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Longships (Old Norse:langskip) were longclinker-builtwarships (Old Norse:herskip,Old Swedish:hærskip)[1] propelled byoars, and later also bysail, used by theNorse and surroundingGermanic tribes from at least the 4th century AD and throughout theViking Age, being part of theNordic ship building tradition. As the name suggests, they were long slender ships, intended for speed, with the ability to carry a large crew of warriors. They are sometimes called"dragonships" (Old Norse:drekaskip) due to a tradition of the fore and aft ends being decorated with a raised dragonhead (Old Norse:drekahofud) and tail respectively, with the sail making up the "wing" of the dragon. The largest types were thus called "dragons" (dreki), while smaller types had names such askarve (karfi),snekke (snekkja), andskeid (skeið).[2]
Archaeological finds have been made of longships from the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries in Denmark, Norway and Germany,[3] with motifs onGotlandicpicture stones dating to the 8th century or earlier.[4] It is thought that the Norse specifically invented the design forViking usage, which included raiding and warfare, exploration and commerce. The longship is a rather distinctlyNorse (Scandinavian) construction, withbronze age petroglyphs in Sweden indicating a long tradition of building long animal-headed naval ships in Scandinavia. Equivalent clinker-built naval ships by theWends (a South Baltic Slavic people) were much smaller and shorter in comparison.
The principles leading to the longship's design evolved over a long period of time. A big technological advancement came around 300 AD, whenclinker-building was invented, as seen in the DanishNydam boat and SwedishBjörke boat, both from around 320 AD, with their features being subsquently adopted in the ships of other cultures, including those of theAnglo-Saxons, as seen in the 7th centurySutton Hoo ship. They continued to influencenaval engineering for centuries, and the character and appearance of these ships have been reflected in Scandinavian boat building traditions to the present day. The particular skills and methods employed in making longships are still used worldwide, often with modern adaptations. They were all made out of wood, with cloth sails (woven wool), and had various details and carvings on thehull.
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The evolution of shipbuilding in Scandinavia was facilitated by development of theiron industry.[5][6] There was a great increase in iron production in the later Viking Age with the exploitation ofbog ore as a source of iron ore tosmelt[7] into metal for iron tools, including farm implements and weaponry, as well as shipbuilding tools.[8] With this technology, and the ready availability of nearly unlimited timber in the vast forests of Norway, the Norsemen acquired a high degree of skill in boat construction. Scandinavians developed the shipbuilding, navigation, and seamanship capabilities needed to exploit the undefended ports and coastlines of continental Europe. They became its foremost maritime people and the Viking Age began with Norse overseas expansion.[9]
The archaeologists Julie Lund and Søren M. Sindbæk cite a dataset generated by a reconstruction of annual summer temperatures over the past 2,000 years that indicates a distinct warming trend in the 8th and 9th centuries, reviving earlier hypotheses that a milder climate was an impetus for the expansion of Norse maritime activity and colonization.[10]Neil Price proposes that the maritime raiding practices which constitute what he calls the "Viking phenomenon" may have begun earlier than ordinarily believed, and beyond the environs of theNorth Sea. He argues that recent finds such as theSalme ship burials from c. 750 suggest that raiding might have originated in the Baltic region, especially in the east.[11]
The Norse had a well-developednaval architecture, and during the early medieval period, their ship designs were advanced for their time. The ships were owned by coastal farmers, and under theleidang system, every section in the king's realm was required to build warships and to provide men to crew them,[12] allowing the king to quickly assemble a large and powerful war fleet. The historians David Bachrach andBernard Bachrach say that Viking longships were part of a long tradition of oared warships operating in the northern seas. The main purpose of their warships was to "land troops rather than to engage in combat at sea",[13] and to swiftly carry as many warriors as possible to a scene of conflict.[12] In the 10th century, longships would sometimes be tied together in offshore battles to form a steady platform for infantry warfare. However, examples of more traditional naval combat also exist, such as theBattle of Svolder, where various projectiles and bow and arrow were used, as well asnaval boarding.
The Viking longships were powerful naval weapons in their time and were highly valued possessions. Archaeological finds show that the Viking ships were not standardized. Ships varied from designer to designer and place to place and often had regional characteristics. For example, the choice of material was mostly dictated by the regional forests, such as pine from Norway and Sweden, and oak from Denmark. Moreover, each Viking longship had particular features adjusted to the natural conditions under which it was sailed.[14]
During the 9th-century peak of the Viking expansion, large fleets set out to attack the decliningFrankish empire by attacking navigable rivers such as the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire and others. Rouen was sacked in 841, the year after the death of Louis the Pious, a son of Charlemagne. Quentovic, near modernÉtaples, was attacked in 842 and 600 Danish ships attacked Hamburg in 845. In the same year, 129 ships returned to attack the Seine.[15] They were called "dragonships" by enemies such as the English[16] because some had a dragon-shaped decoration atop the bowstem.
