It’s an irrefutable fact that the Fourth Crusade largely plays into this, but diving into the specifics will just take up too much time and we are here to talk about the fleet.

In an earlier post I talked about the year 1081 which I myself consider to be a vital year in the rise of Venice. Byzantium faced a major threat in the form of the Normans who had been granted much of Southern Italy and with the help of their allies, the Venetians, and the feud between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, the Byzantines were able to survive this menace. You can read about that here if you would like; of course, you don’t have to, I’m not here to tell you how to live your life, but the important thing to take away from this which is relevant to this subject is the fact that Venice was granted the “Golden Bull.” This decree by the Emperor Alexios Komnenos gave the Venetians free trading rights, and exempt them from taxes in the Byzantine Empire which gave them a tremendous advantage against merchant rivals such as Amalfi.

There is a main reason though that many historians don’t consider this period to be the actual rise of Venice and that’s because Venice’s archnemesis, Genoa. I like to view these cities as fighting siblings; I mean, they are essentially an echo of one another, but they hate each other. Genoa is known as La Superba meaning the proud and Venice is known as Serenissima or the most serene. Even their names for themselves are similar; however, although both Republics shared goals of grabbing market shares, there is one big difference between the 2 and that Genoa was more privatized. This made the Genoese merchants more cut-throat and created a high-risk high-reward environment which led the Genoese to continue to compete against the Venetians and at times even take the lead in the sense that their technology was ahead of their rivals’. This all changed in 1204 when Enrico Dandolo and the Fourth Crusade turn to Constantinople, the fall of the city granted the Venetians access to the richest markets in the East and could exclude Genoa from the Aegean and the Black Sea. A lot of these private merchants suffered enormous setbacks and many took their business to the victorious Venetians but also many began to adopt pirate methodologies and thus the Venetians not only experienced an influx of technology from the Genoese, but also had to develop new tactics to defend themselves from these pirates (which is something they were working on for some time against the Saracens). This eventually turned into open fighting across the Mediterranean in the next 50 years but also in the Crusader states where Genoa who had previously found trade in the Levant to be extremely lucrative was now more or less cut off from that very trade. Genoa still survived by playing as a middle-man to the Italian urban centers such as Florence and Milan providing grain.

Since your question is focused on Venice we will now focus on Venice and their fleet. In what is known as the “Age of Expansion” (1203-1509) for Venice everything was centered around their fleet. Whether the fleet was set-up during peace or during war did not matter, government appointed civilians commanded these fleets under the guidance of an admiral. The admirals had a pretty solid support system in the form of administrators and galley captains. Medieval shipping was pretty limited and despite the actions Venice took to improve upon it, they could never really control the entirety of the Mediterranean. In the 13th century they put in place a naval patrol system and a convoy system that allowed for a form of protection on common trade routes as well as piracy suppression.

Here is where we get to some of the statistics, I’m sure you’ve been hoping to hear about: first, I’d like to say that this convoy system was nothing new, it was merely improved upon over time by the Venetians. The number of merchant ships known as Venetian round ships varied based on supply and demand, but typically you would see anywhere between 15 to 30 galleys escorting these more vulnerable merchant ships. The reason we know that it was between those numbers is because of the legislation. Venice had some regulations on the round ships allowing them only to travel to friendly ports or their own ports. The reason being that any number of events could cause the escorts to dwindle in number increasing the vulnerability of the goods, even in peacetime pirates, weather or other technical difficulties could cause the escorts to be lured away and further endangering the trade ships. Necessity is the mother of invention and the decades after the Fourth Crusade led Venice to develop the galea grossa da merchado or in English, the great merchant galley. Using slaves to row your ships wasn’t a thing for Venice so they recruited oarsmen from their holdings but more particularly from the Dalmatian coast (keep in mind that the Dalmatian coast was wider and longer in this time than now). Though I should mention that the Venetians did indeed use their round ships in battles, Ottoman sources will mention these ships once the Ottomans take to the seas. By the early 1400s the Venetians mention about 3,000 merchant ships out and fully functional, so that means that there were about 35,000-40,000 people needed just to operate them.

Just like nomads of the steppes are known for being excellent archers and horse riders based on their culture, the Venetian sailors, rowers and any crewmember were particularly more skilled in the same sense as water activities were sponsored throughout the Venetian holdings such as rowing competitions, a primitive form of water polo, jousting on rafts and even tug-of-war like competitions on water. So even though some may think that a half merchant half battleship might be held back in combat by the merchants, pirates or enemies may find themselves surprised when simple merchants and rowers had better balance in situations where the water may be rough or ships are running into each other. The Venetian merchants were actually known for some odd tactics like spilling soapy water on the deck making the attackers slip when boarding the ship. This of course came more into play when advancements in technology happened and weapons that required “less” skill were introduced. For example, in 1303 a law was enforced by the government that each of these ships were to carry a minimum of 30 crossbows and that each person on the ship was expected to fight when necessary. Some of these advancements I’m talking about are a form of fire grenades, early forms of firearms and of course crossbows. The ‘noble crossbowman’ as they were known, were typically recruited aristocracy and served on merchant ships as well as galleys. Some of these accounts are provided to us by the Ottomans yet again who were shocked by the technology of the Venetians (early Ottoman galleys still used composite bows in sea battle).

The other expectation of these convoys and great ships was that they were able to siege forts near the seas (which the Venetians were experts at), but also be able to garrison these buildings and also provide support and relief to friendly forts under siege.

The Venetians also employed a guard fleet. This was a rotational job where people were sent to navigate around the holdings of Venice to provide guidance and safety to the ports to minimize disruption in trade but also grant experience to many sailors. In this role you were pretty much confined to that area, so if you were a part of a guard fleet by Venice then that’s what you guarded. This worked especially well in the Adriatic where Venice had multiple holdings.