Regina Maris and the command of the sea: the sixteenth century origins of modern maritime strategy

Heuser, B. (2017) Regina Maris and the command of the sea: the sixteenth century origins of modern maritime strategy. Journal of Strategic Studies, 40 (1-2). pp. 225-262. ISSN 1743-937X doi: 10.1080/01402390.2015.1104670

Abstract/Summary

The concept of the command of the sea has its roots in medieval notions of the sovereignty of coastal waters, as claimed by several monarchs and polities of Europe. In the sixteenth century, a surge of intellectual creativity, especially in Elizabethan England, fused this notion with the Thucydidean term ‘thalassocracy’ – the rule of the sea. In the light of the explorations of the oceans, this led to a new conceptualisation of naval warfare, developed in theory and then put into practice. This falsifies the mistaken but widespread assumption that there was no significant writing on naval strategy before the nineteenth century.