Galleon

Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Spain and first used as armed cargo carriers by Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-1600s. Galleons generally carried three or more masts with a lateen fore-and-aft rig on the rear masts, were carvel built with a prominent squared off raised stern, and used square-rigged sail plans on their fore-mast and main-masts. Such ships were the mainstay of maritime commerce into the early 19th century, and were often drafted into use as auxiliary naval war vessels—indeed, were the mainstay of contending fleets through most of the 150 years of the Age of Exploration—before the Anglo-Dutch wars brought purpose-built ship-rigged warships, ships of the line, that thereafter dominated war at sea during the remainder of the age of sail. The word galleon, "large ship", comes from Spanish galeón, "galleon", "armed merchant ship" or from Old French galion, "armed ship of burden" from Medieval Greek galea, "galley", to which the French or Spanish augmentative suffix -on is added. Another possible origin is the Old French word galie, "galley"; also from Medieval Greek galea. The galea was a warship of the Byzantine navy, and its name may be related to the Greek word galeos, "dogfish shark". The term was originally given to certain types of war galleys in the Middle Ages. The Annali Genovesi mention galleons of 60, 64 and 80 oars, used for battle and on missions of exploration, in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is very likely that the galleons and galliots mentioned in the accounts of the crusades were the same vessels. In the early 16th century, the Venetian galleoni were a new class of galley used to hunt down pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. Later, when the term started to be applied to sail-only vessels, it meant, like the English term "man-of-war", any large warship that was otherwise no different from the other sailing ships of the time.