On 1 October 844, when most of the Iberian peninsula was controlled by theEmirate of Córdoba and was known asal-Andalus, aflotilla of about 80 Viking ships, after attacking Asturias, Galicia and Lisbon, ascended theGuadalquivir to Seville, andafter a brief siege and heavy fighting, took it by storm on 3 October.[17] They inflicted many casualties and took numerous hostages with the intent to ransom them. Another group of Vikings had gone to Cádiz to plunder while those in Seville waited onQubtil (Isla Menor), an island in the river, for the ransom money to arrive.[18] Meantime, the emir of Córdoba,Abd ar-Rahman II, prepared a military contingent to meet them, and on 11 November a pitched battle ensued on the grounds ofTalayata (Tablada).[19] The Vikings held their ground, but the results were catastrophic for the invaders, who suffered a thousand casualties; four hundred were captured and executed, some thirty ships were destroyed.[17] It was not a total victory for the emir's forces, but the Viking survivors had to negotiate a peace to leave the area, surrendering their plunder and the hostages they had taken to sell as slaves, in exchange for food and clothing.
In 859, a major long-distance Viking expedition set out foral-Andalus. They tried to land atGalicia and were driven off. Then they sailed down the west coast of the peninsula and burned the mosque at Išbīliya (Seville), but were repelled by a large Muslim force there before entering the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar and burning the mosque at al-Jazīrah (Algeciras), following which they headed south to theEmirate of Nekor in modern Morocco, plundered the city for eight days,[20] and defeated a Muslim force that attempted to stop them.[17]
The Vikings made several incursions intoal-Andalus in the years 859, 966 and 971, but with intentions more diplomatic than bellicose, although an attempt at invasion in 971 was frustrated when the Viking fleet was totally annihilated.[21]
The origin of the longship design can be traced back to theNordic Bronze Age, as various ships of similar principle can be found onperiod petroglyphs around Sweden (for example theRock Carvings in Tanum, spanning about 600 panels dated to between 1800 and 500 BC). Such show various features later found on longships, such as having raised stems fore and aft, sometimes decorated with what appear to be animal heads.
![Hemsta petroglyphs [sv] of the Nordic Bronze Age](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aHemstah%25C3%25A4llen_3.jpg)
TheHjortspring boat, a vessel designed as a large canoe,[22] closely resembles the thousands ofpetroglyph images ofNordic Bronze Age ships found throughout Scandinavia. Dating to the 4th century BC, it was found in a bog in southern Denmark. About 19 metres (62 ft) long and 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) wide, the boat is the oldest find of a wooden plank-built ship in the Nordic countries.[23][24] A large array of weaponry, including shields, spears, and swords, was found with the boat.[25]
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The earliest rowed true longship that has been found is theNydam ship, built in Denmark around 400 AD. It also had very rounded underwater sections but had more pronounced flare in the topsides, giving it more stability as well as keeping more water out of the boat at speed or in waves. It had no sail. It was of lapstrake construction fastened with iron nails.[26] The bow and stern were slightly elevated. The keel was a flattened plank about twice as thick as a normal strake plank but still not strong enough to withstand the downwards thrust of a mast. The ribs were selected from timber that had grown to the specific shape, and were lashed to the planks with lime-bast rope through raised "cleats" (spacers) on the inside[27] that had been shaped from the solid timber.[28]
A later development of this style of ship is theSutton Hoo ship, found in anAnglo-Saxon grave inSutton Hoo, England, dating to around 620. The Anglo-Saxons were at this time very cognate to the Norse, and the finds in the grave shows a close relation between these cultures. Albeit completely rotted away, the remnant shape in the earth shows a low prow and stern like the Nydam ship, with a total length of 27 metres (89 ft).[29][30]
TheKvalsund ship, one of two vessels found in a Danish bog, was built in the late 8th century.[31] According to thedendrochronology research team led by Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, a specialist inMedieval archaeology, the Kvalsund ship is a link in the transition from the ship technology of the early Iron Age to that of the Viking Age. They say that based on dendrochronological dating of the wooden remains, the trees used to construct the two vessels are estimated to have been felled at the end of the 8th century, ca. 780–800, dating the vessels to "the threshold of the Viking Age". The ship, known as Kvalsund II to distinguish it from the boat that was found with it, is estimated to be 18 m (59 feet) long and 3.2 m (10 feet) wide, with 10 pairs of oars. A mast was found, but it is not known to which it belonged.[32]
