R. A. SKELTON

THE SEAMAN AND THE PRINTER

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COIMBRA-1970 !5C9v R . A. SKELTON r

THE SEAMAN AND THE PRINTER

COIMBRA - 1970 {~

THE SEAMAN AND THE PRINTER

R. A. SKELTON

This paper presents no new discoveries or interpretations. I offer merely some reflections on the process by which documents used by seamen passed from script into print, on the conditions in which this transition occurred, Separata da and on its consequences for the development of hydrographic literature in Revista da Universidade de Coimbra the 15th and 16th centuries. These thoughts are prompted by, and nourished Vol. XXIV on, the work on the literature of navigation done by pioneers to whom all students are in debt: notably Behrmann, Kretschmer, Fontoura da Costa, Gemez, E. G. R. Taylor, B. R. Motzo and my friend Commander Waters. The papers and discussions at this conference have been marked by a strong tone of empirism. They have dealt with instruments and books, methods of observation and computation, mainly insofar as they were within the seaman's capacity to use, and particularly to carry and use on board his ship. Here I accept the same emphasis in a restricted context, namely the transmission of sailing directions or pilot-books. My paper is concerned with the men who produced and used textual or graphic aids to navigation. In the evolution and the evolution and transmission of written pilot guides, the virtual absence of any medieval Latin tradition constitutes a hiatus in the historical records of hydrography which has perplexed many students. Konrad Kretschmer (for instance) expressed the conviction that a Latin pilot-guide must be assumed as a link between the Greek sailing directions of the Hellenistic period and the Italian porto/ani of the late Middle Ages (1). Gemez thought that 'even if no book of this kind has been preserved, it must not be supposed that none ever existed, but that they were lost' by use at sea or the hazards of time (2). These affirmations imply acts of faith rather than deductions. Gemez offered no reasons, and the evidence cited by Kretschmer in support of his hypothesis appears very slender. It amounts in fact to no more than the early 13th-century Italian fragment in the Biblioteca Marciana, with its sprinkling of latinisms, uncertainty about distances, and

(1) K. KRETSCHMER, Die italienischen Portolane des Mittelalters (1909), pp. 169- 172, 175-6. (2) D. GERNEZ, 'Esquisse de l'historique de l'evolution des livres d'instructions Composto e impresso na •lmprensa de Coimbra, Limitada· nautiques', Comm. de i'Acad. de Marine de Belgique, V (1950), 4 5 addition of the route from Acre to Alexandria. A Latin original (if it existed) whole. There is no need to postulate a revolutionary innovation. For may well have been itself a translation from Italian. The earliest extensive pilot-guides of northern origin, the manuscript tradition does not extend so pilot-book in Latin, that of Marino Sanudo (c. 1320), is plainly translated far back, apparently not beyond the 14th century. But we may recall that, from Italian, and it is embodied in a work of propaganda addressed to an before about 1250, the date ascribed to the compilation of Lo Compasso da international audience. navigare there were already three manuscript recensions of the sailing direc­ Anyone who could understand Latin in the Middle Ages was probable tions fr;m Denmark to Acre preserved by Adam of Bremen or his scholiast. literate, but we cannot assume that a man who could express himself only This indicates (as Dahlgren suggested) a wide circulation in standardised in his mother tongue was able to read or write. Latin was universally used form in Scandinavia and north Germany (5). for didactic, technical and (so to speak) scientific texts, as the only language It follows also, surely, that we need not postulate any Latin forerunners with the full vocabulary required. But in the Middle Ages, as before and or models. The literary form of itineraries by land and the content of world since, the transmission of hydrographic information from experience-whether maps was still influenced, and sometimes dominated, _by late Roman pro­ orally or in writing- must always have taken vernacular forms; it was totypes; here the Latin tradition was unbroken and still strong. In hydro­ communicated in the mother tongue of the speaker or writer. The medieval graphy there is no evidence for any such continuity or d~~endence, and the~e shipmaster or pilot was not always literate, and the very earliest medieval was no occasion for it. The vigour of the vernacular traditiOn helps to explam rutters known to us were conveyed by word of mouth to some more litterate the relatively late appearance of printed aids to navigation. . person who wrote them down. So, at the end of the 9th century, Ottar the In the Middle Ages Latin, as the lingua franca of culture and the offictal Norwegian 'told his lord, Alfred the King', the particulars of his voyages language of Church and Empire, was of course a unifying factor. In limited north to the White Sea and south to the Baltic. The scribe who