The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #223

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epox where I shall finally be continuing my story the narrative

00:00:18.820 of Magellan's fantastic and terrifying voyage around the world we've had a couple of weeks

00:00:24.120 away from it so we shall continue it now and hopefully see it through to the end so if you

00:00:28.880 remember last time we left off where Magellan and his crew his ship his armada of five ships had

00:00:36.360 across the Atlantic and they'd hit the coast of Brazil and they'd stopped in at Rio de Janeiro or

00:00:43.900 the place that later became Rio de Janeiro to outfit take on new suppliers and meet some of

00:00:49.200 the natives that happened to be extremely friendly these natives at Rio de Janeiro so much so some of

00:00:54.760 the men got a bit carried away with their carnal desires so I'll let Lawrence Bergrin continue by

00:01:00.440 saying this after two weeks of sensual indulgence the fleet's departure from Rio de Janeiro on December

00:01:05.880 the 27th became an emotionally charged affair Jao Lopez Carvello Magellan's pilot returning to Brazil

00:01:12.440 after a seven-year absence happily reunited with his former mistress who introduced him to their son

00:01:17.940 Carvello took an immediate liking to the lad whom he called Jao Zito and enlisted him as a servant of

00:01:24.120 ship goes on to be said that he also asked for the the lady the Brazilian mistress to be taken on

00:01:30.780 board as well but Magellan said no there's strictly no women on board it's bad for morale apparently

00:01:36.000 and various other things and he had all the ships searched for any women's that might have been stowed

00:01:41.620 away below deck and apparently they found several several so Magellan had them thrown off off the ship

00:01:47.040 and they continued on their way and apparently a lot of the women folk tried tried to chase after

00:01:52.080 them in their in their small canoes but well obviously out there's that story resuming a

00:01:57.080 southerly course the fleet helped by favourable winds reached Paranagua Bay off the coast of Brazil

00:02:02.560 by the last day of 1519 intent on making up time Magellan ordered the ships to remain offshore rather

00:02:08.900 than exploring the bay one of the largest estuaries in the southwest Atlantic fully provisioned the armada

00:02:14.480 sailed on day and night until January the 8th 1520 when Magellan spied a stretch of shoal extending as

00:02:21.600 far as the eye could see concerned about hitting a concealed formation he gave an order to drop anchor

00:02:26.400 only for the night in the morning the fleet sailed on on January the 10th the rolling hills and mountains

00:02:31.140 of the South American coast yielded to barely discernible hummocks and the suggestion of offshore

00:02:36.360 islands goes on for a fair bit of description to talk about the the coastline there along the still

00:02:42.140 along the Brazilian coast because of course the Brazilian coast is extremely long the long and

00:02:45.940 short of it is the ultimate point of all of this is that Magellan's looking for a way through South

00:02:51.120 America this is the big thing at this point in the voyage they thought Magellan thought and all his

00:02:57.220 pilots and all the astrologers astronomers all the pilots that there would be there should be there has

00:03:03.100 to be a way through South America they didn't even know how far down the continent stretched to say

00:03:10.840 some people might even have joined up with an Antarctic continent so they assumed that there

00:03:16.940 must be some sort of passage and this is their golden ticket this is the this is the thing they

00:03:22.020 think will sort of not only be their their ticket through but it will save their lives or without it

00:03:28.080 they're doomed in some way or at least will have to turn back now spoiler alert a little bit anyone

00:03:33.680 who's never looked at a map spoiler alert there is a way through but it's right at the bottom of

00:03:38.520 South America basically you can chop off a bit of the voyage by traveling through and these days

00:03:44.120 it's called the Straits of Magellan but it's it's right at the bottom there there is no way through

00:03:49.840 essentially the middle or even two-thirds of the way down there there is no way through so you do have

00:03:54.460 to go all the way around nearly all the way around uh we'll talk all about the Straits of Magellan

00:03:58.880 when we get to it but so you can either go through those straits or you can go all the way around

00:04:03.200 the actual tip the horn of South America and through what is probably the most treacherous waters

00:04:08.680 in the world that stretch of water where the Atlantic and the Pacific join up you know it's

00:04:13.120 literally in between Tierra del Fuego and Antarctic many people say that is the worst bit of sea ocean

