Book Chapter

Ships, shipping, technological change and global economic growth, 1400-1800

  • Richard W. Unger

The major breakthrough in ship design around 1400 creating the full-rigged ship constituted a general purpose technology. It had far-reaching effects on shipping, trade volume, orientation of trade routes, location of production, settlement patterns and many other aspects of life throughout the globe from 1400 to1800. The greater efficiency of the type in a number of uses led to its dissemination, to a limited degree, throughout the world. Spillovers from the success of the design were extensive and included for example a literature on designing and building ships, improvements in navigation and in government practices. Advances in shipbuilding were one of the very few technologies in the period that qualified as a technological advance with massive consequences.

  • Keywords:
  • macroinvention,
  • full-rigged ship,
  • general purpose technology,
  • shipbuilding,
  • spillover,
+ Show More

Richard W. Unger

University of British Columbia, Canada - ORCID: 0000-0002-8798-0843

  1. Adams, Jonathan, and Johan Rönnby. 2002. “Kuggmaren 1: the first cog find in the Stockholm archipelago, Sweden.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 31, 2: 172-81. DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2002.tb01412.x
  2. Agius, Dionisius A. 2002. In the wake of the dhow : the Arabian Gulf and Oman. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press.
  3. Agius, Dionisius A. 2008. Classic ships of Islam: from Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean. Leiden-Boston: Brill.
  4. Al-Salimi, Abdulrahman, and Eric Staples. 2019. A maritime lexicon: Arabic nautical terminology in the Indian Ocean, studies on Ibadism and Oman. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag.
  5. Antunes. Catia, et. al. 2019. “European shipbuilding and ship repairs outside Europe. Problems, questions and some hypotheses.” International Journal of Maritime History 31, 3: 456-623.
  6. Bacon, Francis. 2014 (1620). “Novum Organum Or True Suggestions for the Interpretation of Nature,” ed, Joseph Devey: Project Gutenberg [eBook #45988]. <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45988/45988-h/45988-h.htm> (2022-04-10)
  7. Bairoch, Paul, Jean Batou, and Pierre Chèvre. 1988. The population of european cities data bank and short summary of results. Geneva: Librarie Droz.
  8. Bonney, Richard. 1999. The rise of the fiscal state in Europe, c. 1200-1815. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
  9. Bresnahan, Timothy F., and Manuel Trajtenberg. 1995. “General purpose technologies ‘Engines of growth’?” Journal of econometrics 65, 1: 83-108.
  10. Bruijn, Jaap R. 1990. “Productivity, profitability, and costs of private and corporate Dutch ship owning in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” In The rise of merchant empires: long-distance trade in the early modern world, 1350-1750, ed. James D. Tracy, 174-94. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
  11. Burger, C. P. 1908, 1909, 1910. “Oude Hollandsche zeevaart-uitgaven.” Tijdscrhift voor boek- en bibliotheekwezen VI, VII, VIII: 119-37 & 245-61, 1-17, 123-32 & 157-72, 255-62.
  12. Carlaw, Kenneth I., and Richard G. Lipsey. 2006. “GPT-Driven, Endogenous Growth.” The Economic Journal 116, 508: 155-74. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2006.01051.x
  13. Cazenave de la Roche, Arnaud. 2020. The Mortella III wreck: a spotlight on Mediterranean shipbuilding of the 16th century. Oxford: BAR Publishing.
  14. Craig, Robin. 1982. “Printed guides for master mariners as a source of productivity change in shipping, 1750-1914.” The Journal of Transport History 3, 2: 23-35.
  15. Crumlin-Pedersen, Ole. 2000. “To be or not to be a cog: the Bremen Cog in perspective.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 29, 2: 230-46. DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2000.tb01454.x
  16. Crumlin-Pedersen, Ole. 2009, “Boat and boat house. The conceptional origins of clinker boats and boat-shaped halls of the fourth to eleventh centuries in Scandinavia.” In Creating shapes in civil and naval architecture: a cross-disciplinary comparison, ed. H. Nowacki, and Wolfgang Lefèvre, 147-65. Leiden: Brill.
  17. Ellmers, Detlev. 1994. “The cog as cargo carrier.” In Cogs, caravels and galleons: the sailing ship, 1000-1650. Conway’s history of the ship, ed. Robert Gardiner and Richard W. Unger, 29-46. London: Conway Maritime Press.