first wrote professional fields, however, the use of vernacular languages did not necessari~y down the Latin rutter from Ribe (in Denmark) to Acre, preserved in a gloss make for diversification or independent local development. The Atlantic on Adam of Bremen's 'Description of the northern islands', must have had coasts of Europe, between Gibraltar (or Cartagena) and Flanders, were it in a vernacular language from the mouth of a seaman. It is an oral tra­ frequented by both northern and southern shipping. In this overlap b~twe~n dition that is reproduced in the sailing directions found in Icelandic and the pilot-guides originating in the Mediterranean and those comphed m Norwegian written texts from the twelfth century onward. From southern western or northern Europe, extensive and close agreement has been demon­ Europe the only text of comparable antiquity is the Marciana fragment of strated by Behrmann and Cdr Waters, from analysis of various 15th-century about 1200, which (in the words of E. G. R. Taylor) 'gives us little indication texts: the Low German Seebuch, the Italian porto/ani of Versi and Rizo of the richness of detail and refinement of bearings that were now accumulating (Ca' da Mosto), Portuguese roteiros, and the French routiers of Pierre Garcie (6). in the notebooks of literate sea-masters, or were stored in the memories of This justifies Waters's conclusion that, to some extent, these sailing directions local pilots' (3). (whatever the language in which they were written) were 'common knowledge Such accumulations of navigational data, from personal observation among seamen of western Europe of the 14th and 15th centuries'. and from information supplied in ports visited, were essentialy of a private Their transmission is wholly undocumented; but it is not difficult to character. They could not contribute to the common pool of hydrographic visualise the circumstances in which intercommunication of hydrographic information until they were reduced to systematic form and codified. The data between (say) a Venetian and a Scandinavian seaman, or between a terminus post quem for this development is of couse the date by which a ver­ Portuguese and a Fleming or Englishman, could occur. The prof~s~ional nacular language became sufficiently disciplined to serve as a vehicle for vocabulary of languages other than their own must have been famihar to written transmission. In Italy this codification seems to have taken place many pilots and shipmasters (7). In ports on the common trade routes during the 13th century (4). If the earliest composite and comprehensive followed by shipping of various nationalities, seamen could compare . and sailing directions, which then appear, establish a model of such maturity enrich their notes, and those from northern Europe no doubt saw the wntten as to sugegst the end rather than the beginning of an evolutionary process, porto/ani compiled in Italy and learnt the habit of putting together similar this must be ascribed to the wealth of data avaible, to opportunity for assembling and collating them, and doubtless to the 'orderly and precise mind' (in Cdr. Waters' words) of the man who organised them into a coherent (5) E. W. DAHLGREN, 'Sailing-directions for the Northern Seas', in Nordenskiold's Periplus (1897), p. 102. ~" ' (6) W. BERMANN, Ueber dje deutschen Seebuclzer des 15. wzd 16. Jahrlumderts(1906) ; D. W. WATERS, The Rutters of the Sea (1967). (3) E. G. R. ·TAYLOR, The haven-finding art (1956), p. 103. (7) Motzo cites the common language of Italian seamen used in Mediterranean (4) B. R. MOTZO, Il compasso da navigare (1947), passim. ports, when Italian as a literary language was in its infancy. 6 7 systematic sailing directions in their own languages. Most authors suppose but also (as Dr Curt Buhler has shown) even in the copying of printed books. the principal centre of such interchange to have been Sluis, the port of Bruges. The printing of the Rizo Portolano in 1490 did not bring to an end the scribal There is an interesting parallel in the merchants' guidebook known as the production of transcripts by hand; and the mutual intercopying of printed Bruges Itinerary (printed by Lelewel and Hamy), which was written down and manuscript pilot-books during the 16th century is exemplified in the some time before 1424 (8). But other ports are known to have been collecting study of the Antwerp manuscript made by Denuce and Gernez (12). centres for the knowledge of the Portuguese oceanic discoveries - and also This professional vested interest in the transcription of sailing directions doubtless for other hydrographic information- diffused abroad during the by hand may well have contributed to the fewness of the printed texts of use 15th century. It must have been in Lagos or Lisbon that the Venetian ship­ to the seaman which became available to him in the incurrable period. The master Andrea Bianco obtained data for his charts of 1436 and 1448, and the earliest printers did not neglect the usef.ul arts - surgery and medical botany, second of these was signed by him at London. In 1479-80 William Worcester engineering, even cookery