SC - Theme Menus

[Christine A Seelye-King]

As requested, here's a reference for 'nef' as ship, from

Lewis, A.R. and Runyan, T.J.  European Naval and Maritime History,
300-1500.  Indiana University Press.  Bloomington.  1985.

p.66  "... the so-called _naves_ or _nefs_, which were large
round-ships, lateen-rigged, with two masts ..."

p.73  has a line-drawing of a Genoese nef based on the best
available evidence.

p.74  "They may have been cheaper to build or to operate than a
_nef_."  The word _nef_ is used two more times on this page.

p.82  "Already by 1400, as we have noted, the older Mediterranean 
round-ships such as _nefs_ and _taurides_ had been replaced by 
more efficient northern European _cogs_."

p.83  "Often built as large as 700 or 1,000 tons, _carracks_, 
which were sometimes also called _nefs_ in the fifteenth century, 
carried most of the heavy bulk cargoes, such as salt, wheat, cotton, 
and timber, throughout the Mediterranean."

I like that one -- it has carracks (sometimes called nefs) carrying
salt!

I know I've seen the word used in other books on the period.


A bit of further dictionary work yields the following:

In the OED under 'navy' definition 2.c gives the meaning of "A single
ship", with both citations spelling it 'nave'.

In my small dictionary of Old French we have four meanings given
for nef (not counting its meaning as 'turnip'):

- -A Ship
- -A nave of a church
- -A piece of (gold or silver) plate that one placed on the table 
 representing initially a ship
- -A large driking vessel, a goblet

So one might have someone in period, if they were French or in
contact with France, referring to their goblet as their 'nef'.


On the off-chance that 'neft' might be a word coming from a language
other than English, I tried web searches for 'neft' in conjunction
with either 'spoon' or 'knife' and came up with nothing suggesting
a box for utensils.


- -- 
All my best,
Thorvald Grimsson / James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net> (PGP user)