  18. Ellmers, Detlev. 2010. “Koggen Kontrovers.” Hansische Geschichtsblätter 128: 113-40.
  19. Ferreiro, Larrie D. 2007. Ships and science: the birth of naval architecture in the scientific revolution, 1600-1800. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  20. Ferreiro, Larrie D. 2020. Bridging the seas: the rise of naval architecture in the industrial age, 1800-2000. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  21. Giraldez, Arturo. 2015. The age of trade: the Manila galleons and the dawn of the global economy. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
  22. Glete, Jan. 1993. Navies and nations: warships, navies and state building in Europe and America, 1500-1860. Vols. 1-2, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
  23. Harris, J. R. 1998. Industrial espionage and technology transfer: Britain and France in the eighteenth century. Aldershort, Hants, England-Brookfield, VT: Scolar Press.
  24. Helpman, Elhanan. 1998. “Introduction.” In General purpose technologies and economic growth, ed. Elhanan Helpman, 1-13. Cambridge, MA; London: MIT Press.
  25. Jahnke, Carsten. 2011. “Koggen und kein Ende Anmerkungen zu den Thesen von Reinhard Paulsen und Detlev Ellmers.” Zeitschrift für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumkunde 91: 305-20.
  26. Jahnke, Carsten, and Anton Englert. 2014. “Historical research on merchant seafaring in Danish waters and in the western Baltic Sea 1000-1250.” In Large cargo ships in Danish waters 1000-1250 Evidence of specialised merchant seafaring prior to the Hanseatic period, ed. Anton Englert, 30-75. Roskilde: The Viking Ship Museum.
  27. Kander, Astrid, Paolo Malanima, and Paul Warde. 2013. Power to the people: energy in Europe over the last five centuries. Princeton: Princeton University Pres.
  28. Kelly, Morgan. 1997. “The dynamics of Smithian growth.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 112, 3: 939-64. DOI: 10.1162/003355397555398
  29. Kelly, Morgan, Cormac Ó Gráda, and Peter M. Solar. 2021. “Safety at sea during the industrial revolution.” The Journal of Economic History 81, 1: 239-75.
  30. Lane, Frederic C. 1940. “The Mediterranean spice trade: Its revival in the sixteenth century.” The American Historical Review XLV: 581-90.
  31. Lane, Frederic C. 1973. Venice, a maritime republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  32. Lang, Arend W. 1968. Seekarten der südlichen Nord- und Ostsee. Hamburg: Deutsches Hydrographisches Institut.
  33. Lang, Arend W. 1986. Die “Caerte van oostlant” des Cornelis Anthonisz. 1543: arte Nordeuropas und ihre Segelanweisung, Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums Bd. 8. Hamburg: Kabel.
  34. Lewis, David. 1994. We, the navigators: the ancient art of landfinding in the Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
  35. Lipsey, Richard G., Kenneth Carlaw, and Clifford Bekar. 2005. Economic transformations: general purpose technologies and long-term economic growth. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.
  36. Lucassen, Jan. 2011. “Work on the docks: Sailors’ Labour productivity and the organization of loading and unloading.” In Shipping and economic growth 1350-1850, ed. Richard W. Unger, 269-78. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
  37. Lucassen, Jan, and Richard W. Unger. 2011. “Shipping, productivity and economic growth.” In Shipping and economic growth 1350-1850, ed. Richard W. Unger, 3-44. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
  38. Maarleveld, Thijs J. 1994a. “Double Dutch solutions in flush-planked shipbuilding.” In Crossroads in ancient shipbuilding: proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology, Roskilde, 1991, ISBSA 6, ed. Christer Westerdahl, 153-63. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
  39. Maarleveld, Thijs J., B. Goudswaard, and R. Oosting. 1994b. “New data on early modern Dutch-flush shipbuilding: Scheurrak T24 and Inschot/Zuidoostrak.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 23, 1:13-25. DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.1994.tb00435.x
  40. Manguin, Pierre-Yves. 1993. “The Vanishing Jong: Insular Southeast Asian fleets in war and trade (15th-17th Centuries).” In Southeast Asia in the early modern era: trade, power, and belief, ed. Anthony Reid, 197-213. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  41. Manguin, Pierre-Yves. 2010. “New ships for new networks: Trends in shipbuilding in the South China Sea in the 15th and 16th centuries.” In Southeast Asia in the fifteenth Century: The Ming factor, ed. Geoff Wade, 333-58. Singapore: NUS Press.