and chess; but before 1500 we find no more than transcribed a list of Atlantic islands from an Italian chart which he saw in three printed books of interest to the mariner, only one of which is strictly London, and he wrote down notes on them from conversation with a seaman, a pilot-book. These are the lsolario of the Venetian shipmaster who called presumably a Portuguese, in the port of Bristol (9). himself Bartolomeo da li Sonetti, printed about 1485 with woodcut maps Johannes Knudsen has given an admirable reconstruction (quoted by of nautical type; the Portolano printed by Bernardino Rizo in 1490, also at several more recent authors) of the process by which Dutch leeskaarten or Venice; and the Almanach of Zacuto printed at Leiria in 1496. If Le routier sailing directions were assembled from the rough notes and observations de Ia mer published at Rouen between 1502 and 1510 was the first edition of of shipmasters (10). This was doubtless the method used by the author of Pierre Garcie's sailing directions, then they had to wait about twenty years Lo compasso da navigare and by the compilers of pilot-books originating years between compilation and printing. This anonymous and abbreviated in other countries than Italy. Knudsen goes on to describe the professional edition, though possibly published in Garcie's lifetime, was perhaps unauthor­ practice of scribes who made a living by providing copies of the written sailing ised. Of Le grant routtier, the fuller text with coastal views first printed in directions, and he analyses the errors of transcription which might occur 1520, Waters enumerates no fewer than 22 editions during the 16th century, and multiply 'from copy to copy over several generations'. Before the inven­ as compared with only six of the Rizo Portolano. tion of printing, this market for sailing directions was already established, As points of chronological reference, I list the earliest known printing and there was a vigorous manuscript tradition in the principal maritime of hydrographic documents in various forms. cities or ports. Knudsen concludes: 'We have no reason to think that this activity by Sailing directions 1490 Venice copysts ceased as soon as, for the first time, there was a printed pilot-book (leeskaart); on the contrary, it has certainly continued to our own day, if Sailing directions with 1520 Poi tiers more sporadically'. This observation is confirmed by the survival of many coastal profiles manuscript pilot-books from the 16th and later centuries. It is also consistent Nautical chart (1526) (Antwerp) with the effect which the introduction of the printing press is known to have 1539 Venice had on the professional production of manuscripts of all kinds in the 15th cen­ tury. The printer did not (as was once thought) put the scribe out of business; Sailing directions with (1543/44) (Amsterdam) and a modern bibliographer has noted that 'nearly as many manuscripts a nautical chart written in the second half of the 15th century have come down to us as of Atlas of charts with those which are judged to belong to the first half-century' (11). There was sailing directions 1584/85 Lei den still plenty of work for scribes not only in the copying of manuscript works During the 16th century the major centres for the printing of such hydro­ graphic documents were the northern Netherlands and France, with subsidiary (8) E. T. HAMY (ed.), Le Livre de Ia description des pays de Gilles Le Bouvier (1908), activity in England and Denmark. Only one portolan chart of southern pp. 157-216. type was printed- that of Diogo Homem engraved at Venice in 1569. The (9) R. A. SKELTON, 'English knowledge of the Portuguese discoveries in the most productive centres of publication were not the great seaports. In the 15th century', Congresso lnternacional de Hist6ria dos Descobrimentos, Aetas, II (1961), pp. 365-374. (10) J. KNUDSEN (ed.), De Kaert van der Zee van Jan Seuerszoon (1914), p. ix. (11) CuRT F. BOHLER, The fifteenth-century book (1960), p. 25. (12) J. DENUcE and D . GERNEZ (ed.), Le Livre de Mer (1936). 8 9 middle decades of the century, when Antwerp was the first commercial city The soundness of judgment which reproduced such little pictures in of Europe, no more than two of the known Dutch pilot-books were printed the corresponding text, in these early printed tracts, has been vindicated by there and all the others came from Amsterdam presses. The conclusion is the experience of centuries, and coastal elevations still appear in this form drawn by Denuce and Gernez that 'the mariners who compiled these sea-books in Admiralty Pilots. Only once during the 16th century was this continuity from information obtained mainly at Antwerp must almost all have been of tradition interrupted. In Waghenaer's sea-atlas, De Spieghel der Zeevaerdt, natives of the northern provinces, and naturally had their works printed printed by Platin at Leiden in 1584-85, the coastal profiles were transferred in or near their place of domicile' (13). from text to the face of the charts engraved on copper. This exception It is reasonable to suppose that the initiative in getting navigation