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There was no single type of Viking ship: there were many kinds. The archeologist and historianOlaf Olsen and the maritime archaeologist Ole Crumlin-Pedersen say that according to the sagas, a Viking ship had to have at least 13 pairs of oars to be regarded as a longship and at least 25 pairs of oars to be considered a great-ship.[33] They varied in size from about 6 to 25 metres (20 to 82 ft), were powered either by oars or by sail and oars, and were built for various purposes, such as warfare, fishing, or trade.[34] Longships can be classified into a number of different types, depending on size, construction details, and the prestige of the owner. The word 'longship' appears to describe ships characterized by their length, rather than being a name for a ship type. The most common way to classify longships is by the number of rowing positions on board. The proper type names for ships in this category wereskeið,dreki,askr andsnekkja.[35]
Crumlin-Pedersen refers to the word 'longship' as being commonly used to mean the "swift raiding vessels and landing crafts of the Vikings". Longships made it possible for the Vikings to raid the coastal regions of Western Europe and to sail up its rivers.[35] The Vikings were successful in warfare with these ships of advanced design, using them in sea operations as landing vessels for warriors to be deployed in land battle.[36] Longships also enabled the establishment of permanent Scandinavian settlements in theNorthern Isles of Scotland, parts of Ireland, theDanelaw area of England, and Normandy in France.[35]
According toJudith Jesch, a scholar of theViking Age and Old Norse language and literature, the Old Norse wordlangskip occurs just twice in theskaldic stanzas.[37] 'Longship' is used only once in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the formlangscip, in an entry for the year 896 that describesKing Alfred's part in the Anglo-Saxon and Viking warfare of the late 9th century. In theChronicle and other Anglo-Saxon written sources, the Danish ships are calledæscas[38] or they are referred to by the type namessnekkja,skeið ordreki. Crumlin-Pedersen saysskeið appears to have been the most common name for longships in Scandinavia.[35]
Modern-day knowledge of Viking ships comes from iconography such as the pictures found onrunestones, in written accounts, especially the OldNorse sagas, and finds of the remains of actual ships. Thephilologist Eldar Heide argues that most classification schemes used in introductions to the subject of old Scandinavian ship types, such asknorr,snekkja, orkarfi, are problematic, and calls for more emphasis on research of the textual evidence to understand what they were called and what they were like.[39] Jesch says that any kind of Scandinavian ship could be long, and thatlongship is not a technical term. She says furthermore that text in the skaldic corpus calling a large warship adragon, whether or not it has a dragonhead prow, is more likely a poetical conceit rather than a technical term for warships.[37]
Ole Crumlin-Pederson was the founder of theViking Ship Museum inRoskilde and made important contributions to maritime archaeology research.[40] According to Crumlin-Pedersen, information on the origin and dating of early ships from Northern Europe can "be determined by independent natural scientific methods, primarily bydendrochronology", and it is not necessary to use sequential typology to date archaeological finds of such vessels.[41]
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Thekarve, orkarvi (Old Norse:karfi;Old Swedish:karve;Old East Slavic:корабль,korablĭ; also aProto-Finnic form ofFinnish:karvas, "small boat"),[42] is the smallest vessel that is considered a longship. The Gokstad ship is a famous Viking ship that was probably akarvi built around the end of the 9th century and buried c. 900; it was excavated in 1880 byNicolay Nicolaysen. It is nearly 24 m (79 feet) long with 16 rowing positions, i.e., it carried 32 oarsmen.[43]
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Thesnekke (Old Norse:snekkja,Old Danish:snække,Old Swedish:snækkia,Old English:snacc) was one of the most common types of ships. With 13 benches, that is, 26 oarsmen, asnekke was regarded as the smallest ship usable for warfare.[44] Jesch writes that eight skaldic stanzas use the wordsnekkja, with seven of them dating to the mid-11th century. She says it is clearly related to the Old Englishsnacc, but its etymology is uncertain.[37] The name survives for a smaller boat type in the Nordic countries; inDanish:snekke,Norwegian:snekke,Swedish:snäcka; also inGerman asSchnigge (Middle Low German:snicke,Low German:snick), andDutch assnik (Old Saxon:snik,snikke,Middle Dutch:snicke); although in Swedish, the most commonly used term is"snipa", which has historically been translated as "gig".[45][46]
Skeid (Old West Norse:skeið;Old English:scegð;[47][48]Old East Norse:*skeði;Old East Slavic:скедии,skedii), meaning 'skid, slider, cleaver (of water)', with the connotation of "speeder", was a type of narrow and fast longship.[49]