00:04:20.700 in the whole world and again they didn't know that and Magellan has sort of promised his men that there

00:04:26.760 is a way through there must be a way through I mean he's convinced that there must be a way through

00:04:30.360 and it's sort of a bit of it's a bit of wishful thinking because he's got no way of knowing he

00:04:34.100 didn't know so it's a bit of a bit of just optimistic wishful thinking um as I say they

00:04:40.400 eventually find it but that's still a long way off in our story we're then told a little bit all about

00:04:44.840 what it's like to actually live on board and what these men really look like what the reality of uh you

00:04:51.100 know early 16th century seamanship was like and these ships are small you know they're really quite small

00:04:57.500 if you look at the golden hind for example a similar very similar sort of ship I think they're

00:05:02.780 tiny how you can cram like 80 guys on there is remarkable to me as well as as well as all the

00:05:09.120 provisions they're supposed to need as well as livestock all sorts of must have been extremely

00:05:13.620 packed and the idea that living on board for weeks or even months on end without ever hitting shore

00:05:19.180 again it would have been a you know a hothouse situation living cheek to jowl to put it mildly so a

00:05:25.880 couple of paragraphs here from burgreen who very well describes it very well he says quote five

00:05:30.600 months from seville the crew and officers had become familiar with the ships as well as the

00:05:35.400 rigors and deprivations of life at sea they had learned of the violence of storms the life and

00:05:40.640 death necessity of sounding the bottom and the limits of the proud vessels in which they sailed over

00:05:45.140 the surface of the limitless sea the misery of sea sickness was at last behind them there had been

00:05:50.540 no escape from the ordeal even veteran mariners were vulnerable to its pains according to folk wisdom

00:05:56.600 sexual activity increased the likelihood of seasick but it was a rare sailor who could resist the

00:06:02.260 opportunity for coupling before getting out on a long voyage at sea sleep became an ultimate luxury

00:06:08.320 a solace nearly impossible to come by the crew took naps whenever they could night or day hammocks had

00:06:14.160 yet to be introduced on board ships so exhausted sailors appropriated a plank or better still

00:06:19.240 a sheltered area on deck where they could sprawl they eased the woods bruising hardness with a straw

00:06:24.740 pallet and shielded themselves against the cold and wet with heavy blankets even then comfort eluded them

00:06:30.280 the men never became accustomed to the foul odors brewing aboard their ships oh yeah these ships stank

00:06:35.520 absolutely stank and they could be smelt apparently when they were offshore when they're a long way

00:06:40.380 offshore the people on on the land if the wind was in the right way smell them a long way away

00:06:45.340 absolutely fetid and rank water seeping into the hold stank despite the efforts to disinfect it with

00:06:51.320 vinegar animals such as cows and pigs added to the reef as did the slowly rotting food supplier

00:06:56.420 and sickening smell of salted fish wafting from the hold so there's this thing these ships leaked

00:07:01.800 they always always leaked and apparently there's no way around it no matter how much pitch you put on

00:07:07.780 the outside no matter how well constructed they were there would still be leaks and eventually you'd have

00:07:14.000 even if it was a very small leak eventually you'd have to bail them out the bottom of the hold would

00:07:18.640 become water sod and you have to start bailing out and that's in the best case scenario most of the

00:07:23.740 time they're actually leaking a fair bit and this water once it's stagnant once it's in the ship you

00:07:29.160 know it goes off it goes fetid and the other thing is and this is even up to the 19th century

00:07:33.900 whenever these ships were grounded i actually land on on on dry land but for when they were being

00:07:39.860 having the barnacles scraped off the bottom and for refitting and all that sort of thing

00:07:43.540 then the mud the mud from from the any given estuary would also get in or seawater that's

00:07:51.100 saturated with that mud will get in and that mud in and of itself stinks you know because it's filled

00:07:57.000 with organic rotting organic material so it absolutely stinks and then as we're told throw on top of that

00:08:03.100 all the animals and men and things yeah only imagine the the reek trying to disinfect it with

00:08:09.440 a bit of vinegar it's not really going to do anything really is it we're told quote pets were

00:08:14.100 ubiquitous an inescapable fact of life at sea toredos or shipworms poured through the hole slowly