aids established no precedent, for in his next pilot-book, Het Thresoor der Zeevaart into print came from the seaman rather than the printer. Like 'l'apprenti (1592), Waghenaer reverted to the original pattern of presentation (15). sorcier', he may have released forces which he could not control. In some The Spieghel in fact provides a striking, and fortunately rare, example respects, his professional interest in the presentation of the matter agreed of a hydrographic publication in which the seaman's interest was subordinated with the technical convenience of the printer; in other respects they frequently to the printer's. Although Waghenaer himself was the publisher, it was diverged. A text once in type could be, and often was, reprinted without evidently Plantin who controlled the style and design of the atlas. It is revision even if the hydrographic data in it were no longer correct. The probable that (as Dr Koeman bas written) its 'outer shape and. quality of engraving of graphic aids -charts or views -eliminated the risk of cor­ typography and engraving went far beyond Wagbenaer's intention'. A hand­ ruption to which every manuscript copy was liable; but it too discouraged somely produced book for which one of the best engravers of the day was correction or revision. The matrix - a wood block or a copper plate - employed, it was too costly for the ordinary pilot (as Waghenaer later admitted); was a valuable property and it was the printer's interest to extend its pro­ and its large format was inconvenient for use on shipboard. The sailing fitable life. Two well-known instances of a printer's temptation to economy directions were abridged so that, for each chart, they could be printed on one may be mentioned. In Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, forty-four folio page; the charts omitted at least one useful convention -the leading cuts of kings are used no fewer than 276 times; and in the first edition of line into port- already found in the sketches of earlier Dutch pilot-books. Munster's Cosmographia (1544), one woodcut view serves to represent five In the physical planning of the Spieghel, the printer's influence predominates; different cities. and there can be no doubt that Plantin intended it as a precise counterpart In the printing of coastal profiles in the text, the hydrographer and the • of the Theatrum, as a 'theatre of the seas' to complement his 'theatre of the printer were in step. Whether we suppose, with Cdr Waters, these views lands'. We way think it fortunate that, during the 16th century, most hydro­ in elevation to have originated with Pierre Garcie, or whether he followed graphic literature came from the presses of journeymen printers with no an older manuscript tradition of which all examples are lost, it is clear that very strong sense of style in presentation. they were always interspersed through the sailing directions in relevant places. The coastal profiles of Pierre Garcie depict single landmarks or con­ In this form the copy reached the printer. When the earliest pilot-books with spicuous features. In those of the Dutch leskaarten, from Cornelis Anthonisz profiles were printed (that of Garcie from 1520, that of Cornelis Anthonisz onward, extensive tracts of coastline are shown as panoramas in elevation as probably from 1544), copperplate engraving was in its infancy; but almost viewed from the ship (16). The delineation of coastline in elevation in Waghe­ all printers employed wood-engravers for decorative initials, vignettes, printer's naer's charts may be considered a development of this practice. As Behrmann marks and so on. The wood block, unlike the engraved plate, had its design suggested, they were 'partly composed by juxtaposition of coastal views' (17). in relief and so could be inserted in the printer's forme with the metal type, There is no reason to suppose, it is in fact improbable, that (as Dr Koeman so that the sheets were passed only once through the press. Not all seamen has suggested) the Enkhuizen hydrographer borrowed this style of repre­ or hydrographers had the skill of Anthonisz in graphic delineation of coastal senting coasts from Portuguese roteiros, such as those of D. Joao de Cas- features; but Cdr Waters has argued that the bold and rouglhy drawn elevations of Pierre Garcie might be more effective aids to recognition, on a coast of strong relief, than representations in finer detail (14). Anyone who has sailed a boat in misty weather will probably agree. For designs of this char­ (15) C. KOEMAN, The history of Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer and his 'Spieg!tel der acter the woodcut is a much more effective medium than the line engraving. Zeevaerdt' (1964); R. A. SKELTON, Introduction to facsimile of the Spieghel (T.O.T.), 1964. (16) On Anthonisz, cf. J. KEUNING, 'Cornelis Anthonisz', Imago Mundi, VII (1953), pp. 51-65; A. W. LANG, 'Cornelis Anthonisz', Neues Archiv /iir Niedersachsen, Hft 5/6 (1953), pp. 219-242; 0. STEPPES, Carne/is Anthonisz: Onderw1jsinge van der zee (1558), (13) DENUcE and GERNEZ, p. xii. Nordseekiiste, Hft 9 (1966). (14) WATERS, p. 32. (17) BEHRMANN, pp. 134-9. 