  42. Manguin, Pierre-Yves. 2019. “Sewn boats of Southeast Asia: the stitched-plank and lashed-lug tradition.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 48, 2: 400-15. DOI: 10.1111/1095-9270.12367
  43. McCarthy, Mike. 2005. Ships’ fastenings: from sewn boat to steamship. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.
  44. McCormick, Michael, J. Kirsten Ataoguz, Kelly L. Gibson, Leland Grigoli, Brendan Maione-Downing, Alexander M. More, Robin Reich, Ece Turnator, and Julia Wang. 2013, “Summary geodatabase of shipwrecks AD 1-1500, Status 2008.xlsx.” Digital atlas of Roman and medieval civilization summary geodatabase of shipwrecks AD 1-1500, Status 20082013-10-032013V2 Harvard Dataverse. DOI: 10.7910/DVN/ZIQPDG
  45. Michael, Pamela O. Long, David McGee, Alan M. Stahl, and Franco Rossi. 2009. The book of Michael of Rhodes: a fifteenth-century maritime manuscript. Vols. 3. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  46. Mokyr, Joel. 1990. The lever of riches: technological creativity and economic progress. New York: Oxford University Press.
  47. Mokyr, Joel. 2018. “The past and the future of innovation: Some lessons from economic history.” Explorations in Economic History 69:13-26. DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2018.03.003
  48. Moll-Murata, Christine. April, 2008. “State and crafts in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).” Habilitationsschrift, Faculty for Cultural Studies, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.
  49. Paulsen, Reinhard. 2016. Schifffahrt, Hanse und Europa im Mittelalter Schiffe am Beispiel Hamburgs europäische Entwicklungslinien und die Forschung in Deutschland, Quellen und Darstellungen zur Hansischen Geschichte. Köln; Weimar; Wien: Böhlau Verlag.
  50. Phillips, Carla Rahn. 1994. “The caravel and the galleon.” In Cogs, caravels and galleons: the sailing ship, 1000-1650, ed. Robert Gardiner, and Richard W. Unger, 91-114. London: Conway Maritime Press.
  51. Pryor, John H. 1988. Geography, technology, and war: studies in the maritime history of the Mediterranean, 649-1571. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press.
  52. Pryor, John H. 1994. “The Mediterranean round ship.” In Cogs, caravels and galleons: the sailing ship, 1000-1650, ed. Robert Gardiner, and Richard W. Unger, 59-76. London: Conway Maritime Press.
  53. Raleigh, Walter. 1829 (1605? pub. 1650). A Discourse, Of The Invention Of Ships, Anchors,,Compass, & C. The First Natural War, The Several Uses, Defects, And Supplies Of Shipping; The Strength And, Defects Of The Sea-Forces Of England,France, Spain, And Venice: Together With The Five Manifest Causes Of The Sudden Appearing, Of The Hollanders. Vols. 8. Vol. 8, The works of Sir Walter Ralegh, kt. Oxford: The University Press.
  54. Rönnbäckk, Klas. 2012. “The speed of ships and shipping productivity in the age of sail.” European Review of Economic History 16, 4: 469-89.
  55. Rosenberg, Nathan. 1972. “Factors affecting the diffusion of technology.” Explorations in Economic History 10, 1: 3-33.
  56. Schilder, Günter. 2017. Early Dutch maritime cartography: the North Holland school of cartography (c. 1580-c. 1620), Explokart studies on the history of cartography,. Leiden- Boston: Brill, Hes & De Graaf.
  57. Schotte, Margaret E. 2019. Sailing school: navigating science and skill, 1550-1800, Information cultures. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  58. Smith, Adam, Edwin Cannan, and Max Lerner. 1937 (1776). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, ed. Edwin Canaan. New York: The Modern library.
  59. Solar, Peter M. 2013. “Opening to the East: shipping between Europe and Asia, 1770-1830.” The Journal of Economic History 73, 3: 625-61.
  60. Staples, Eric, and Lucy Blue. 2019. “Archaeological, historical, and ethnographic approaches to the study of sewn boats: past, present, and future.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 48, 2: 269-85. DOI: 10.1111/1095-9270.12361
  61. Steensgaard, Niels. 1990. “The growth and composition of the long-distance trade of England and the Dutch Republic before 1750.” In The Rise of merchant empires: long-distance trade in the early modern world, 1350-1750, ed. James D. Tracy and University of Minnesota. Center for Early Modern History, 102-52. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press.
  62. Stern, Walter M. 1960. The porters of London. London: Longmans.