00:08:20.940 compromising the seaworthiness of the entire vessel and one of magellan's ships eventually disintegrated

00:08:26.440 because of the wretched little creatures rats and mice infested every ship and the sailors learned to

00:08:31.380 live with them and even play with them and when starvation became a true issue catching a mouse or

00:08:38.160 a rat in order to eat it because you know you'd resort to that very very much so magellan's crew

00:08:43.060 might have brought along a domestic creature new to europe at the time the cat to hunt the rodents

00:08:48.640 yeah ship's cat yeah that goes all the way up to the 19th century as well it is recorded however

00:08:53.100 that the men of the armada de maluca were plagued by all manner of lice bedbugs and cockroaches when

00:08:58.740 conditions turned hot and humid the insects infested the clothing the sails the food supply and even the

00:09:04.680 rigging the sailors scratched and complained but they had no defense against the pests and remember

00:09:09.600 we're long before the age where they knew about the germ theory of disease so they thought of them as

00:09:15.140 as an annoying pest didn't necessarily realize that the danger of you know disease and infection and

00:09:21.680 all sorts of things that can introduce they knew it was better to be clean but didn't necessarily

00:09:26.600 realize how dangerous it could be because as you can well imagine if and when any infectious disease

00:09:32.940 did break out on board ship oh that's terrible because you're so crammed in so living so close

00:09:38.080 together that yeah something that's infectious that will just spread through the whole crew

00:09:42.020 can and did so that's another ever-present concern even worse weevils invaded the hardtap the lesser of

00:09:48.720 two weevils and it was further contaminated with the urine and faeces of rodents crew members with

00:09:55.480 growling stomachs forced themselves to overcome their inhibitions and swallow this disgusting

00:10:00.300 contaminated food sailors found it nearly impossible to keep clean many brought along soap and a rag for

00:10:06.100 washing but the only available water sea water caused itching and irritation the sailors washed their

00:10:11.740 clothes in sea water as well with limited results to keep warm and dry our sailors wore baggy loosely

00:10:17.580 fitted clothes consisting of a floppy shirt often with a hood over which they wore a wooden pullover

00:10:22.760 which was cinched at the waist sailors were known everywhere for their floppy pajama-like pants

00:10:27.720 which reached below the knee depending on the rank of the sailor and the money at his disposal

00:10:32.360 they could be made from cheap coarse linen or fine wool with silk taffeta in foul weather sailors and

00:10:38.660 officers alike donned great blue capes called capotes de la mer it was a common sight to see a watchman

00:10:44.020 huddled within his cape with only his head exposed peering across a storm-tossed deck for hours on end

00:10:49.840 we go on to be told of all different types of cap or hat which uh sailors at war which i won't necessarily

00:10:55.780 bore you with other than to say that magellan and lots of other people would take many many caps or hats

00:11:03.580 in order to trade them there are various things that europeans would trade with natives indigenous

00:11:10.340 peoples that they came across that they considered of not much value or didn't actually cost much money

00:11:16.140 back home but which indigenous peoples valued highly so you could trade something that you

00:11:21.660 didn't really care about some actual like silver or gold or or you know food which was the difference

00:11:27.400 between life and death and one of those ones were these these felt caps these bonnets that they would

00:11:31.320 have another one was beads beads in 16th century spain were dirt cheap apparently most indigenous peoples

00:11:38.820 loved them and would give you things of value in exchange for them then told a little bit more about

00:11:44.040 the the national makeup of magellan's cruise and this becomes really important because the next

00:11:49.720 major event really is another mutiny but this time a serious one if you think about it so far on this

00:11:55.620 voyage it hasn't been too bad right they've been storm tossed and there has been an attempt a kind of

00:12:01.660 half-hearted mild attempt a mutiny but but they crossed the atlantic without losing any ships without

00:12:08.000 losing anyone there hasn't been a real mutiny so so far nothing truly disastrous has happened to them

00:12:14.920 but all that is to change and so we must talk about in a bit of detail the the makeup of these crews so

00:12:21.540 we're told quote magellan's crew was overwhelmingly castilian and portuguese but representatives of every

00:12:27.600 major country in western europe as well as north africa greece rhodes and sicily filled the ranks

