The centuries between 1100 and 1571 saw significant developments in maritime activity and naval warfare. Continued growth in the size and importance of global trade networks acted as the major stimulus for change, affecting the organization, goals, and technology of merchant and war fleets.
The two models of naval activity that dominated the previous period of naval warfare—navies of imperial defense and predatory sea peoples—continued to exist. Song China fit the former, while Japanese wako, pirates who roamed the China Sea, carried on the latter tradition. But both models declined in importance. Byzantium, the classic model of imperial defense, ceased to be a naval power; and, with the decline in Viking and Chola raids, predation generally gave way to more organized naval activity, peaceful and warlike. This was possible in part because the growing wealth generated by world trade made higher levels of political organization possible along the international trade routes.
In fact, both models tended to converge on a new model of naval activity that was government directed or sponsored, as in the imperial defense model, but in greater partnership with thriving merchant marines and with trade assuming a more central role. Thus, this new model also tended to be outward looking and even aggressive, as the predatory model had been, but, again, with a far greater measure of formal government organization and permanence. Imperial navies assumed a more offensive role, as under the Yuan in China and the Ottomans in the Mediterranean. In addition, increasing exploration of trade routes by naval forces combined mercantile, military, and even religious motivations, as under the Ming in China and the Portuguese in western Europe. While the balance between governmental and private interests varied widely among the many instances of this developing model, it is nevertheless reasonable to refer to this as the capitalist, or at least proto-capitalist, model of naval activity.
In large part because of the emergence of this new model, this was also a period of significant advances in maritime technology. The changes mostly affected the seaworthiness and navigability of sailing ships. Such changes made ships more efficient and profitable carriers of goods, and so created a selfreinforcing trend of rising trade and improving technology. They also presaged the eventual decline of oared ships as a significant factor in trade or warfare. But only late in the period would technology begin to affect tactics or significantly change the potential uses of naval force. For most of this period, naval tactics, including those of oared galleys, remained relatively stable, as traditions established in earlier ages in response to the particular environments of each area were developed and elaborated. And the basic character of naval warfare—as essentially an amphibious extension of land warfare—remained unchanged. Control of the seas—in terms of active, continual patrol and domination of sea-lanes by cruising fleets—was still a technological impossibility. “Control” therefore remained conceived of and practiced more as an adjunct of land-based power.
In the latter half of this period, two areas in particular, China and Europe, would lead the way in exploiting the technological advances of the age to extend the range and influence of seaborne military might. Comparison of these two areas, however, demonstrates the variations the new model of naval activity was subject to and shows that the context into which technology is introduced influences the effect of that technology significantly. There was no simple, deterministic path from better technology to domination of the seas. In the end, new models of naval organization and technological advances laid foundations for a new age of naval warfare as a much more independent branch of military endeavor—indeed, perhaps the most important branch in the following 250 years.