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A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by rowing. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft and low clearance between sea and railing. Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but human strength was always the primary method of propulsion. This allowed galleys freedom to move independently of winds and currents, and with great precision. The galley originated among the seafaring civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea in the early first millennium BC and remained in use in various forms until the early 19th century in warfare, trade and piracy. Galleys were the warships used by the early Mediterranean naval powers, including the Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans. They remained the dominant types of vessels used for war and piracy in the Mediterranean Sea until the last decades of the 16th century. As warships, galleys carried various types of weapons throughout their long existence, including ram, catapults and cannons, but also relied on their large crews to overpower enemy vessels in boarding actions. They were the first ships to effectively use heavy cannons as anti-ship weapons. As highly efficient gun platforms they forced changes in the design of medieval seaside fortresses as well as refinement of sailing warships. The zenith of galley usage in warfare came in the late 16th century with battles like that at Lepanto in 1571, one of the largest naval battles ever fought. By the 17th century, however, sailing ships and hybrid ships like the xebec displaced galleys in naval warfare. They were the most common warships in the Atlantic Ocean during the Middle Ages, and later saw limited use in the Caribbean, the Philippines and the Indian Ocean in the early modern period, mostly as patrol craft to combat pirates. From the mid-16th century galleys were in intermittent use in the Baltic Sea, with its short distances and extensive archipelagoes. There was a minor revival of galley warfare in the 18th century in the wars between Russia, Sweden and Denmark. ==Definition and terminology== The term "galley" derives from the medieval Greek ''galea'', a smaller version of the dromon, the prime warship of the Byzantine navy.〔Pryor (2002), pp. 86–87; Anderson (1962), pp. 37–39〕 The origin of the Greek word is unclear but could possibly be related to ''galeos'', "dog-fish; small shark".〔Henry George Liddell & Robert Scott (Galeos ), ''A Greek-English Lexicon''〕 The word "galley" has been attested in English from c. 1300〔''Oxford English Dictionary'' (2nd edition, 1989), "galley"〕 and has been used in most European languages from around 1500 both as a general term for oared warships, and from the Middle Ages and onwards more specifically for the Mediterranean-style vessel.〔See for example ''Svenska Akademiens ordbok'', "''(galeja )''" or "''(galär )''" and ''Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal'', "(galeye )"〕 It was only from the 16th century that a unified galley concept came in use. Before that, particularly in antiquity, there was a wide variety of terms used for different types of galleys. In modern historical literature, "galley" is occasionally used as a general term for various types of oared vessels larger than boats, though the "true" galley is defined as the ships belonging to the Mediterranean tradition.〔Anderson (1962), pp. 1, 42; Lehmann (1984), p. 12〕 Ancient galleys were named according to the number of oars, the number of banks of oars or lines of rowers. The terms are based on contemporary language use combined with more recent compounds of Greek and Latin words. The earliest Greek single-banked galleys are called triaconters (from ''triakontoroi'', "thirty-oars") and penteconters (''pentēkontoroi'', "fifty-oars").〔Casson (1971), pp. 53—56〕 For later galleys with more than one row of oars, the terminology is based on Latin numerals with the suffix ''-reme'' from ''rēmus'', "oar". A ''monoreme'' has one bank of oars, a ''bireme'' two and a ''trireme'' three. Since the maximum banks of oars was three, any expansion above that did not refer to additional banks of oars, but of additional rowers for every oar. ''Quinquereme'' (''quintus'' + ''rēmus'') was literally a "five-oar", but actually meant that there were several rowers to certain banks of oars which made up five lines of oar handlers. For simplicity, they have by many modern scholars been referred to as "fives", "sixes", "eights", "elevens", etc. Anything above six or seven rows of rowers was not common, though even a very exceptional "forty" is attested in contemporary source. Any galley with more than three or four lines of rowers is often referred to as a "polyreme".〔Murray (2012), p. 3〕 Archaeologist Lionel Casson has used the term "galley" to describe all North European shipping in the early and high Middle Ages, including Viking merchants and even their famous longships, though this is rare.〔Casson (1995), p. 123〕 Oared military vessels built on the British Isles in the 11th to 13th centuries were based on Scandinavian designs, but were nevertheless referred to as "galleys". Many of them were similar to birlinns, close relatives of longship types like the ''snekkja''. By the 14th century, they were replaced with balingers in southern Britain while longship-type "Irish galleys" remained in use throughout the Middle Ages in northern Britain.〔Rodger (1997), pp. 66—68〕 Medieval and early modern galleys used a different terminology than their ancient predecessors. Names were based on the changing designs that evolved after the ancient rowing schemes were forgotten. Among the most important is the Byzantine dromon, the predecessor to the Italian ''galea sottila''. This was the first step toward the final form of the Mediterranean war galley. As galleys became an integral part of an advanced, early modern system of warfare and state administration, they were divided into a number of ranked grades based on the size of the vessel and the number of its crew. The most basic types were the following: large commander "lantern galleys", half-galleys, galiots, fustas, brigantines and ''fregatas''. Naval historian Jan Glete has described as a sort of predecessor of the later rating system of the Royal Navy and other sailing fleets in Northern Europe.〔Glete (1993), p. 81〕 The French navy and the British Royal Navy built a series of "galley frigates" from c. 1670–1690 that were small two-decked sailing cruisers with a set of oarports on the lower deck. The three British galley frigates also had distinctive names - ''James Galley'', ''Charles Galley'' and ''Mary Galley''.〔Winfield (2009), pp. 116—118〕 In the late 18th century, the term "galley" was in some contexts used to describe minor oared gun-armed vessels which did not fit into the category of the classic Mediterranean type. During the American Revolutionary War, and other wars with France and Britain, the early US Navy and other navies built vessels that were called "galleys" or "row galleys", though they were actually brigantines or Baltic gunboats.〔Karl Heinz Marquardt, "The Fore and Aft Rigged Warship" in Gardiner & Lavery (1992), p. 64〕 This type of description was more a characterization of their military role, and was in part due to technicalities in administration and naval financing.〔Mooney (1969), p. 516〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「galley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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