00:12:32.300 their number included alliances of natural enemies britons and basques flemish and french all speaking

00:12:38.900 in mutually unintelligible tongues the common language aboard magellan's fleet was naturally

00:12:44.020 castilian which contained specialized terms for every line claw and device to be found aboard the ships

00:12:50.020 in this idiom magellan and his captains gave orders to the crew we're told the men quickly left behind

00:12:56.000 the identities they had maintained on land for those imposed on them at sea no longer did it matter if

00:13:01.340 they were castilians greeks portuguese or genoese lifeable ship was lived according to a rigid social

00:13:07.320 structure segregating men who nonetheless lived in extremely close quarters and who depended on each

00:13:12.920 other for their survival a strict division of labor ruled over them at the bottom were the pages assigned

00:13:18.660 to the ships in pairs many pages were mere children as young as eight years old none were older than 15

00:13:24.680 they were commonly orphans not all pages were created equal some had been virtually kidnapped from the

00:13:30.920 keys of seville and pressed into service if they had not been on ships they would have been roaming

00:13:35.980 the streets learning to pick pockets and getting into minor scrapes they were treated harshly exploited

00:13:41.540 shamelessly deprived of adequate pay and occasionally made the victims of sexual predators among older

00:13:47.880 crew members their chores included scrubbing the decks with salt water hauled from the sea in buckets

00:13:52.640 serving and cleaning after meals and performing any menial tasks assigned to them another class of page

00:13:58.920 lived a very different life privileged and relatively free of demand under the protection of officers

00:14:04.100 these hand-picked young men generally came from good well-connected families and worked as

00:14:09.200 apprentices for their protectors they were expected to learn their trade and to rise through the ranks

00:14:14.060 their duties were far lighter than those of the unfortunate boys who had been pressed into service

00:14:18.440 the privileged pages maintained the 16 venetian sand clocks carried by magellan ships basically a large

00:14:24.980 hourglass the sand clock had been in use since egyptian times it was essential for good timekeeping and for

00:14:30.740 navigation the ampolitas which was the name for these big hourglasses consisted of a glass vessel divided into

00:14:37.360 two compartments the upper chamber containing a quantity of sand trickling into the lower over a precisely

00:14:42.940 measured period of time usually a half hour or an hour maintaining these was simple enough the pages turned

00:14:48.860 them over every half hour night and day again these things stayed up until the 19th century but the task

00:14:54.340 was critical aboard a swaying ship these hourglasses were the only reliable timepiece and the captain

00:15:00.280 depended on them for dead reckoning and changing of watches a ship without a functioning hourglass was

00:15:05.820 effectively disabled and the keeping of time was very important also for prayers we've told a big bunch here

00:15:12.180 all about the religious regime that ruled on board these ships and it is extremely religious well not for them

00:15:19.380 not in their world it was just normal but perhaps to our mind is quite religious you know the keeping of mass

00:15:25.460 sunday is very important even if you're in the middle of the ocean and particular saints days and particular holidays

00:15:32.560 were you know strictly observed you know easter is still a massive and christmas even more so easter was still a massive

00:15:38.480 massive thing even if you're in the middle of the pacific so knowing which day it is what time of day

00:15:44.180 your prayers and all that sort of thing is uh still extremely important to them we're told that quote

00:15:49.820 just above the pages in rank came the apprentices the most expendable and vulnerable members of all the

00:15:56.280 crew ranging in age from 17 to 20 they were the ones who sprang on the rigging the moment the captain

00:16:01.860 ordered them to furl or unfurl the sail to scamper to the dangerous lookout posts atop the masts

00:16:07.340 to pull on the oars in the long boats and to operate the complex mechanical devices of all chip

00:16:12.760 the pulleys and cranes the cables and anchors the fixed and movable rigging they teamed up to operate

00:16:18.580 the capstan rotating its drum with levers to load or unload heavy suppliers weapons and ballast they

00:16:25.140 even shaved the legs and manicured the toenails of their masters perhaps setting the stage for sexual

00:16:30.560 relations between the two even though such behavior was strictly forbidden apprentices were the group

00:16:35.260 most likely to be disciplined and to be whipped for disobedience or to be confined to the stocks for

00:16:40.460 as long as a week so the thing we've mentioned here a couple of times now is is sects on board the