A Viking Age skeid known asSkuldelev 2, a long, slender warship about 30 metres (98 ft) long, was discovered in the Roskilde finds of 1962.Dendrochronology shows that this vessel was built inDublin around 1042.Skuldelev 2 had 30 benches and could carry a crew of 65 to 70. It was likely a skeid, and considering its size certainly belonged to a high-ranking chieftain, according to the linguist Angus Somerville and the historian R. Andrew McDonald.[50] In 1996–97 archaeologists discovered the remains of another ship in the harbor. This ship, called theRoskilde 6, is the longest Viking ship ever discovered and has been dated to around 1025.[51] It was 36 metres (118 ft) long and had a beam of 3.5 metres (11 ft). The vessel drew about 1 metre (3.3 ft) of water, and carried about 100 men, including 78 rowers.[52]Skuldelev 2 was replicated asSeastallion from Glendalough (Havhingsten fra Glendalough) at theViking Ship Museum in Roskilde and launched in 2004.[53]
The term "dragon" (Old West Norse:dreki,Old East Norse:draki; alsoOld Norse:ormr, "serpent" = 'dragon')[37][54][55] was used for ships with thirty rooms and upwards.[56] These ships were likely skeids that differed only in the carvings of the head and tail of a flying dragon, carried on the prow and stern of the ship.[57] Judith Jesch, an expert in runic inscriptions, says, "The worddreki for a ship derives from this practice of placing carved dragonheads on ships... but there is no evidence that it was a technical term for any particular kind of ship."[37]
The earliest mentioneddreki was the ship of unstated size owned byHarald Fairhair in the 10th century. Short says that warships were measured by the number ofrúm, "rooms", they contained, a room being the space between the crossbeams, a little less than 1 metre (39 in). A room could accommodate two oars, one on each side of the ship.[58] According to N.A.M. Rodger, ships of 30 rooms or more were very unusual. The firstdrekki ship whose size is known was Olav Tryggvason's 30 roomTranin (Crane), built atNidaros in 995. His later shipOrmrinn langi (Long Serpent) of 34 room (assumed to be 45 metres (148 ft) long) built during the winter of 999 to 1000, was the most well-known of such ships in this period.[56] The common word fordragon in old Germanic languages such as Old Norse was not "dragon" (dreki), but rather "serpent", specifically "worm" (Old Norse:ormr,Old English:wyrm,Old High German:wurm). This is mirrored in the name "Long Serpent" (Ormrinn langi), or "Long Dragon", as given by the philologist Hans-Peter Naumann, for example.[59]
The city seal ofBergen, Norway, created in 1299, depicts a ship with a dragon's head at either end,[37] which might be intended to represent a dreki ship.
The longships had two methods of propulsion: oars and sail. At sea, the sail enabled longships to travel faster than by oar and to cover long distances overseas with far less manual effort. Sails could be raised or lowered quickly. Oars were used when near the coast or in a river, to gain speed quickly, and when there was an adverse (or insufficient) wind. In combat, the variability of wind power made rowing the chief means of propulsion. The ship was steered by a vertical flat blade with a short round handle, at right angles, mounted over the starboard side of the aft gunwale.
Longships were not fitted with actual benches, and apparently had movable seats. When rowing, the oarsmen may have sat on sea chests (chests containing their personal possessions) that would otherwise take up space.[60] These chests would be brought aboard the ship when it was manned.[61] Oars were fashioned of varying lengths according to their position in the ship. In the construction of longships, rounded or rectangular oarports were cut through the upper strake on both sides along the full length of a warship, while on merchant ships they were fitted only near the ends.[62]
An innovation that improved the sail's performance was thebeitass (Old Norse), a wooden luff or tacking spar that stiffened the sail, thus allowing the vessel totack (sail into the wind, on a zig-zag course). It was used especially on theknarr.[63] The windward performance of the ship was poor by modern standards as there was no centreboard, deep keel or leeboard. To assist in tacking, thebeitass kept theluff taut. A step was built into the ship just forward of the mast with one or two sockets on each side. The heel of thebeitass was stepped into one of these when the vessel was underway. Sometimes blocks of wood weretreenailed to the sides of the hull, with each hole angled forward to receive the end of the tacking spar.[64]
During theViking Age (900–1200 AD) Vikings were the dominant seafarers of the North Atlantic. One of the keys to their success was the ability to navigate skillfully across the open waters.[65] According to the medievalist and archaeologist,James Graham-Campbell, however they achieved their navigational feats, the Vikings appear to have developed ocean navigation to a high degree, possibly using innate skills that modern people have forgot they possess. They sailed their ships from Arctic waters to theVolga River and theCaspian Sea and across the Atlantic Ocean to North America. They could not have accomplished these feats without a mastery of seamanship and navigation. They used their ships to raid coastal towns, but also went on trading expeditions and made voyages to explore foreign lands and establish new settlements.[66]
