Old nautical chart

[Micael]

I saw this Swedish chart of the Baltic Sea, from 1692, and just ponder what a challenge it must have been to navigate back then compared to when using modern charts.

[Craiglxviii]

That’s quite the piece of work. What are all the variously- angled solid & dashed lines for? Measuring straight distances between commonly-used points without needing to use dividers?

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

IIRC, the course to steer.

Perhaps because non-literacy was rampant ??

[Micael]

IIRC, the course to steer.

Perhaps because non-literacy was rampant ??

Not among those in the navy who would navigate, and non-literacy was starting to get adressed in Sweden already at the point in time when the chart was made. It was entered into law in 1686 that the bell-ringers were obligated to teach all the children in the parish to read. At around 1750 around 70-90% of the population could read. We were a bit earlier than most in this sense.

As an aside on literacy, I saw it argued the other day that this was the most important factor in later resulting in a disproportionatly high number of technical inventions to come out Sweden. The argument being that the early literacy among the general population resulted in a much larger number of more every day books and publications on matters such as engineering, in easy to understand language, to be published. As opposed to some other countries where most of the publications were on other matters that interested the upper class. This difference enabled a lot of practical inventions to emerge from the farmer community and such.

[Johnnie Lyle]

IIRC, the course to steer.

Perhaps because non-literacy was rampant ??

Not among those in the navy who would navigate, and non-literacy was starting to get adressed in Sweden already at the point in time when the chart was made. It was entered into law in 1686 that the bell-ringers were obligated to teach all the children in the parish to read. At around 1750 around 70-90% of the population could read. We were a bit earlier than most in this sense.

As an aside on literacy, I saw it argued the other day that this was the most important factor in later resulting in a disproportionatly high number of technical inventions to come out Sweden. The argument being that the early literacy among the general population resulted in a much larger number of more every day books and publications on matters such as engineering, in easy to understand language, to be published. As opposed to some other countries where most of the publications were on other matters that interested the upper class. This difference enabled a lot of practical inventions to emerge from the farmer community and such.

How much did the population losses from the Great Northern Wars contribute to that? The plague losses alone were brutal, especially in major cities, while the losses of young men probably disproportionately fell on the least educated/skilled parts of the population.

[Micael]

IIRC, the course to steer.

Perhaps because non-literacy was rampant ??

Not among those in the navy who would navigate, and non-literacy was starting to get adressed in Sweden already at the point in time when the chart was made. It was entered into law in 1686 that the bell-ringers were obligated to teach all the children in the parish to read. At around 1750 around 70-90% of the population could read. We were a bit earlier than most in this sense.

As an aside on literacy, I saw it argued the other day that this was the most important factor in later resulting in a disproportionatly high number of technical inventions to come out Sweden. The argument being that the early literacy among the general population resulted in a much larger number of more every day books and publications on matters such as engineering, in easy to understand language, to be published. As opposed to some other countries where most of the publications were on other matters that interested the upper class. This difference enabled a lot of practical inventions to emerge from the farmer community and such.

How much did the population losses from the Great Northern Wars contribute to that? The plague losses alone were brutal, especially in major cities, while the losses of young men probably disproportionately fell on the least educated/skilled parts of the population.

I’m not sure, and I think it might be hard to give a definitive answer. But I don’t think it necessarily had that great of an impact in this sense. Those who became soldiers during the era were not uncommonly younger sons of farmers, who wouldn’t inherit the farm, and from an intelligence/literacy standpoint they should have been at pretty much what the average was.

[Johnnie Lyle]

Not among those in the navy who would navigate, and non-literacy was starting to get adressed in Sweden already at the point in time when the chart was made. It was entered into law in 1686 that the bell-ringers were obligated to teach all the children in the parish to read. At around 1750 around 70-90% of the population could read. We were a bit earlier than most in this sense.

As an aside on literacy, I saw it argued the other day that this was the most important factor in later resulting in a disproportionatly high number of technical inventions to come out Sweden. The argument being that the early literacy among the general population resulted in a much larger number of more every day books and publications on matters such as engineering, in easy to understand language, to be published. As opposed to some other countries where most of the publications were on other matters that interested the upper class. This difference enabled a lot of practical inventions to emerge from the farmer community and such.

How much did the population losses from the Great Northern Wars contribute to that? The plague losses alone were brutal, especially in major cities, while the losses of young men probably disproportionately fell on the least educated/skilled parts of the population.

I’m not sure, and I think it might be hard to give a definitive answer. But I don’t think it necessarily had that great of an impact in this sense. Those who became soldiers during the era were not uncommonly younger sons of farmers, who wouldn’t inherit the farm, and from an intelligence/literacy standpoint they should have been at pretty much what the average was.

It does create a big hole in your demographics and labor pool, though - which will also create an economic need for labor saving inventions. Plus, you also took some nasty civilian losses during the Great Northern War plague in the 1710s. I have seen estimates of something like 33% losses in Stockholm and Malmo, though it was worse in the Baltic littorals that used to be Swedish.

[Micael]

How much did the population losses from the Great Northern Wars contribute to that? The plague losses alone were brutal, especially in major cities, while the losses of young men probably disproportionately fell on the least educated/skilled parts of the population.

I’m not sure, and I think it might be hard to give a definitive answer. But I don’t think it necessarily had that great of an impact in this sense. Those who became soldiers during the era were not uncommonly younger sons of farmers, who wouldn’t inherit the farm, and from an intelligence/literacy standpoint they should have been at pretty much what the average was.

It does create a big hole in your demographics and labor pool, though - which will also create an economic need for labor saving inventions. Plus, you also took some nasty civilian losses during the Great Northern War plague in the 1710s. I have seen estimates of something like 33% losses in Stockholm and Malmo, though it was worse in the Baltic littorals that used to be Swedish.

It had a very significant economic impact, which was possibly dampened to some degree over time by nascent industrialization that had begun in the 17th century. But as far as I’m aware the main impetus for that was initially a need to become self-reliant on military equipment production. So I’m not sure if labor saving played a big part close in time to those demographic changes.