Note 46 — Chapter V · THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAILING SHIP FROM THE EIGHTH CENTURY TO THE YEAR 1485.

Evidently the early Europeans did not merely make rash voyages, trusting entirely to good luck to reach their port. It is quite clear that they had given serious study to seamanship by the early part of the fifth century, for when Lupus and German, two Gallic prelates, crossed the Channel to Britain in the year 429 A.D., they encountered very bad weather, and Constantius adds that St. German poured oil on the waves. The latter’s earlier days having been spent in Gaul, in Rome and as duke over a wide district, he had evidently picked up this item of seamanship from the mariners of the southern shores. (See Canon Bright’s “Chapters of Early English Church History,” Oxford, 1897, p. 19 and notes.)