10 ]] tro (18). For the technique of projecting local detail in perspective upon provided for him by the printer throws light both on the history of book a ground plan, there were models much closer at hand. It is found in many production and on that of hydrography. The study of this relationship, manuscript coastal charts of the mid-16th century of Dutch or English which evokes both bibliographical and historical techniques, deserves attention. authorship, and in numerous contemporary town plans or military maps. This was in fact a universal topographical idiom inherited from medieval practice and adapted to their purpose by hydrographers of various nations in the 16th century. We need not postulate either dependence or novelty. In the charts of Waghenaer's Spieghe/ the hybrid style of coastal delineation DISCUS SAO was an unfortunate experiment made possible by the virtuosity of their engraver. To the engraver's professional habits must also be ascribed the decorative A. CORTESAO.- I must say, as president of the Organising Commission of this Inter­ wave pattern covering the sea. The unpractical character of this was noticed national Meeting, that it is a reason for satisfaction that not only we see here assembled by the editor of the English edition, who wrote in his preface: 'in most of most of the greatest specialists in the various branches of nautical science, but also that the plots the Sea is purposely left in blank', so that the mariner could insert such a wide range of subjects has been and will still be dealt with -covering practically his own corrections or additions. all the aspects of this fascinating discipline. Dr Skelton does not need to apologise for the subject he has chosen as the theme of his paper because it is one of the most important The expanding production of printed sea-books, particularly in the in the history of nautical science and cartography. In fact, the printing of the first sailing Netherlands, in the second half of the 16th century bad two important con­ directions, pilot books, and the great atlases which began with those beautiful editions of sequences for the evolution of hydrography and of maritime activity. The Ptolemy's Geography, seven of which still incunabla, had a tremendous impact on the devel­ navigational data assembled by shipmasters and pilots of one country became opment of European interest in geography and navigation. They are basic material for more readily available to those of other seafaring peoples (19). Printed the modem student of the history of nautical science and of cartography - two sciences which are both complementary and stem from man's wish and purpose of knowing the editions facilitated the collations, criticism and correction of the hydrographic geography of the world on which he lives. data published in them. Dr Skelton is certainly right when he visualises that in the Middle Ages there must Continuous revision of charts and sailing directions is a concept of our also have been sailing directions written in Latin, and I guess that there must have been own day. But the need for it was well expressed by Willem Jz. Blaeu in the also some written in Arabic. In fact there have been written sailing directions since Antiquity; foreword to his Licht der Zeevaert (1608): 'the North Chane!, which by I am even convinced that in Classic times such peoples as the Phoenicians, who had reached a high degree of nautical experience and knowledge, developed some kind of astronomical Waghenaer and Albert Hayen was described to be the best Chane! of the Vlie, navigation and used nautical charts as well as elaborate and precise sailing directions. at this present ... is so much altered that it can not be used but by small When we recall the vast bibliography that Dr Skelton has published, we have to recognise ships ... And the place where yet within these few yeeres the steeple of Huysden that his authority on the present subject is second to none. I am glad to have this oppor­ did stand, lyeth now so farre into the Sea, that Ships full laden runne over tunity to thank him in public for the very important service he has rendered to all the learned it ... whereby such descriptions at this time are ... verie hurtful if a man should world with his part in the recent publication of the magnificent facsimile reproductions of the early editions of Ptolemy's Geography and similar books, particularly the masterly rule himself by them' (20). In earlier pilot-books- Waghenaer's Thresoor and most valuable introductions he has written to them all. (1592) and Andriaen Veen's Napasser (1597)- we find similar detailed criticisms of the hydrographers who preceded them. These furnish at once DAVID WATERS. - I cannot entirely agree with Dr Skelton- and it is rarely indeed a useful bibliographical record of their printed works and valuable testimony that I do not agree with him. My impression is that there was a dist;nct revolution to changes in the sea-bed, channels and coastal formation. in navigation in the thirteenth century. This saw the introduction of geometrically con­ structed bearing and distance portolan