Conclusion (English)

Summary

The extent to which individuals, social groups and states took an interest in maritime undertakings in mediaeval times can only be gauged by analyzing the way in which they perceived the sea. It was a twofold, antithetical perception, and one which, over the centuries, was by no means immune to change. The duality of the sea was, indeed, quite real. On the one hand, it was the empire of evil, a symbol of death, a realm of fearful monsters, ever ready to devour ships and their passengers. On the other hand, it was also a place of poignant beauty, a pathway leading to discovery and dreams, a source of felicity and wealth.

In literary texts and travellers' and pilgrims' tales, the sea is depicted, first and foremost, as ‘a place of fear, death and madness’ (J. Delumeau): this toposwas routinely echoed by a wide range of authors, but it expressed a reality experienced by all the sailors, merchants and pilgrims who, as Ogier d'Anglure put it, met with a ‘great and dire fate’ and then committed their recollections to paper. Alongside the primal dread of being engulfed in the bottomless depths of the sea was the intense fear of dying without a proper Christian burial, a fate which put the salvation of the soul at risk. ‘Enduring fear’ (C. Deluz) was thus a dominant theme in travellers' and pilgrims' tales, which also reflected their authors' superstitious responses to bad omens. As early as the 9^th century, Bernard le Moine, followed by Magister Thietmar (1217) and Willibrand of Oldenburg (1211), without dwelling on sailing conditions, told of how the stormy seas had struck fear into their hearts. The pilot and the sailors were powerless against the raging elements of nature. All they could do was pray for the howling winds to pass. Many beseeched God, the Holy Virgin and the saints for help in those moments when life hung by a thread. All of them – Ogier d'Anglure (1395), Niccolò da Poggibonsi (1346–1350), Frescobaldi (1384), Nompar de Caumont (1418) – felt that the storm had brought them to the brink of death.