A Good Source for Info on "Medieval" Ports & Sea Trade?

[el-remmen]

As I mentioned in another thread, I am doing a lot of tweaking and developing of parts of my homebrew setting in preparation for my next Aquerra D&D campaign - and I want to detail some of the port districts and the like for some of the coastal cities.

Anyone know a good free online source regarding ports (and to some degree ships) in a "medieval" or "psuedo-medieval" urban setting?

"Free" is more important than "good" for me - b/c even something mediocre might incite my imagination even if I scrap most of it, or if the specifics of it aren't developed.

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[Turjan]

If you also want to stay halfway realistic, don't make the typical fantasy city error and place the harbor facing the sea. Even if you don't have large tides in your setting, you will want to protect the normally quite small ships from the elements. This means, put the harbor into a protected bay, up a river, make it a dock harbor within the city, or use a combination of all. There are no good and realistic depiction of harbors from the Middle Ages, but this map of Rotterdam in 1652 gives a good depiction of a relatively large harbor city. The water to the south is not the sea, but the river Nieuwe Maas. You can see that the harbor is mostly integrated with the city. The smaller city of Dordrecht (I think it's Dort in English) was very far inland, but nevertheless a seaport through its earlier history (here is a map, and here a painting).
Most smaller ports elsewhere were much simpler.

Also look at London 1616, and this map of 1593. Keep in mind that London at that time was much, much larger than during the Middle Ages.

 

[el-remmen]

Wow.

Awesome! Thanks.

 

[Turanil]

Get a look at The Forge free PDFs, especailly the one titled "Fish Side". Really cool, don't miss it!

 

[Theron]

"The Pilot's Almanac" for HarnMaster is one of, if not the best RPG books on the subject of medieval maritime trade. Most of the book is not system-specific. I don't see it on the Columbia Games website, but it's not too hard to find online.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't notice the "free" part.

 

[Nyaricus]

Wow.

Awesome! Thanks.

I'll second that!

Coolness

 

[Jupp]

I would put Hanseatic Leagues, the Kontors and the trading guilds into the game. The very nice thing about them is that you have very powerfull trading companies where players can apply and you get all the "macciavellian" and medieval intrigues and political plots for free. Wikipedia has some nice infos about the Hanses, even in English:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanse

This would lead to having the players thrown into an evironment that is full of different, competing factions where the scales of power change from month to month.

Further down the wikipedia page you can find severl links to old hanseatic cities with maps and old illustrations of their layout in medieval times.

 

[Hussar]

If it's maps you're looking for, historic cities A-Z has a fantastic collection of antique maps.

This one of Istanbul ca 16th century is pretty decent. I used it for my Shelzar map.

This site has some nice Tudor ships that would likely work. Tad on the late side, but not bad.

 

[el-remmen]

Maps are helpful - but what I really want is logistical info - how many ships passed through on a day to day basis? How many tons of goods? What kinds of goods? What were defenses like? What about enforcement of taxes and tariffs? Etc. . .

 

[Whisper72]

Try to google up stuff on the VOC, the dutch east india corporation. Many lists of trade goods, deals with merchants etc. survived, I am sure there is plenty stuff to find on-line about it...