What did the concept of a port territory cover in the Middle Ages? The etymologies of the terms most commonly used at the time to describe a port territory – namely, ‘port’ and ‘harbour’ – allude to the two main purposes that these facilities were expected to fulfil: allowing for the transport of men and their goods, and harbouring fishing vessels and merchant ships. In other words, a port territory could serve as a refuge and a berth space, a hub for the circulation of people and goods, a boarding point for passengers, a shipbuilding and ship repair area, an enclosed space housing naval weaponry workshops, and a tax collecting site. This variety of purposes led to a great disparity in port layouts and amenities: from simple beaching areas to ‘port-channels’ and rudimentarily equipped ports, to complex harbours with multiple basins, stone docks, defence systems, jetties, lighthouses, locks, cranes, etc., and corresponding regulations.

Both materially and spatially, port territories seem to have been rather poorly circumscribed. Ports were territories quite distinct from cities, and the latter sought to protect themselves from the former, since ports constituted entry points for invasion threats. Most often, a port included both a sea basin and a fringe of land of varying width, but sometimes it was merely a body of water, a section of river, or an anchorage near shore. Apart from enclosed ports, which were the exception at the time, ports were only roughly demarcated, most likely by means of a few natural or man-made landmarks.