The Vikings: A Very Short Introduction (8 page)

particularly through pilgrimage to the cult of St Olav; it had seven
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churches by the end of the 11th century and the archbishopric was
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founded in 1152–3. A 60m length of one of the medieval thoroughfares was excavated in 1973–85. It was originally a gravel-surfaced track, running parallel to the shore, but was widened by the mid-11th century and surfaced with wooden planking. The areas fronting the street were occupied by large one-or two-roomed structures, maybe rented out to traders and craftsmen as combined workshops and storehouses. In the centre of the plots there were dwelling houses with wall-benches and fireplaces. Other buildings, identified as bathhouses, cookhouses, storerooms, or latrines, occupied the rear of the plots.

Although towns emerged at different times in different parts of Scandinavia, it is difficult to ignore the ubiquitous role of royal authority in providing the circumstances in which they grew. The towns are not particularly Viking, and the cosmopolitan bustle of merchants and craftsmen would have been familiar throughout 45

Northern Europe. Nonetheless, they facilitated overseas trade and expansionism, and provided the economic basis for the centralization of power and the growth of a mercantile class.

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46

Chapter 6

Across the ocean: seafaring

and overseas expansion

Dragon-headed longships, shields down their sides, their red-and-white striped sails catching the wind, have become an important element of the Viking cliché. What is the reality? Alcuin expressed his horror and indignation at the Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793

and registered his surprise that it was ‘possible that such an inroad from the sea could be made’. For 8th- and 9th-century monks the Vikings were pagans from the sea. In an era when travelling by sea was no doubt easier than arduous journeys by land, were their exploits really so exceptional?

The 11th-century Bayeux tapestry provides, in cartoon form, a narrative of the transport of an early medieval army, its horses and provisions by ship, similar to those believed to have carried Viking raiding parties. The Normans were, after all, direct descendants of the Norseman Rollo. The tapestry shows ‘clinker’, or plank-built, vessels with brightly coloured sails, which could be drawn up upon a shelving beach, and their masts ‘un-stepped’, or taken down.

The discovery of a boat burial at Gokstad in Norway, in 1880, provided an archaeological reality to support this picture of Norse nautical prowess. It also contributed to the image of Vikings as 47

adventurous explorers and seafarers skilled in building efficient sailing machines. In 1893 a replica of the Gokstad ship sailed from Bergen to Newfoundland in 28 days. When a second Norwegian ship burial was excavated at Oseberg in 1904, the ornately carved keel also demonstrated the artistic vitality of 9th-century Scandinavia. Its discovery fuelled nationalistic fervour and coincided with the last stage of Norway’s struggle for independence, finally achieved in 1905. Tree ring dating has confirmed that the Oseberg ship, built
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.820, is the oldest surviving combined sailing and rowing ship, with space for 30 oarsmen. Earlier vessels were powered by oars alone and although the keel probably evolved in the 7th century, and sails appear on picture stones from the Baltic island of Gotland at around the same time, there is no surviving mast earlier than at Oseberg. The ship was reused as the burial chamber of a Norwegian princess
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.834 and although it must have been exceptional, even by 9th-century standards, the shortage of
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other finds, and the prominence of the discoveries from Oseberg in
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the Ship Museum in Oslo, meant that this royal barge came to stand
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as the ‘type-vessel’ for Viking ships.

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All that changed in 1957 when the Danish National Museum commenced salvage of five ships from the bottom of the Roskilde fjord. It emerged that the vessels had been scuttled during the 1070s in order to block the fjord entrance at Skuldelev to protect the royal centre at Roskilde. Although stripped of their fittings, and much repaired, the vessels demonstrate that by the 11th century Scandinavian shipping had evolved into specialized forms for different functions, ranging from highly specialized slender longships for warfare, based on a combination of oars and sail; fuller and more solidly built sailing ships for carrying cargo; plus smaller vessels for fishing and ferrying.

Skuldelev 2 was a slender longship, nearly 30m in length. It was designed for speed, and the transport of 60–80 men and booty, and its mast could be unstepped, allowing it to sail upriver and under bridges. However, analysis of the tree rings has proved that this 48

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7. The Oseberg ship; excavation crew in the mound, 21 September 1904

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great Viking symbol was not built in Scandinavia at all. In fact it was constructed in the Dublin area
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.1042–3 and was probably used in the Irish Sea area for at least 20 years before being repaired (again with Irish timber) and taken to Roskilde. Its planking was formed from good quality oak, and it was probably built in the Scandinavian tradition for a local chieftain as a means of taking part in the normal activities of the Norse in Dublin – slave trading and mercenary activity in Ireland, England, and Wales.

Skuldelev 5 was also a longship but was much smaller and more crudely built. It had been constructed in east Denmark
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.1040 for a crew of 26. The bottom planking was originally made of new oak timbers, but the sides comprised a mixture of oak, ash, and pine and had been patched with planks taken from other ships. The life of 49

this ship had been stretched to its limits, leading to the suggestion that it was a
leidang
ship, provided as a duty by the peasants of a district who were obliged to deliver and man a ship of 26 rowers.

Although by itself it does not prove that this documented 12th-century military levy had Viking Age origins, as has been argued, it does reinforce how Scandinavian sailors were just as capable of keeping old crates afloat as later mariners.