The steersman was the skipper (styrimaðr) of the vessel and set its course and speed,[67] sailing by observation of the sea, the sky, and the wind, as well as by weather signs such as the behaviour of seabirds.[68] Themaritime archaeologist Timm Weski cites Schnall for the information that a number of coastal currents are mentioned in the Nordic sources, along with the danger they represented to sailors, who, however, seemed to pay no attention to currents on the open sea. They did not take them into account when steering a course in a long-distance passage, nor did they take advantage of following currents that would have given them a boost in their direction of travel.[69]
The historian and research scientist Tatjana N. Jackson writes that when Vikings began to migrate from Norway to Iceland in the 9th century, they brought with them the names of the four cardinal directions:norðr,austr,suðr, andvestr, as well as the names of the ordinal directions, those that referred to the features of the western coast of Norway. Consequentlylandnorðr ('north by the land') meant north-east,útnorðr ('north and out, away') meant north-west, whilelandsuðr meant south-east, andútsuðr south-west.[70]
According to the Old Norse philologist andrunologist Tristan Mueller-Vollmer writing with Kirsten Wolf, a specialist in Old Norse and Scandinavian linguistics, it is nearly certain that the Vikings could set their latitude on a voyage, but little is known of how they might have done this. Viking mariners probably depended on oralheadings when they set a course to sail, having no magnetic compass[71] and no charts. They likely used basic celestial navigation, tracking the sun's movement during the day and the position of the stars at night, primarilyPolaris, calledleidarstjarna (lode star) in Old Norse.[72] However, the Pole Star would only have been visible in the early and late parts of the sailing season because of the long hours of summer daylight in the north. Weski says that nowadays the position of the Pole Star is almost directly overhead at the pole, but in 1000 it circled around the pole at a distance of about 7° in the sky.[69]
Thorsteinn Vilhjálmsson, a specialist in the medieval history of science in Iceland and Norway, considers the voyages toVinland made by the Vikings as "the crowning medieval Norse achievement in the field of seamanship and navigation." They were the culmination of hundreds of years of experience sailing across the northern Atlantic. The influence of these voyages on later historic events may have been negligible, but they had a lasting impact as an essential part of the Norse heritage of theIcelandic sagas.[73]
According to the scientific journalPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the Danish archaeologist Thorkild Ramskou in 1969 proposed that so-called "sunstones" might have been used by the Vikings to determine theazimuth direction of the sun, even when it is or obscured by clouds or mist or below the horizon.[65] Sightings of the sun's position at sunrise and sunset were necessary for their ships to stay on course. These sightings would frequently be obstructed by thin layers of fog or low clouds, even though the sky overhead remained blue. Under such conditions, he theorized that sunstones could have been used to determine the position of the obscured sun because of their property ofpolarizing light.[74] These stones, crystals ofIceland spar (a variety ofcalcite), or ofcordierite, aredoubly refracting, meaning that objects viewed through them appear to be doubled.[75]
In 1975, the maritime historian Uwe Schnall published a study,Navigation der Wikinger, about Viking-Age navigation based on Old Norse texts held at theUniversity of Göttingen. Schnall wrote that navigational aids such as the supposed '"sun stone" (sólarsteinn), often associated with sun compasses, are mentioned only once in theIcelandic sagas, in the second section ofSnorri'sHeimskringla, a biography ofSaint Olaf, "St. Olaf's Saga". The story is about a wager between King Olaf and the farmer Sigurծr, but not in a navigational setting. Sigurծr declared that he could find the sun's position in the sky, even though it was an overcast day with snow being blown in the wind. King Olaf held a sunstone in the air and viewed the sun, confirming Sigurծr's claim. Schnall says that all other references tosólarsteinn concern precious stones, which were not used to navigate.[69]
No sunstone has ever been found in Viking archaeological investigations. Consequently it is not known if Vikings ever actually used sunstones, but they could have been useful navigational aids, as much of the area they sailed over and explored in the North Atlantic was near polar latitudes,[76] where the sun is very close to the horizon for much of the year.
