Page 181 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

181
aCta
This section is divided into 4 topics:
1. Participation of civilians on surveillance and defence systems;
2. Recruitment system for seamen and its impact on maritime communities;
3. Naval war and coastal attacks and their impact on seafaring communities
4. Local impact of war on the family, the demographic structure, the collective behaviour
and the mentalities.

ParticiPatiOn Of ciVilians in warning and defence systeMs
Reports of the municipality paying couriers to travel to Guimarães (a military coordina-
tion hub) with requests for urgent assistance to help respond to imminent attacks on the town
studied abound, suggesting years of repeated threats or actual maritime attacks on the town.
11
Regarding specific interventions in the field of maritime defence, we find strategies that are
common to the whole kingdom: implementation of a coastal surveillance system and the
construction of structures for defending the harbour entrance.
The coastal surveillance system was based on two basic mechanisms: setting up lookouts
and beacons in strategic points and keeping surveillance vessels at sea , all of which were
12
13
secured by civilians. A beacon was a large wooden pole with a cauldron at the top which can
be lit to signal the presence of enemies. Signalling took the form of a light signal at night and
a smoke signal during the day . These steps were clearly encouraged and the mechanisms
14
through which they worked were constantly perfected, during the 1590s: a clear response to
the increase in pillaging and piracy. They also included a warning system, involving civilians
that went along the coast, carrying information about the identification of suspicious ships
or fleets .
15
Other defence activities, as the surveillance of the coast or the assembling of crews for
the armadas of defence required the specific recruitment of seamen. To this end, central cen-
sus of seamen, as established in the rules of 1591 and 1626 , along with local census, were
16
undertaken, carried out by royal officials .
17
11 A.M.V.C. - Lv. 845, fl. 26.
12 The lookout posts were placed in Porto, in Foz, on the site of Nª Srª da Luz; on the Matosinhos beach, in Cor-
po Santo (Leça da Palmeira); in Lavra, Angeiras, Labruge, Vila Chã, Mindelo, Azurara and Vila do Conde;
there were two others on the south bank of the Douro, in the municiplaity of Gaia. Cf. SILVA, Francisco
Ribeiro da - O corso inglês e as populações do litoral lusitano (1580-1640) . “Actas do Colóquio “Santos
Graça” de Etnografia Marítima”, Póvoa do Varzim, 1985, Vol. III, pp. 315-316
13 The same set-up is described for Porto by Francisco Ribeiro in - Pirataria e corso sobre o Porto. Aspectos
seiscentistas. “Revista de História”, Porto, 1979, Vol. II, pp. , 310-311.
14 cf. Bluteau, Rafael - Vocabulario portuguez e latino..., Coimbra, Colegio das artes da Companhia de Jesus,
1713, vol. 4, p. 9.
15 Cf. A.H.M.P. - Lv. 32, fl. 211-212. For Vila do Conde, vd., on this, royal letters of 6 March and 6 April 1591
and of 8 April 1604 (A.M.V.C. - A/148/ 149/ 167), in addition to the many council records related to these
matters. Attention is drawn to those of 20. April. 1571; 14. July. 1575; 23. June. 1578; 14. June. 1594; 10.
April. 1595; 11. June. 1596; 29. April. 1617 and 8. July. 1620 (A.M.V.C. - Lv. 21, fl. 25, fl. 264-265v., 502v.;
Lv. 23, fl. 512v.; Lv. 24, fl. 20-22, fl. 96; Lv. 26, fl. 229, fl. 372).
16 Publ. in “Os regimentos sobre a matrícula dos oficiais da navegação, da Ribeira e bombardeiros de 1591 e
1626”, publ. Leonor Freire Cost . “Revista de História Económica”, 25, Jan-April 1989, pp. 99-125
17 Vd., among those known, those of A.M.V. Castelo and Arquivo da Sé de Viana do Castelo, Pasta 9, nº 145,