Skuldelev 1 was much broader in relation to its length, and represents the development of the ocean-going trader, or
knorr
. It had a cargo hold amidships, capable of holding up to 40–50 tons, and a deck only at bow and stern. The mast was firmly seated and it relied upon its sail for propulsion, and although it could have carried up to 12 crew, it used oars only when becalmed or for manœuvring. It was built of pine in western Norway,
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.1040, but had been repaired twice between 1060 and 1070, latterly with oak
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from Skåne.

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The Skuldelev finds have transformed our knowledge of
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Scandinavian ships, but the story does not end there. During the construction of the new Roskilde Museum extension to house the Skuldelev finds, a further nine ships from the late Viking Age and Early Middle Ages were discovered. One of them was the largest warship so far found. Roskilde 6, discovered in 1997, was
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.36m long. It had been built sometime after 1025, probably in Denmark.

The rig consisted of a single square sail, maybe nearly 200 square metres, and it may have had up to 78 rowing stations. It was built of the finest timber with excellent craftsmanship, and was a product of wealth and power found only among the highest ranking members of society.

A similar vessel was also recovered from the harbour at Hedeby.

Hedeby 1 has been interpreted as a royal vessel built locally for a crew of 60. It displays exquisite quality; the oak planks are over 10m long; the rivets are exceptionally close. Its construction would have required skilled shipwrights with access to exceptionally large 50

trees and abundant supplies of iron. The vessel was probably only between 5 and 25 years old when it sank, having been used as a fireship, perhaps burnt out during an attack on the harbour
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.1000.

By contrast, Hedeby 2 was possibly a Slavic or Saxon vessel, built
c
.975 as a low-status working boat. It had been constructed partly from reused elements; even the frames had been taken from another boat and consequently did not fit, requiring the support of small additional blocks of wood.

In summary, archaeological discoveries of boats and parts of boats over the last 50 years have helped confirm our image of Vikings as accomplished seafarers, but they also reveal a much more complex
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picture. There was not just a range of types of vessel, but also a range of investment, from bodged repairs to ornate status symbols
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fit for the burial of a princess. Research has shown a gradual evolution from Saxon and Frisian rowing boats to the development of specialist classes of ship, amongst peoples whose livelihoods would have depended upon the sea. However, it has also shown that
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ships were built in what is thought of as a Scandinavian tradition
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throughout the Irish and North Sea regions. The Skuldelev 2

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longship was built in Ireland; in the Dutch harbour of Tiel a ‘Viking’
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ship built of English oak was burnt out and built into the harbour revetments in the early 11th century.

For many of those living in early medieval Europe knowledge of the sea would have been important, and for parts of Scandinavia it was the only way of getting around and so was essential. Norway took its very name from the navigation route, the Norvegur, along its western coast, while the nautical term starboard is derived from the right-hand side of the ship upon which a side rudder, or

‘steerboard’, was mounted. Over 850 pre-modern boathouses have been recognized in Norway; 250 are concentrated in south-west Norway; there is a second group of 500 in the North. Although not dated precisely to the Viking Age, approximately 250–300 are very large, and although they are too big for a fishing vessel they could have accommodated a longship. There is some evidence that they 51

were used for feasting too and it has been argued that their distribution suggests a military context, linked to early chiefdoms, and later developing into the military levy or
leidang
system.

Without sophisticated navigation instruments sea travel would have relied upon observations of currents, landmarks, and the stars. It has been demonstrated that use of a simple bearing dial would have allowed Viking Age sailors to travel due east or west along a line of latitude, although the method requires the sun to be visible for most of the journey, possibly a big assumption for the North Atlantic. The ability to determine one’s longitude, however, only came much later, in the 18th century, with the measurement of speed and time elapsed since departure. Nonetheless, a bearing dial would allow a Norwegian ship to depart from Bergen and sail due west to Shetland, or to sail up the coast before turning west to Iceland, for example. Half of a round disc of wood marked with equidistant
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notches discovered in 1948 at Narsarsuaq, Greenland, has been
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taken as proof of the existence of such nautical aids, but sceptics
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have pointed to the fact that it was found in the remains of what is
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thought to have been a Benedictine convent and have suggested, rather prosaically, that it was a medieval confessional disc.

So what of the cliché? Viking sails have not survived but we have striped designs from Bayeux. On the Gokstad and Skuldelev 5 ships there are battens for shields to be hung along the sides of vessels.

Dragon-prowed ships exist as graffiti and as literary metaphors, but the best we can do archaeologically is a beast-headed bedpost from Oseberg! Dragon ships may only exist as part of the modern Viking stereotype, but the existence of a skilled seafaring people is not in doubt. Both ships and navigational skills enabled the migration of people from Scandinavia from the late 9th to the 11th centuries.

Expansion overseas

Historians have struggled to find a single cause for Viking expansionism, and it is likely that motives changed and evolved 52

through time. Competition for scarce resources against a background of population growth was the underlying factor, but competition may have begun as a search for portable wealth, and developed into the quest for new land.

It has been debated whether Vikings were primarily raiders or traders, but the distinction may not have been a meaningful one.

The centralization of power in Iron Age Scandinavia was based upon a gift exchange economy in which chieftains had privileged access to imported goods. Status was based upon portable wealth that could be passed down the social hierarchy as rewards to followers. In the early Viking Age it was the shortage of portable
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