Balinger

A balinger, or ballinger was a type of small, sea-going vessel in use in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, p. 55] They were distinguished by their lack of a forecastle, and by carrying either a square sail, or a sail extended on a sprit on a single mast. They were generally less than 100 tons, with a shallow draught, and the earlier vessels at least carried 30 or more oars for use in sheltered areas or for close fighting. [Shaping the Nation, p. 88] They were mainly used for coastal trade, but could also be used as transports, carrying around forty soldiers. A number were employed in the early Royal Navy for this purpose. [Colledge]

A statute of 1441 referring to pirate raids on the south coast of England contained a request from the Commons asking King Henry VI to provide

eight ships with four stages, carrying one with the other 150 men each. Every great ship was to have in its company a barge, with 80 men, and a ballinger, with 40; and there were also to be four pinnances, with twenty-five men in each. [British Admirals, p. 94]

An even earlier reference comes in July 1387, when merchants William Terry, John Tutbury and Peter Stellar of Hull, and Walter Were of Grimsby were reported to have

equipped a ship, ballinger and barge at their own expense to arm themselves 'against the king's enemies'. [Medieval Merchants, p. 217]

Notes

References

*"The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea", Oxford [1976] , edited by Peter Kemp. ISBN 0 586 08308 1
*Colledge
*"The British Admirals: With an Introductory View of the Naval History of England", Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, [1833] , by Robert Southey and Robert Bell
*"Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461", Oxford [2005] , by Gerald Harriss, ISBN 0198228163
*"Medieval Merchants: York, Beverley, and Hull in the Later Middle Ages", Cambridge, [1998] , by Jennifer Kermode, ISBN 0521522749