charts, Arabic numerals for calculating course and The interrelation between the needs of the seaman and the services distance sailed with the aid of a sandglass, magnetic compass and marteloio or (in effect) traverse table and of properly organized sailing directions. The chart was in facto a geome­ trical representation of the sailing directions. I call this development revolutionary because it made practicable for the first time in history all-weather navigation in the Mediterranean (18) KoEMA , pp. 38-39. Waters (Rutters of the Sea, p. 34) however thinks that that is, navigation during the winter months. Garcie's Le grant rout tier may have suggested the use of coastal profiles to both the Dutch Hitherto ships had always been laid up about October and did not put to sea again and the Portuguese. until March or April. It also made practicable navigation between the Mediterranean (19) Cf. D. W. WATERS, The art of navigation in England in Elizabethan and early and the Narrow Seas of north-west Europe. Perhaps we are merely at variance over our Stuart times (1958), pp. 167, 231. interpretation of the word «revolution», but I think it not unreasonable to apply it to the (20) On the significance of this passage for the printing-history of Het Licht der development of techniques and aids which had such far reaching effects and in so short a Zeevaert, cf. C. P. BuRGER, 'Oude Hollandsche zeevaert-uitgaven, I. De oudste uitgaven space of time. van het «Licht der Zeevaert»', Tijdschr. v.h. Boek- en Bibliotheekswezen, VI (1908), It is desirable that I should draw attention to the fact that the Getydenboeck of 1494, pp. 119-137. cited by Dr Skelton, is not a book of sailing directions but is a religious work, a fact to which 12 my attention was drawn by the late M.D. Gernez who had himself cited it earlier erroneously as a book of sailing directions. The Spanish derroteros and Portuguese roteiros were, when they related to oceanic voyaging, regarded as confidential documents, in part, no doubt, because the commerce was in each case monopolistic. Linschoten's printing of well over one hundred of these sailing directions in the mid-fifteen nineties in Dutch made available to the seamen of northern Europe sailing directions for all the seas of the world, which the English lost no time in translating into their language, and using to establish the beginnings of their empire in the East also.

TEIXEIRA DA MOTA. - Aos interessantes aspectos abordados pelo Dr. R. A. Skelton no campo das rela~5es entre o marinheiro e o impressor- e que dizem afinal respeito as costas e mares europeus- queria apenas acrescentar que essas rela~oes podem ter sido intencionalmente de afastamento, por motivo de sigilo oficial, no relativo a navega~iio noutras areas. Urn caso caracteristico, e revel ado por urn docurnento publicado em tempos por Fraziio de Vasconcelos, relativo a impressao do roteiro da carreira da india de Gaspar Ferreira Reimao, a volta de 1612. A tim de evitar que algum exemplar do roteiro viesse a cair em miios de holandeses, houve quem propusesse que o impressor fosse fechado nurn compartimento, sob o mais estricto controle quanto ao seu trabalho e quanto a verifica~ao do mimero de exemplares impressos. Neste campo, afigura-se significativo que nao se conhe~am roteiros impressos portugueses anteriores a 1608. No que respeita ao debatido problema da origem das representa~oes costeiras, desejo referir que elas ja deviam figurar, muito possivelmente, no Esmeralda de Situ Orbis (1505-8) de Duarte Pacheco Pereira, a avaliar por varias indica~oes do texto, portanto muito antes de D. Joiio de Castro.

SKELTON. - Dr Maddison has asked whether hydrographic works did not constitute a reasonable proportion of the total production of the early printing press. The answer is no, both for the incunable period before 1500 and for the post-incunable period when, in the first half of the XVI century, printing shops in many different centres put out works on a great variety of subjects addressed to a 'vernacular' public. Apart from the routiers of Pierre Garcie and the earliest Dutch leeskaarten, none was of hydrographic interest; and we must suppose that the demand was still satisfied by manuscript production and circulation. Cdr Waters suggests that the irregularity with which printed pilot-guides appeared in different countries may reflect the uneven spread and development of the art of printing among the nations of Europe. It is true that (as he recalled in speaking to another paper) the Spanish claim to priority in writings on navigation rests on the fact that the manuals of Cortes and Medina were widely disseminated in print before any Portuguese treatises. Nevertheless, no correspondence or equation between the diffusion of printing and its application to sea-books can be established. The printing trade flourished in Portugal from the early XVI century, yet no Portuguese roteiros found their way into print before the end of the v century. It is more likely that demand followed supply, since (as Denuce and Gernez noted) the earliest Dutch /eeskaarten came from presses in the home towns of seamen.