28 March 2022
Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry showing Harold Godwinson sailing to France in two ships with rudders on the starboard (Old English steorboard) side of the ships. A section of an embroidered cloth depicting two sailing vessels, filled with people, with rudders on the right side.
In nautical jargon, starboard refers to the right side of a ship, as one is facing the bow, and larboard and port refer to the left side. But why these terms are used and how they may have come about are not obvious to present-day speakers of English.
Old English steorboard is a compound meaning a ship’s rudder, that is a board for steering. Prior to the fourteenth century it was common for a ship’s rudder to be on the right side, as opposed to over the stern, of the vessel. The right side was typical because most people are right-handed, and it was easier for the helmsman to control the rudder if it was on the right. The corresponding term for the left side of the ship was bæcbord, i.e., backboard, a reference to the back of the helmsman. We see this use in a late ninth-century translation of Orosius’s history:
Wulfstan sæde þæt he gefore of Hæðum, þæt he wære on Truso on syfan dagum and nihtum, þæt þæt scip wæs ealne weg yrnende under segle. Weonoðland him wæs on steorbord, and on bæcbord him wæs Langaland and Læland and Falster and Sconeg, and þas land eally hyrað to Denemearcan.
(Wulfstan said that he went from Hedeby, that he arrived in Truso in seven days and nights with the ship under sail the entire way. The land of the Wends was to starboard and to backboard were Langeland, Laaland, Falster, and Skåne, which all belong to Denmark.
Bæcbord fell out of use in the transition to Middle English, but starboard survived, even after right-sided rudders fell out of use in the fourteenth century.
The Middle-English replacement for bæcbord was laddeboard, which in Present-Day spelling is larboard. This too is a compound, but what ladde- refers to is unknown. One plausible suggestion is that it is related to lade (Old English hladan), a reference to cargo being taken onboard on the left side, the rudder being on the right making it difficult for the ship to dock on that side. Or it could be from the verb geledan (to lead), a reference to the left-hand side leading the ship, the rudder being on the other side. The shift from the / d / to an / ɹ /, i.e., from laddeboard to larboard, occurred in the sixteenth century, probably through association with starboard.
Larboard appears in the poem Patience, by the Pearl poet, written c.1380. The passage is part of the telling of the biblical story of Jonah:
Then he tron on þo tres, and þay her tramme ruchen,
Cachen vp þe crossayl, cables þay fasten,
Wiȝt at þe wyndas weȝem her ankres,
Spende spak to þe sprete þe spare bawelyne,
Gederen to þe gyde-ropes, þe grete cloþ falles,
Þay layden in on laddeborde, and þe lofe wynnes,
Þe blyþe breþe at her bak þe bosum he fyndes.(Then he stepped onto the ship, and they prepare her tackle,
Hoist the mainsail, fasten the cables,
Quickly at the windlass weigh their anchors,
Attach the spare bowline to the bowsprit,
Gather the guy-ropes, the great canvas falls,
They lead to larboard, and gain the luff,
The fair breath at their back finds the bosum of the sail.)
Given that larboard might be a reference to receiving cargo, one is tempted to associate port with the idea that it is the side next to the quay. But the nautical term actually comes from the sense of port meaning a gate or entrance, borrowed from French porte and that from the Latin porta. In his three-volume dissertation on Middle English nautical jargon, Bertil Sandhal explains the term thusly:
The ME. nautical sense [of port] was “entry port,” “opening in a ship’s side for entrance and for the loading of cargo,” at least that is the only attested use so far. This does not mean, however, that ports were not pierced for other purposes, such as light, ventilation, etc. We know from pictures that forecastles and summer-castles had a great number of ports, apparently without any form of shutter. In a miniature of 1482 seven guns are shown pointing through apertures in the bulwarks. An invention by a Frenchman in 1501 introduced the method of piercing gun-ports in the actual side of the ship.
And:
The entry port was cut on the larboard, or port side of the ship. This is no doubt the origin of port (first evidenced in 1543–4) as a term of direction, for earlier larboard. [...] As long as the rudder remained on the starboard quarter, the port side would naturally be turned towards the quay or wharf in landing in order to prevent the rudder from being damaged, and cargo would be received on board and loaded on that side.
We see just such a use of port, to mean an opening in a ship’s side, in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis (The Lover’s Confession), written c.1390. From the portion of that poem that tells the tale of Constance (the tale may be familiar as it is also the subject of Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale). Here Constance is about to be raped, but is miraculously saved:
This knyht withoute felaschipe
Hath take a bot and cam to schipe,
And thoghte of hire his lust to take,
And swor, if sche him daunger make,
That certeinly sche scholde deie.
Sche sih ther was non other weie,
And seide he scholde hire wel conforte,
That he ferst loke out ate porte,
That no man were nyh the stede,
Which myhte knowe what thei dede,
And thanne he mai do what he wolde.
He was riht glad that sche so tolde,
And to the porte anon he ferde.
Sche preide God, and He hire herde,
And sodeinliche he was out throwe
And dreynt, and tho began to blowe
A wynd menable fro the lond,
And thus the myhti Goddes hond
Hire hath conveied and defended.(This knight without fellowship
Took a boat and came to the ship,
And thought to take her for his lust,
And swore, if she should cause trouble for him,
That she would certainly die.
She sighed there was no other way,
And said he should for their assurance,
That he should first look out a port,
So that no one was nearby,
Who might know what they did,
And then he might do what he would,
He was very happy that she said that,
And he then went to the port.
She prayed to God, and God heard her,
And suddenly he was thrown overboard
And drowned, and then began to blow
A favorable wind from the land,
And thus the mighty hand of God
Had conveyed and defended her.)
Larboard remained in common use until the nineteenth century when it was replaced by port, although it is still used in some quarters. The Royal Navy standardized the use of port to refer to the left side of a ship with the following order that was issued on 2 November 1844:
It having been represented to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that the word “port” is frequently, though not universally, substituted on board Her Majesty’s ships for the word “larboard,” and as the want of a uniform practice in this respect may lead to important and serious mistakes, and the distinction between “starboard” and “port” is so much more marked than that between “starboard” and “larboard,” it is their Lordship’s direction that the word “larboard" shall no longer be used to signify left on board on of Her Majesty’s ships or vessels.
But since larboard and port existed alongside one another for centuries, one wonders whether confusion between larboard and starboard was ever a significant problem. If it had been, the substitution would likely have occurred much earlier. More likely a simple desire for standardization was the driving force behind the shift.
Sources:
Andrew, Malcolm and Ronald Waldron. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, fourth edition. Exeter: U of Exeter Press, 2002, lines 101–27, 190.
Dictionary of Old English: A to I, 2018, s.v. bæc-bord, n., hladan, v.
Godden, Malcolm R., ed. The Old English History of the World: An Anglo-Saxon Rewriting of Orosius. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 44. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016, 1.1.23, 44.
Gower, John. Confessio Amantis, vol. 2 of 3, second edition. Russel A. Peck and Andrew Galloway, eds. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2013, lines 1107–25.
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. ladde-board, n., port(e, n.
The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle for 1845. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1845, 37. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2016, s.v. starboard, n. adj., and adv.; second edition, 1989, back-board, n., larboard, n. (and adv.) and adj.
Sandahl, Bertil. Middle English Sea Terms, I. The Ship’s Hull, vol. 1 of 3. Essays and Studies on English Language and Literature 8. Upsala: Lundequistska, 1951, 200.
Image credit: Bayeux Museum. Public domain image as a mechanical reproduction of a public domain work.