  63. Trigger, Bruce G. 1986. Natives and newcomers: Canada’s “Heroic age” reconsidered. Kingston, ON-Manchester: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Manchester University Press.
  64. Unger, Richard W. 1980. The ship in the medieval economy, 600-1600. London- Montreal: Croom Helm. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
  65. Unger, Richard W. 1981. “Warships and cargo ships in medieval Europe.” Technology and Culture 22, 2: 233-52.
  66. Unger, Richard W. 1985. “Dutch design specialization and building methods in the seventeenth century.” In Postmedieval boat and ship archaeology, ed. Carl Olof Cederlund, 153-64. Oxford: B. A. R.
  67. Unger, Richard W. 1992. “The tonnage of Europe’s merchant fleets 1300-1800.” The American Neptune 52,4: 247-61.
  68. Unger, Richard W. 2006a. “Warships, cargo ships and Adam Smith: trade and government in the eighteenth century.” The Mariner’s Mirror 92, 1: 41-59.
  69. Unger, Richard W. 2006b. “Investment and Risk: Ships design and investment in port infrastructure, 1200-1800,.” In Ricchezza del mare. Ricchezza dal mare. Secc. XIII-XVIII-Atti delle “Settimane di Studi” 11-15 aprile 2005, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi, 317-42. Firenze: Le Monnier.
  70. Unger, Richard W. 2010. Ships on maps: pictures of power in Renaissance Europe. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  71. Unger, Richard W. 2011. “Ship design and energy use, 1350-1875.” In Shipping efficiency and economic growth 1350-1850, ed. Richard W. Unger, 249-67. Leiden- Boston: Brill.
  72. Unger, Richard W. 2013. “The technology and teaching of shipbuilding 1300-1800.” In Technology, skills and the pre-modern economy in the East and the West, ed. Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden, 161-204. Leiden: Brill.
  73. Unger, Richard W. 2015. “Trade, taxation and government policy in the high middle ages.” Viator 46, 3: 195-217.
  74. Unger, Richard W. 2019. “Ship types in Atlantic navigation from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries,.” In Navegação no Atlântico/Atlantic navigation, XVIII Reunião Internacional de história da náutica/XVIII International Reunion for the history of nautical science, ed. Francisco Contente Domingues and Susana Serpa Silva, 39-50. Ponta Delgada, Azores: CHAM.
  75. Van Zanden, Jan Luiten, and Milja Van Tielhof. 2009. “Roots of growth and productivity change in Dutch shipping industry, 1500-1800.” Explorations in Economic History 46, 4: 389-403.
  76. Vliet, Jeroen van der. 2006. “Tussen wal en schip De Amsterdamse Lastage in de zestiende eeuw.” Tijdschrift voor zeegeschiedenis 25: 23-32.
  77. Vosmer, Tom. 2019. “Sewn Boats in Oman and the Indian Ocean.” Journal of Nautical Archaeology 48, 2: 302-33. DOI: 10.1111/1095-9270.12371
  78. Waghenaer, Lucas Janszoon. 1965. Thresoor der zeevaert, Leyden, 1592. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
  79. Wegener Sleeswyk, André. 2003a. “Building costs and carrying capacity of European merchant ships, 1400-1800.” Tijdschrift voor zeegeschiedenis 22, 2: 137-46.
  80. Wegener Sleeswyk, André. 2003b. De Gouden Eeuw van het fluitschip. Franeker: Van Wijnen.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Pages: 373-393
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2023 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2023 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Ships, shipping, technological change and global economic growth, 1400-1800

Authors

Richard W. Unger

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0092-9.22

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

L’economia della conoscenza: innovazione, produttività e crescita economica nei secoli XIII-XVIII / The knowledge economy: innovation, productivity and economic growth, 13th to 18th century

Editors

Giampiero Nigro

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

456

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0092-9

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0091-2

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0092-9

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

385

Fulltext
downloads

169

Views

Export Citation

1,361

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,368

Book Chapters

3,870,371

Fulltext
downloads

4,536

Authors

from 942 Research Institutions

of 66 Nations

67

scientific boards

from 357 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,249

Referees

from 381 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations