The Sea: A Barrier or Trade Route?

by Mark Noce 

The British Isles are surrounded by water, lots of it, and this has no doubt contributed to the character of the people who inhabit these islands. But so what? How can water change the course of a people and does it do so for the better or worse?

Well, think about it for a second. The English Channel alone has deterred plenty of would-be invaders (although not all). Few can doubt that holding off Napoleon or Hitler would not have been as feasible had their massive armies simply been able to walk to England. Not to mention the development of ports and harbors from Bristol to Portsmouth doubtlessly contributed to the British naval culture that allowed them to expand across the globe and create the most powerful maritime power on Earth for a time.

But I digress. It’s just water, Mark. Does anyone really care?

Believe it or not, historians and archaeologists do and it’s a contentious debate.

From the Celtic era through the Middle Ages right down to today, various authors, anthropologists, and historians continue to debate whether the waters around the UK and Ireland have isolated the peoples there or made them even more interconnected with the rest of the world. Simply put, the argument goes two ways.

Isolation Argument - Water acted as a barrier that allowed cultures such as the Celts and later unique “Insular” lifestyles to flourish in the British Isles long after such practices had died out elsewhere.

Interconnected Argument - Water acted as a superhighway, allowing for a larger portion of goods, ideas, and culture to be transported at a time when land travel limited the scope in which cargo and other ox-bound trade items could move.

In truth, I believe it’s a little of both, and I’m not just saying that as a cop-out. As a sailor myself, I know that there are days when the sea gives me the freedom to go where I please, but at other times it’s so rough I wouldn’t dare go out on it. My guess is that the waters around the British Isles acted in this pendulous, moody way. Some days the sea connected the local peoples with the rest of the world and other days it grew rough and stormy, thus isolating them from external influences. 

In a way, I think this introduces a very positive aspect to cultures in the UK and Ireland, because it allowed native people to pick and choose what they liked from external trade and culture, but to also insulate themselves from aspects of the continent that they did not like. A unique situation that most other nations did not have simply due to chance geography and weather patterns. It makes one wonder just how much of human history has been shaped by climate and chance.

So what do you think? Is the sea a barrier or a trade route? Does it connect people or cut the off from them outside world?

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Mark Noce writes historical fiction with a passion. His medieval Welsh novel, Between Two Fires, comes out with Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press on August 23, 2016.

Learn more at marknoce.com or preorder his novel here.