00:16:45.060 ship and again all the way up to the 19th century or later even just like if you throw a bunch of men

00:16:50.980 crazy desperado type men wild men like in prison you know they might not even be strictly speaking

00:16:57.500 homosexual and yet shenanigans will occur i did a bit of content recently with luca all about

00:17:03.920 master and commander and even in that which is a very quaint very genteel novel it's still mentioned

00:17:09.960 that you know younger good-looking weaker men will be taken advantage of and even livestock you know

00:17:16.840 a goat or a sheep on board might not be safe um it's horrible but that's just the reality of it and

00:17:23.080 but it was all strict completely completely illegal and punishable like sodomy in the 16th century or

00:17:28.840 whatever in european culture was was was highly highly frowned upon and illegal you know the

00:17:34.600 punishment for that will be extreme might be might well be executed very well might be executed for

00:17:40.220 it and yet and yet it sort of will go on sort of almost can't be avoided well there you have it

00:17:45.620 bergering continues if an apprentice survived all the ordeals and hazards of life at sea

00:17:49.740 he could apply for certification as a sailor that's like an action you know that's a rank just the

00:17:55.720 sailor receiving a document signed by the ship's pilot boat swain and master he was now a professional

00:18:01.680 mariner and could look forward to a career lasting about 20 years if he lived that long sailors advanced

00:18:07.960 through the ranks by learning how to handle the helm deploy the sounding line splice cables and if they

00:18:13.700 were mathematically inclined marking maps and taking measurements of celestial objects to fix the ship's

00:18:19.740 position most sailors were in their teens or twenties anyone who had reached their thirties

00:18:24.420 was considered a veteran scallywag by the time he had survived to that age he had seen what life at sea

00:18:30.400 held brutality loneliness and disease he had experienced flashes of camaraderie and heroism as well as a

00:18:37.600 persistent dishonesty and callousness he knew all about the avarice of ship owners the uncomprehending

00:18:42.800 indifference of kings under whose flag the expedition sailed and the tyranny of captains many rarely went to

00:18:49.080 sea beyond the age of 40 magellan nearly that age when he left seville was among the oldest if not

00:18:54.820 the oldest person aboard the armada de maluca end quote so yeah a thing to say it's a hard life i mean

00:19:01.160 obviously it's a really hard life so older men just don't really do it hardly often unless you're

00:19:07.220 extremely senior you don't really have to do any hard work somebody like the captain or a pilot maybe

00:19:13.280 then but if you're just a normal sailor who's supposed to be doing extremely physically difficult

00:19:17.940 things kind of constantly living more or less outdoors a lot of your time a lot of your time

00:19:23.800 will be spent on debt and therefore open to the elements so that's a hard life particularly you know

00:19:29.620 we're talking about the 16th century still 50 year olds and up it's not for you it's just not for you

00:19:35.260 it's it's as simple as that it's like i don't know i think if it like boxing or mma you might be up

00:19:40.600 for it but your body's not going to be able to do it you just simply physically are not going to be

00:19:45.220 able to do it even if you know you've got the will it's a young man's game no matter how high an

00:19:50.240 ordinary sailor rose he was outranked by specialists such as gunners essential to expeditions exploring

00:19:56.580 new lands but hard to come by skilled in the use of cannon in the preparation of gunpowder and the

00:20:01.960 selection of projectiles the gunner tended to his weapons throughout the voyage keeping them secure

00:20:07.080 clean free of rust and ready for battle at all times like literally at the drop of a hat it might be

00:20:12.680 we need you we need we need to fire a cannon like right now we needed to fire it like two minutes

00:20:17.300 ago so it is really sort of at all time although most gunners were flemings germans or italians

00:20:22.820 the casa de contraction kept a gunnery contractor on its staff to train castilians the casa provided

00:20:30.100 the cannon but the gunners in training had to pay the instructor's fees as well as the cost of

00:20:35.060 gunpowder which was enough to discourage many potential students that's an interesting isn't it that's

00:20:39.760 an interesting idea that the gunners themselves have to pay for the gunpowder you know right there

00:20:44.080 you can see so the poorest of the poor you know a street urchin hoping to get aboard a ship they've

