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Historians have generally argued that between the medieval period and the eighteenth century seafarers transformed from collaborative adventurers with a share in their vessel to the first international wage-earning proletariat. This interpretation has drawn upon relatively limited statistical analysis of mariners' wages, and underestimates the variety of seafarers' remuneration and economic activities besides wages themselves. This article undertakes a more sustained analysis of seventeenth-century wage data drawn from the papers of the English High Court of Admiralty, and uses the same evidence to examine other forms of income, both customary payments as part of shipping, and small-scale trade. Seafarers of all ranks carried their own commodities on all shipping routes, offering an opportunity to increase their income considerably. This evidence confirms that the maritime labour market was hierarchical, and that very often seafarers were poor labourers facing economic insecurity of many kinds. However, it refines the previous interpretation by emphasizing the presence of skilled workers even among the lower levels of this labour market, and by introducing a new dimension to mariners' economic agency: they were not simply wage-workers, but also independent participants in a venture economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maritime history seems to be suffering an identity crisis, rising in popularity but unsure of its place within historical scholarship and divided in approach. Seafarers, as a consequence, have remained marginal within mainstream history. This article argues that only by integrating the study of maritime topics into wider historical debates can maritime history overcome these doubts, taking as a case study the role of seafarers and the navy in British politics during 1625−42. First examining previous interpretations offered by scholars, largely based on a conception of seafarers as politically and socially isolated from developments ashore, the article then reassesses the available evidence for popular political activity within the maritime community. It argues that seafarers were deeply involved in the political and religious divisions that drove Britain into civil war in 1642; and, more broadly, that scholars should recognize the importance of both local and global approaches to maritime history - that they should think outside the gundeck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]