Following the fall of Rome, the sea is increasingly the stage upon which the human struggle of western civilization is played out. In a world of few roads and great disorder, the sea is the medium on which power is projected and wealth sought. Yet this confused period in the history of maritime warfare has rarely been studied – it is little known and even less understood.

Charles Stanton uses an innovative and involving approach to describe this fascinating but neglected facet of European medieval history. He depicts the development of maritime warfare from the end of the Roman Empire to the dawn of the Renaissance in the course of ten identifiable periods of conflict at sea. Dividing the discussion into two parts, he details the wars waged in the Mediterranean by the Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Crusaders, the Italian maritime republics, Angevins and Aragonese as well as those fought in northern waters by the Vikings, English, French and the Hanseatic League. Each seaborne struggle is illustrated by a vivid reconstruction of a key engagement.

Despite the limited documentary and archaeological evidence, Stanton paints a plausible and captivating picture of how nautical architecture, navigation and armament evolved in the course of these conflicts spanning the Middle Ages. He shows how, even though maritime technology gradually advanced to the compass and the canon, crew conditions remained onerous and battle tactics crude with most encounters at sea degenerating into bloody hand-to-hand mêlées