An astronomer for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Bradley E. Schaefer, writes that there is no useful textual, ethnographic, or archaeological evidence for the use of "sunstones" as celestial navigation aids, thus their nature is unknown. He declares that his extensive tests with "many crystals, many configurations, and many cloud conditions, all throughout the North Atlantic around Iceland and Greenland" show that in real-world practice, the crystals perform very poorly and can be used to determine the sun's direction "only when the sky has large blue patches", in which case its location is already obvious from observations with the naked eye.[77]
During an excavation of aViking Age farm in southernGreenland part of a circular disk with carvings was recovered. The discovery of the so-called Viking Sundial suggested a hypothesis that it was used as a compass. Archaeologists found a piece of stone and a fragment of a wooden disk, both featuring straight and hyperbolic carvings. It turned out that the two items had been parts ofsundials used by the Vikings as a compass during their sea-crossings along latitude 61 degrees North.[65]
Archaeologists have found two devices which they interpret as navigation instruments. Both appear to be sundials withgnomon curves etched on a flat surface. The devices are small enough to be held flat in the hand at 70 mm (2.8 inches) diameter. A wooden version dated to about 1000 AD was found in Greenland. A stone version was also found atVatnahverfi, Greenland. By looking at the place where the shadow from the rod falls on a carved curve, a navigator is able to sail along a line of latitude. Both gnomon curve devices show the curve for 61° north very prominently. This was the approximate latitude that the Vikings would have sailed along to get to Greenland from Scandinavia. The wooden device also has north marked and had 32 arrow heads around the edge that may be the points of a compass. Other lines are interpreted as the solstice and equinox curves. The device was tested successfully, as asun compass, during a 1984 reenactment when a longship sailed across the North Atlantic. It was accurate to within ±5°.[78]
The Gulating Law (Gulatingslova) of Norway, passed down orally until about 1100,[79] contained a number of rules regarding the duties of a warship's steersman (styrimaðr),[80] who functioned as its skipper. Thestyrimaðr was appointed by the king and bore responsibility for the ship before, during and after a voyage. If the ship was yet to be built he supervised its construction. When the king summoned theleidang to war, thestyrimaðr chose the crew for his ship. He was responsible for its navigation on voyages,[67] while theleiðsögumaðr was the crew member who actually plotted the ship's course.[81]
Rowing positions on longships were assigned so that each man had a designated place.[82] The position of a rower on a ship, known as an "oar bench", was called asess.[83] Aft was thelypting, a raised half deck, where the helmsman and the commander stood. Forward of this was thefyrirrum (foreroom) where a chest, "the high-seat chest" (hásætis-kista), held the crew's weapons and was also used to store treasure.[84] Next was a bailing station called theaustr-rúm and then the long amidships section, thekrappa-rúm, where the oarsmen manned the oars and managed the sails, and where they lived on a voyage. The forepart of the ship also had its bailing station between thekrappa-rúm and the raised half deck, thestafn, in the bow. Some ships had a space at the bow called therausn (forecastle) where thestafnbuar (lookout man) and themerkis-maðr (standard bearer) were stationed.[72] Crumlin-Pedersen says that when rowing, the crew of the Oseberg ship for example sat on moveable chests which were used to stow the warrior's personal belongings. Equipment could also be stored in his skin sleeping bag in the daytime and when boarding the ship or going ashore.[82]
Cook duty on voyages was assigned by the cast of lots among the men who lived in afylki, i.e. ship district, or county, who hadthralls to carry on the work at their farmsteads. The cook was paid the same wages as the sailors, who received one øre per month.[85]
Aina Margrethe Heen-Pettersen, a specialist in Viking Age archaeology, says a substantial social and economic investment was demanded to build and outfit a ship for expeditions. Estimates derived from experimental archaeology show that building a 30-metre (98 ft) longship may have required the labour of 100 persons for a year, counting that necessary to produce the needed ropes, sails, and iron. Assuming 12-hour working days, as many as 40,000 work hours would be expended. Equipping, crewing, and feeding a fleet also needed considerable resources.[86]
A master shipwright called the "hofudsmidir" (hǫfuðsmiðr)[87] was in charge of the construction of large ships. It was his responsibility to ensure that all required materials were available at the shipyard or worksite and that the craftsmen were fed and paid for their labour.[88] McGrail says building the ships required a large number of workers, with various skills and levels of expertise.Long Serpent (Ormr inn langi) was built for Olaf Tryggvason atTrondheim in 998 or 999 by a team with these job descriptions: labourers, tree fellers, general carpenters or plank-cutters ("filungar"), and stem-and-stern wrights or "stafnasmidir"[89] (stafnasmiðr).[87] who were paid twice the wages of plank cutters. Thestafnasmidir shaped the keel and the carved those stems that were decorated artistically, while thefilungr used axes and adzes to cleave the planks.[90] In one scene of the Bayeux tapestry a man, almost certainly astafnasmidir, is depicted standing in front of the stem of a boat, inspecting the workmanship and checking that its lines are fair.[89]
