Category: Background

Something a little different this week… Living in the twenty-first century as we do, with access to Google Earth, Google[…]

Father Pierre Dan (born around 1580, died in 1649) was a French Trinitarian friar. The Trinitarians, a Catholic order originally[…]

Early modern currency was fiendishly complicated by modern standards. Today, there are, of course, multiple currencies—the American/Canadian/Australian/New Zealand dollar, the[…]

(This post is a continuation of Early Modern Currency – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best[…]

The city of Salé was a famous corsair capital during the seventeenth century. It was (and still is) actually composed[…]

(This post is a continuation of Salé, the Turbulent City – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s[…]

A little distance eastwards, across the Zuiderzee from Amsterdam, Holland, is the town of Lelystad, where you’ll find Batavialand—a maritime[…]

Have you ever wondered how people built wooden sailing ships in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The process seems, on[…]

(This post is a continuation of Shipbuilding in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries – Part 1. If you haven’t done[…]

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of violent conflict, both on land and at sea. They were also[…]