The Maddison Project: Take 1

I RECENTLY STUMBLED ACROSS some work by the late Professor Angus Maddison of the University of Groningen, in The Netherlands. Maddison, a Briton, died in 2010. He was a world scholar in the field of quantitative macroeconomic history.
If that sounds a bit scary, well, it IS. However, his work for the Dutch university included measuring the economic performance for different regions, time periods, and sub-topics. And, interestingly enough, his research reveals facts of great interest to anyone connected with ships and the sea, as I’m sure most of my readers are.
For instance, Maddison discovered that for 1,000 years after the birth of Christ, there was practically no advance whatsoever in ship design or navigation in the hub of European commerce, the Mediterranean. By the year 1000, he claims, navigation there had actually gone backward.
The old Greeks and Romans had had what were called periploi, or early cruising guides, giving details of anchorages, the movement of tides, the depths of water, and so on. They also had access to Ptolemy’s Geography, an atlas of the known world, and a charting system that provided positions in terms of latitude and longitude. But somehow, with the fall of the Roman Empire, these things had been lost, and it was only in 1400, for instance, that a manuscript copy of Ptolemy was discovered in Constantinople.
I had previously read that many things disappeared along with the Roman Empire, things such as the common plane, used for smoothing wood. I have always been rather skeptical about this. How could people, especially people working with wood every day, suddenly forget how to make a plane? It seemed impossible. And yet, after reading Maddison, I am beginning to believe that such things can happen.
In addition to losing the periploi, those ancient mariners also let their shoreside facilities run down. In the year 1000, harbors were “inferior to those constructed by the Emperor Claudius at Portus for the food supply of Rome, and Alexandria’s great port and lighthouse had disappeared,” Maddison says.
It is extraordinary to think that Western Europeans could descend into intellectual darkness and economic regression for 1,000 years or more. Century after century with even the brightest human minds just treading water, or even sinking slightly. No wonder they were called the Dark Ages.
According to Maddison, It wasn’t really until the 13th century that there were improvements in economic activity resulting from three significant changes to ships and navigation. I’ll tell you what those changes were in this column next Monday.

Today’s Thought
There are two problems in my life. The political ones are insoluble and the economic ones are incomprehensible.
— Alec Douglas-Home, former Prime Minister of Great Britain


Tailpiece
I coughed a cough into the air,
Germs fell to earth I know not where;
For who has eyes so keen and bright
That he can see a germ alight?


(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)