Sailing Beyond the Crisis. Comparative Perspectives on Social, Economic, and Cultural Changes in the Late Medieval Mediterranean (ca. 1250-1450)

Objectif

SABIR redefines socio-economic change in the late medieval Latin Mediterranean by integrating the maritime perspective into a historiography long focused on land-based actors. Centred on the period 1250-1450 – marked by expansion, crisis, depression, and recovery – it examines how seafarers, often overlooked compared to merchants or artisans, navigated structural change. By analysing maritime labour, mobility, and precariousness within the framework of the so-called “nautical revolution,” the project reveals links between economic trends, technological shifts, and social transformation, offering new ways to reassess the debated “fourteenth-century crisis.” A comparative study of four key maritime hubs – Barcelona, Genoa, Venice, and Ragusa/Dubrovnik – provides a robust foundation for exploring resilience and adaptation. Latin seafarers were crucial connectors between the western, eastern, and southern Mediterranean, enabling transfers of knowledge and skills, partially compensating for the scarcity of Byzantine and Islamic sources. Their responses to crisis and contributions to shipbuilding and navigation underscore the transformative agency of maritime communities. Drawing on primary sources such as galley registers, maritime statutes, notarial acts, and nautical notebooks, SABIR investigates neglected aspects of shipboard life: crew composition, wages, contracts, routines, discipline – with a special focus on the multiethnic makeup of crews. Key outputs include two international conferences, two workshops, scientific publications, a geo-referenced digital platform, and a ‘Database of Latin Seafarers (1250-1450),’ designed as a long-term research tool for the study of the medieval Mediterranean.