In the early 17th century English tradition, the quartermaster is not an officer that is fully realized or defined. Captain John Smith comes the closest to defining a quartermaster in his 1627 book “A Sea Grammar” -- “The quarter Masters haue the charge of the howle, for stowing, romaging, and trimming the ship in the hold, and of their squadrons for the watch, and for fishing to haue a Sayne, a fisgig, a harpin yron, and fish hookes, for Porgos, Bonetos, Dolphins, or Dorados, and rayling lines for Mackrels.” quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo;idno=A12469.0001.001 Henry Manwayring in his 1644 book “The Seaman’s Dictionary” mentions that a quartermaster is an officer and mentions a quartermaster in his poetry but fails to define the officer. quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A51871.0001.001?view=toc Unlike today’s US Navy tradition of the quartermaster rating handling the watch-to-watch navigation, in the early-17th century it is the pilot who handles navigation on merchant ships.
We assume you're referring to the section at time stamp 4:25 when Aaron begins discussing a sailor’s rutter. First, we are dealing with TH-cam's auto generation of text and subtitles which will incorrectly generate the word “rutter” as “rudder”. The rudder is a ship's steering mechanism and came from the Old English “roðor”. While a sailor's rutter was a book that would contain textual sailing directions and comes from the French “routier”. It's not uncommon for two different objects to share a common nomenclature.
I am really looking forward to future videos that explain other nautical tools and navigational techniques.
Really liked this video! Can't wait to see more entries into this series!
Thanks, this was great!
who's the quartermaster
In the early 17th century English tradition, the quartermaster is not an officer that is fully realized or defined. Captain John Smith comes the closest to defining a quartermaster in his 1627 book “A Sea Grammar” --
“The quarter Masters haue the charge of the howle, for stowing, romaging, and trimming the ship in the hold, and of their squadrons for the watch, and for fishing to haue a Sayne, a fisgig, a harpin yron, and fish hookes, for Porgos, Bonetos, Dolphins, or Dorados, and rayling lines for Mackrels.”
quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo;idno=A12469.0001.001
Henry Manwayring in his 1644 book “The Seaman’s Dictionary” mentions that a quartermaster is an officer and mentions a quartermaster in his poetry but fails to define the officer.
quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A51871.0001.001?view=toc
Unlike today’s US Navy tradition of the quartermaster rating handling the watch-to-watch navigation, in the early-17th century it is the pilot who handles navigation on merchant ships.
a rudder is a flat plank at the back of the ship to steer it as well... why name two different things the same thing?
We assume you're referring to the section at time stamp 4:25 when Aaron begins discussing a sailor’s rutter. First, we are dealing with TH-cam's auto generation of text and subtitles which will incorrectly generate the word “rutter” as “rudder”. The rudder is a ship's steering mechanism and came from the Old English “roðor”. While a sailor's rutter was a book that would contain textual sailing directions and comes from the French “routier”.
It's not uncommon for two different objects to share a common nomenclature.