Tag Archives: historical romance

Ahoy, Matey: Pirate Rules #Research

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September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so be ready to hear lots of pirate talk, like Arrr! and Ahoy, matey and Avast me hearties, whatever that means.

 

What accounts for our fascination with pirates?

I’m talking about the 16th & 17th century variety. Is it the clothing? Knee boots and tight breeches and the white shirts with billowing sleeves. Or is it the swagger of a man with a sword in his belt and an earring dangling from one lobe? Or the freedom of the open seas and not having to bow to any laws?

Or is it just the irresistible lure of the Bad Boy? I’m currently obsessed with the deliciously naughty Killian Jones, aka Captain Hook, as portrayed by Colin O’Donaghue on ABC’s Once Upon A Time. How Emma can resist him is beyond me.

There are many myths and misconceptions about pirates, and one is that there were no rules. While it’s true that pirates were outlaws who flaunted the laws of many different nations, pirates had their own sets of rules and a practiced a crude form of democracy. The pirate captain was elected by the crew and could be replaced at any time, except during battle. Ships sometimes drew up articles, a code of conduct by which the crew agreed to abide. The articles addressed things like how spoils were divided, compensation for injured men, and punishment for fractions of the rules.

Punishment was swift and harsh. Striking another crewman or lighting a pipe or candle in the hold might earn a pirate Moses’s Law, 40 stripes lacking one, or thirty-nine lashes of the whip. The worst punishments were reserved for desertion, theft and keeping secrets from the rest of the crew. These brought a sentence of death or marooning, which was a delayed death. A marooned man was left on a sandy island with a bit of food and water, and a loaded pistol so he could commit suicide. The islands were often little more than a sandbar at low tide. The marooning of Alexander Selkirk inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe.

Captured prizes were divided among the members of the crew equally, except for the captain and other designated crewmen, usually including the quartermaster, the sailing master, the boatswain and gunner.

Jolly Roger

My very own Jolly Roger!

Here are the articles used by the pirate captain John Phillips and his crew from 1724:

#1. Every Man shall obey civil Command; the Captain shall have one full Share and a half in all Prizes; the Master, Carpenter, Boatswain and Gunner shall have one Share and a quarter.

#2. If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from the Company, he shall be marroon’d with one Bottle of Powder, one Bottle of Water, one small Arm, and Shot.

#3. If any Man shall steal any Thing in the Company, or game, to the Value of a Piece of Eight, he shall be Marroon’d or Shot.

#4. If at any Time we should meet another Marrooner (that is, Pyrate,) that Man shall sign his Articles without the consent of our Company, shall suffer such Punishment as the Captain and Company shall think fit.

#5. That Man that shall strike another while these Articles are in force, shall receive Moses’s Law (that is 40 Stripes lacking one) on the bare Back.

#6. That Man that shall snap his Arms, or smoak Tobacco in the Hold, without a cap to his Pipe, or carry a Candle lighted without a Lanthorn, shall suffer the same Punishment as in the former Article.

#7. That Man that shall not keep his Arms clean, fit for an Engagement, or neglect his Business, shall be cut off from his Share, and suffer such other Punishment as the Captain and the Company shall think fit.

#8. If any Man shall lose a Joint in time of an Engagement, shall have 400 Pieces of Eight; if a limb, 800.

#9. If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer present Death.
Marooned cover
Many of these pirate rules played a part in the plot of my steamy pirate romance, Marooned, and were loads of fun to research. You can read more about pirate rules at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_code.

So, what do you think accounts for the fascination with pirates of the old-fashioned, swashbuckling variety? And who is your favorite movie or TV pirate?

Leave a comment or subscribe to the blog to be entered in my monthly drawing for a trade paperback copy of my erotic science fiction collection Alliance: Stellar Romance.

Lyndi Lamont

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Why Women Should Read Historical Romance

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woman reading bookThree blog posts I’ve read this summer have given me some insight into why women should read historical romance and/or fiction, and not just because I happen to love the genre.

One was a review of a Western novel in which the reviewer, who obviously doesn’t read a lot of historical romance, was shocked by restrictions placed on women of the time period. I guess she was expecting contemporary characters in period dress, but the author took her work more seriously than that.

The second was The Hard Won Ground, Rose Anderson’s Fourth of July blog post where she reminisced about her family’s long connection to American history and how the women were right there with the men, settling the frontier and opening the West. As she correctly points out, men rode or drove wagons west. Women walked. (So much for the “weaker” sex.)

covered wagonFinally, when I read Sara Robinson’s article entitled “Why Patriarchal Men Are Utterly Petrified of Birth Control and Why We’ll Still Be Fighting About It 100 Years From Now”, the three threads coalesced in my mind.

Robinson points out the revolutionary nature of modern, reliable, and effective methods of birth control. She ranks contraception as one of the three most important innovations of the 20th century. The others are the integrated circuit, which led to the computer revolution, and the space racing culminating in the moon landing, mankind’s first steps outside the bounds of earth. I’d never thought about it before, but she’s right. The pill changed everything for women. Without it there would have been no sexual revolution and possibly no feminist gains. Birth control gives women the freedom men have always had, and levels the playing field. After thousands of years, men are losing control of women and some are freaking out about it. This is one reason why the Taliban, for instance, cannot bear the thought of educated girls. The very idea upsets their male-centered world view. (I encourage everyone to read the original article. It’s brilliant.)

In Technopoly, Neil Postman wrote that “technological change isn’t addictive or subtractive, it’s ecological.” We need no further proof of that than the onslaught of change we’ve seen since the computer revolution began.

But no change has been more profound, or at least has the potential to be, than the advent of reliable birth control. For centuries, no for millennia, women have been slaves to their biology. And men took advantage of the fact to keep women under control, reserving privileges like voting and inheritance for themselves. Women still earn less than men, even for the same work, even though we are now as well-educated as they are. Even female CEO’s make less than their male counterparts, and that’s the top of the food chain!

We should not forget what life used to be like for our female ancestors, lest the hard-won gains we’ve made be taken from us. As George Santayana famously said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I get that not everyone likes historical novels, perhaps because a realistically depicted woman of the past cannot be the kind of modern kick-ass character so popular now. (Don’t get me wrong, I love that kind of heroine, like Katniss Everdean of The Hunger Games.) I also suspect one reason why steampunk romance is popular is because you can have a kick-ass heroine in a corset with a deadly ray gun in her reticule. The best of both worlds. But steampunk is science fiction, not based on real life.

Reading a historical novel now and again is an easy way to remember the past. Outside of women’s studies programs, most history books and classes don’t really deal with women’s issues. It’s not spelled “his” story for nothing!

Historical novels are a pain-free way of reminding us how important the changes of the last fifty years really are. We learn where we’ve been and why we don’t want to go back!

Am I on the right track here? Let me know what you think.

Linda

PS. Everyone who comments in August will be entered in my monthly drawing for a $15 Starbucks gift card.