00:20:48.640 got no chance of being a gunner less glamorous but equally necessary fields of specialization

00:20:53.020 included carpenters absolutely vital there's sort of constant repairs going on ship's carpenter

00:20:58.700 absolutely vital caulkers and coopers this last group coopers you know barrels making and

00:21:04.280 maintain barrels this last group repaired the hundreds of casks and buckets aboard the ship

00:21:09.360 by replacing hoops or staves and and sealing leaks there was also a complement of divers aboard the

00:21:15.320 ship whose job it was to swim under the ship when necessary clear seaweed from the rudder and kill

00:21:20.520 and inspect the hole for signs of exterior damage and leaks the ship's barber another specialist was

00:21:27.000 deceptively named because trimming beards was the least of his responsibilities he served as the

00:21:32.080 onboard dentist doctor and surgeon ministering to the crew out of his chest of nostrums herbs and folk

00:21:39.100 remedies the fleet's barber was named Hernando Bustamente who shipped out aboard conception records show that

00:21:46.140 his medical suppliers were purchased from the apocryphary named john vernell on july the 19th 1519 shortly

00:21:53.100 before departure included were distillations of various herbs among them fennel thistle and chicory

00:21:59.480 a purgative turpentine lard various ungents and oils six pounds of cameline honey incense and

00:22:07.020 quicksilver all of them carefully stored in canisters bustamente also carried an assortment of tools with

00:22:13.060 him medical chests of the era contained a brass mortar and pestle to grind compounds and a selection of

00:22:18.960 surgical instruments including scissors a lancet a tooth extractor an enema syringe made from copper

00:22:25.260 and a scale this slender store of medical supplies and equipment would have to serve the needs of 260

00:22:31.380 men of the fleet in all climates and conditions for several years in practice bustamente's most

00:22:37.120 frequent duty at sea was extracting teeth not treating disease so that's a thing to mention i must have said

00:22:43.420 it a number of times only worth saying again here that in the age before modern dentistry your teeth

00:22:49.420 caused you endless trouble at a certain point in your life as you get older your teeth basically just

00:22:55.020 start to rot out of your head there's no other way around it now we live in a world where all sorts

00:22:59.240 of things can be done to slow that down and if and when it happens all sorts of various things that

00:23:04.440 can be done for you in their world you just put up with it or had them yanked out there's no

00:23:10.240 anesthetic other than maybe a nip of liquor you know some sort of whiskey or something to help with

00:23:15.920 pain a little bit essentially the uh the barber will just come in with a pair of pliers or something

00:23:21.300 similar and just yank the tooth out and that's it and you know the the hole in your gum may or may

00:23:27.900 not get infected and you know quite possibly would and abscesses if you've ever had an abscess you know

00:23:34.140 that that is no laughing matter not much that can be done about it really you can try and lance it if

00:23:39.680 it gets so filled with pus you can lance it a bit but then you know that that's not great that might

00:23:44.820 also then get infected once again they had no idea of the germ theory of disease so the utensils being used

00:23:50.120 probably or almost certainly won't be clean certainly won't be properly sterile so everyone

00:23:55.200 suffers from their teeth whether you're at sea or not so at sea you you're always worried about your

00:24:00.940 teeth i mean if you ever see the film cast away from hank if you ever find yourself in a situation

00:24:06.100 where you're away from civilization you should be worried about your teeth the last thing you want

00:24:10.260 is to wake up with a toothache because it's not going to end nicely for you one way or another

00:24:15.560 bergrin goes on saying no one answered to the description of cook aboard these ships because

00:24:20.760 the job was considered too demeaning one sailor telling another that his beard smelled of smoke

00:24:25.600 was tantamount to provoking a fight so the crew took turns cooking or paid to the apprentices to

00:24:31.000 cook for them and during foul weather there was no cooking at all and the sailors endured cold

00:24:36.240 repasts and a hard attack salted meat and wine in addition to these traditional roles the armada's

00:24:41.920 roster included phantom crew members saints who by custom of the sea found their way into the ship's

00:24:47.800 rosters magellan's fleet included santo adelmo the patron saint of bergos santo antonio de lisboa the

00:24:55.040 popular patron saint of lisbon who was reputed to rescue shipwrecked sailors and provide favorable

