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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
If God had not given a natural inclination to some with regard to things of the sea, I do not believe that anyone would ever dare to go upon it. … Barely has a long voyage begun when fresh water becomes so short that one is reduced to drinking so little that thirst is provoked rather than quenched … Food shortages are so frequent that one is often forced to eat rats and ship’s leather … One has difficulty in deciding which is the more insupportable, the heat of the torrid zone or the cold of the north. Scurvy and the maladies of Guinea and the tropics are so painful and grievous that you would not believe the human body could suffer so greatly. The horror of maritime warfare and of storms cannot be explained to those who have not experienced them. I know of voyages where a third or a half of the crew have been lost.
Few human communities are as exposed to risk as those who make a living from the sea. More prone to the unpredictability of the natural world than those who Live on land, sailors, fisherman and their families have always been gready conscious of the fragility of life and of human powerlessness before the elements. Because the capriciousness of the sea is beyond the normal control of seafarers, during the historic past and no doubt long before, recourse was made to supernatural methods of management. By the later Middle Ages in Christian Europe, the most important form was invocation of divine protection through the intercession of the saints of the Church, by a process of vow and exchange.
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