The longships were characterized as graceful, long, narrow, and light, with a shallow-draft hull designed for speed. The ship's shallow draft allowed navigation in waters only one metre deep and permitted arbitrary beach landings, while its light weight enabled it to be carried overportages or used bottom-up for shelter in camps. Longships were fitted withoars along almost the entire length of the hull. Later versions had a rectangular sail on a single mast, which was used to replace or augment the effort of the rowers, particularly during long journeys.[91] The average speed of Viking ships varied from ship to ship, but lay in the range of 5–10knots (9–19 km/h) and the maximum speed of a longship under favorable conditions was around 15 knots (28 km/h).[92] TheViking Ship Museum in Oslo houses the remains of three such ships, theOseberg, theGokstad and theTune ship.[93]
Ole Crumlin-Pedersen writes that the Viking warship was differentiated from the merchant ship by its long continuous deck and the long line of oar ports, the deck being made of loose planks placed in grooves in the sides of the cross-beams. The fore and aft ends of the deck were raised slightly—the foreward end was called thestafn-lok and the afterward was called thelypting. This was not what would be considered a deck in modern times. It was little more than a raised floor, and it offered no shelter from foul weather.[72]
Although analysis of timber samples from Viking longships shows that a variety of timbers were used to build them, oak was most often used because it was strong, durable, and rot resistant.[94] Although oak is a heavy timber, it can be easily worked by adze and axe when green (unseasoned). Generally large and prestigious ships were made from oak. Morten Ravn, a curator and researcher at theViking Ship Museum in Roskilde, says the skaldic stanzas describe which wood species were used to craft a specific type ship or ship component. Pine (Old Norse:fura) andfir (þella), maple (hlynr),ash (askr), andlinden or lime (lind), are noted, but especially oak (eik).Eik andeikikjǫlr (a keel made of oak), are used in referring to well-made ships. The size of the mast,vandlangt (long-masted), is also used to define a high-status ship.[95]
According to Angelo Forte, a maritime historian, Viking shipwrights used timber that had been recently cut, and may have immersed it in water to make it flexible enough to bend in the shape of the hull. They took advantage of the natural shapes of tree trunks, branches and roots to form those parts required for a ship's construction. These are very strong because they are aligned with the tree's fibres. Tall, straight trees were most suitable for working into masts, keels, and planking for the hull. The forestem and sternpost would be carved as single pieces from curved trunks. Forked branches were made into floor timbers, and curved ones were made intoframes. The natural bend where a trunk joined a root was optimal for fashioning intoknees, used as braces to stiffen the joint between two pieces of timber fastened at angles to each other.[96] Boatbuilders chose a log with a branch that had the correct shape. Generally made from a straight piece of timber and fastened using a knee in each side of the hull,biti were the cross beams that functioned as the rower's seat. They are an essential part of the frame—a bite with its floor timber, knee andfuttocks is the stiffest joinery in the boat.[97]
Timber was worked with ironadzes and axes. Most of the smoothing was done with aside axe. Other tools used in woodwork were hammers, wedges,drawknives, andplanes.[98]
According to the archaeologist Ole Thirup Kastholm, curator of the Roskilde Museum, sails and rigging, for the most part, are not represented in the archaeological record. These primary components of a functional sailing ship are known only by negative impressions on hulls, contemporary representations of ships, and detached objects.[99] Kastholm writes that modern-day reconstructions of Viking Age warships are rigged with a more elevated type of square sail, based largely on the Norwegian square-rigged vessels of the 19th century. He says these contrast with the evidence of images of ships from the Viking Age on rune stones, graffiti,picture stones, and coins that depict warships equipped with low, square sails significantly wider than their height. Sails andrigging have, therefore, been reconstructed on the basis of ethnographic evidence, rather than evidence from the archaeological record revealed in maritime archaeological finds. In his view, data gathered from prehistoric remains should take precedence over the hypotheses of ethnography and experiments derived from them.[99]
The historianF. Donald Logan says the sail of the Gokstad ship was rectangular in shape or nearly a square of possibly 11 metres (36 ft), and that it was made ofrough wool cloth (vaðmál), probably striped or checked, and hung from a yard. Lines were attached from the bottom of the sail to points along the gunwale, allowing the ship toreach (sail across the wind) and totack (sail towards the wind). Logan says that the mast of Gokstad ship, for example, has not survived in its original state, thus its height and the height to which the sail was raised are not certain. However long the mast was, apparently between 10 and 13 metres (33 and 43 ft), it was set into thekeelson, a heavy wooden housing on the keel amidship, from which it could be removed as necessary.[34]