00:25:00.120 winds to their ships santa barbara whose whom spaniards invoked as a safeguard against violent storms

00:25:06.160 and the westra sonora demonstrat to whom a famous benedictine shrine was dedicated even more remarkable

00:25:12.780 each of these ghostly personages was accorded a share of the fleet's profit in return for divine

00:25:18.520 protection the arrangement was a clever way of donating a portion of the expedition's profits

00:25:23.120 to the church officers ranked just above the sailors and specialists in the fleet's hierarchy

00:25:27.900 one tier consisted of the steward charged with keeping an eye on the food supplier the boatswain's mate

00:25:33.620 and the al-gurakal the al-gurakal which there is no exact translation served as the king's

00:25:39.800 representative aboard the ship and served as a master at arms or military officer if magellan needed

00:25:45.380 to arrest a crew member he ordered the al-gurakal to perform the deed this was not a job designed to

00:25:51.240 endear him to the other crew members and the al-gurakal stood apart from the rest of the crew at the top of

00:25:56.180 the pinnacle came the pilot who plotted the ship's route the master who supervised the precious cargo

00:26:01.740 and finally the captain each of the top three officers had his own page as captain general

00:26:07.280 magellan had several including his illegitimate son and they lived a life as separate as possible from

00:26:12.220 the rank-and-file sailors and apprentices the officers had their own cabins cramped to be sure

00:26:17.040 but a mark of distinction and they rarely ate with the crew to most of the men aboard the ships

00:26:21.600 even the flagship trinidad ferdinand magellan seemed a remote imperious figure authoritarian and

00:26:28.140 arbitrary a man whose every word was law and on whose skill luck and good judgment their lives

00:26:33.500 depended so the thing to say perhaps it's obvious if you know anything about this sort of thing but

00:26:37.420 maybe not the captain's word is law at sea if he says jump you jump he says this man is to be executed

00:26:44.680 or something then he's going to be executed it really is sort of there's no appeal there's no higher

00:26:49.500 appeal or anything like you know in a roman army camp the general you know in a roman army all other law

00:26:55.840 all other sort of civil law is just completely ignored his word is law and so that's what it

00:27:00.740 was like aboard these ships and so you can only imagine the reality of that is that you you live

00:27:05.160 in fear of them um even if they are quite kindly even if they weren't that authoritarian you would

00:27:11.020 still be in awe of them and scared of them and all those sorts of things they yeah they live they live a

00:27:17.360 life apart and so it does depend on the individual characters of the the captains and the senior officers

00:27:23.480 you know if they're nice and kindly and generous then that's one thing and if they're cruel and

00:27:28.680 unusual then then that's what it is that's how it goes so you sort of hope you would always hope

00:27:34.180 you're a normal crew member that your captain isn't a tyrant um even though he might be forced

00:27:39.380 to act as one sometimes even against his own better judgment if you do get like a captain blire type

00:27:45.320 digger you know absolute martinet then you know a taskmaster then well you've just got to live with

00:27:51.800 that so what was magellan like well magellan was a bit more on the end of the spectrum of being

00:27:56.980 a hard-ass taskmaster i wouldn't you know no one really thinks he's sort of cruel and unusual

00:28:02.440 but he's more towards that end of the spectrum than being kindly and generous of spirit um so we told

00:28:08.840 a little bit about although sea captains magellan included could be notoriously high-handed the

00:28:14.340 sailors lot was governed at least in theory by the consulado de mer the spanish maritime code that

00:28:20.340 had been in existence and in force for several centuries before it was formally compiled in 1494

00:28:26.140 the code described approved methods for hiring and paying sailors and spelled out the ordinary

00:28:31.420 seamen's exhausting chores as well as the punishments which by our standard would seem extremely

00:28:38.200 draconian you know for example they had one they had one rule that when you're at sea

00:28:43.480 you just don't undress at any point you just keep wearing your clothes until they rot off of you

00:28:50.040 or something you're just not to get undressed for any reason and if you do you're punished

00:28:55.220 you're to be plunged into the sea with a rope and if you're caught doing it three times you're to lose

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00:29:05.040 to watch the full unabridged video

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 10, 2025

PREVIEW： Epochs #223 ｜ Magellan： Part IV

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