Before the Salem witch trials, the wizarding and Muggle worlds had not yet been completely separated. In the fifteenth century, Azkaban's creator had even lured sailors to that island.
It was the Age of Discovery, when people were still sailing the vast seas in search of India, a land said to be covered in spices and gold. Perhaps because spices were so commonly used in that era, these ancient files carried a faint fragrance—not like perfume, but more as if it had seeped into the paper itself.
At roughly the same time, one of Malfoy's ancestors served as a courtier to Elizabeth, the "Virgin Queen." At the time, the British Navy consisted of pirates granted privateering rights through Elizabeth's letters of marque. Around 1535, the Spaniards discovered "Silver Mountain," though before that, they had already carried gold artifacts from the Aztec Empire back to Europe.
The wizard who recorded this history compared it to the Romans' plundering of the Jerusalem Temple. Along with Portugal's spices and other costly goods, piracy had once been rampant.
Naval battles at the time mainly relied on close-quarters fighting. By the early seventeenth century, the Dutch had begun using cannons, doing their best to avoid fighting at close range. Britain was surrounded by the sea, and unlike the "calm waters" of the Mediterranean, the tremendous force of ocean waves made rowing vessels impractical. They were replaced by sailing warships. Since fewer sailors were needed to row, more room became available in the cabins below deck for cannons.
Yet sailing ships needed wind to move. During this period, the Ottoman Empire rose to power, swiftly swallowing up the territories left behind by the Eastern Roman Empire. To oppose it, a new "Eastern Crusade" broke out, and Britain joined this time as well.
There was no need