
The Merchant Fleet of Late Medieval and Tudor England, 1400–1580 - pepys
http://www.medievalandtudorships.org
======
m_eiman
This is based on archives dating back hundreds of years. We really need to
spend time and effort on making sure that there will be comparable archives of
our time. Databases are neat and all, but how can we make them last for
hundreds of years..?

~~~
eru
Archaeologists are getting quite a lot of their data and clues from literal
garbage. (See eg
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden) )

We are producing quite a lot of very durable garbage these days: aluminium
cans, plastic, etc.

So even if archive.org and Google etc go under and we lose all their disks, we
will leave plenty of evidence in the archaeological record.

~~~
nerdponx
That's only for prehistoric record. In times when people were writing stuff
down, we got a heck of a lot from what they wrote.

~~~
eru
Mostly agreed.

Alas, people mostly write down the boring stuff like what kings reigned when
and what laws they passed. The more interesting everyday stuff tends to be
less well preserved in writing. (One of the reasons the cuneiform tablets with
commercial and marriage contracts are so interesting.)

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mattmanser
While a fascinating resource, the UI is really bad because of the grouping on
the maps.

Those grouping plugins are utterly useless. I've made the same mistake in
using them, they are utterly pointless.

~~~
cmiles74
I've worked with customer's on different clustering algorithms but, in all
cases so far, they have proven unsatisfactory. We always end up with just a
lot of points on the map instead.

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B1FF_PSUVM
'S funny how ships - moving stuff around - generated merchant wealth for quite
a few republics, from Athens and Carthage to Venice and the Hanseatic League.

Classical Rome seems exceptional as a republic of landlubbers, who actually
cast a beady eye on merchant wealth.

~~~
zdkl
Well, they couldn't steal _everything_ from the greeks, right?

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simonbyrne
Anyone know why the Bordeaux Customs Accounts are in the UK National Archives?

~~~
linschn
Maybe because of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquitaine#English_Aquitaine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquitaine#English_Aquitaine)
?

> Aquitaine passed to France in 1137 when the duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine
> married Louis VII of France, but their marriage was annulled in 1152. When
> Eleanor's new husband became King Henry II of England in 1154, the area
> became an English possession, and the cornerstone of the so-called Angevin
> Empire. Aquitaine remained English until the end of the Hundred Years' War
> in 1453, when it was annexed by France.