Lise Bender Jørgensen, an archaeologist, writes that because Viking ship sails were made of wool, large amounts of it would have been necessary for their production, as demonstrated by experimental archaeology. With the introduction of sails in Scandinavia around 700, there would have been a great increase in demand for wool sailcloth and the labour of women to produce it. The researchers that Jørgensen cites say 100 square metres (120 sq yd) of sailcloth, 100 kilometres (62 mi) warp yarns and 80 kilometres (50 mi) weft had to be spun and woven into 15–16 lengths of cloth before the sailmakers could begin their work.[100]
The nautical archaeologists Cookeet al describe how, with the aim of reconstructing sails to rig replicas of four of the Skuldeleve ships from Roskilde Fjord, the Viking Ship Museum initiated research in the archaeological record and in the literature to define its specifications for weaving the fabric. Because woollen square-sails had been used until the 20th century in Scandinavia and in theFaroe Islands, a good deal of practical information about making them was still available, and a few sailmakers who worked in wool were still alive.[101] The museum began its research into woollen sails in 1977, and in the years afterwards several reconstructions of Viking Age ships were outfitted with wool sails.[102] According to the museum, it appears that three types of weave were used to produce wool sail cloth in Viking times, depending on the available resources and the local traditions of the area where it was made. The museum decided to use 2/1 twill (tuskept) for the weaving of the wool sail for its reconstructed ships, basing this decision on the only available archaeological material, fragments of heavy woollen sailcloth dated to the mid-13th century found atTrondenes church in Norway.[101]
According to the mariner and archaeologist Seán McGrail, masts have only rarely been found in excavations, and these are the lower parts of them. Little evidence of the standing rigging needed to support a ship's mast has survived to modern times, other than that found in iconography, and the slight evidence that does exist comes mostly from the Norse tradition. Depictions on sources such as the Bayeux tapestry indicate that the masts of ninth- to 12th-century vessels were braced by a forestay to the bowstem or a forward beam andshrouds to the top strakes or to an accessible crossbeam. Thehalyard may have served also as abackstay to support the mast from an afterthwart or beam.[103]
Willowwithies, orosiers, were also required for attaching rigging to the hull and securing the rudder to its frame.[104] MacGrail says the consensus among modern scholars is thatcordage in Early Medieval times was made from thebast oflinden trees or possibly fromhemp. In situations where extra strength was needed, ropes were made from seal, whale, or walrus walrus hides cut spirally. McGrail says the whale skin and seal skin ropes described byOhthere toKing Alfred were 60ells, or 15fathoms long.[105] Jørgensen says ropes made of walrus hides were renowned for their strength.Pine tar was used to preserve organic materials such as the wood of boats, ropes, sails and fishnets.[106]
Viking ships were steered by a long rudder (stýri) fastened to a cylindrical piece of oak wood that according to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde was called arorvort.[107] It was mounted on the outside of the hull on the starboard (steer-board, from Old Norsestyrbord)[108] quarter of the vessel.[34] The rudder on the Gokstad ship was 3.3 metres (11 ft) long.[109] Nicolaysen, the excavator of the Gokstad ship, gives the Old Icelandic terms for the rudder and its different parts mentioned in the Icelandic sagas.[110] He says the rudder (stýri) on Scandinavian vessels had since ancient times a fixed position forward of the sternpost, on the right side of the vessel, thus the name "starboard" (stjórnborði), while the opposite side to the left of the helmsman, was called thebakborði. The helmsman had behind him an upright woodenbulkhead (hǫfða-fjǫl) made from a forked piece of oak standing across the beam.[107]
The helm consisted of a plank in the shape of a broad oar, the lower portion of which (stjórnarblað) as may be seen in the Tune ship's's rudder. This had a round hole in the middle to allow it to be fastened to the side of the vessel by a loop of rope called thestýrihamla.[111] The tiller (stýrisdrengr)stýrisstöng (rudder-post),hjalmunvǫlr (lit. helm-pin)[112] was stuck in a square hole in the upper part of the neck.[110] The rudder was mounted with iron, to which one or more cramps were added down near the heel of the rudder. When the rudder was set in position up and down, a bit aslant so that its blade was almost parallel with the gunwale, it was said toleggja styri i lag (steady the helm), while the opposite action was termed toleggja styri or lag, which meant to raise the helm. This was done in shallow water when the rudder might strike the bottom, with the helmsman laying off the helm and the crew steering with the oars.[110]
The Norwegian newspaperman and seafarer, Captain Magnus Andersen, considered the rudder of a Viking ship "greatly preferable to a stern rudder", based on his experience sailing a replica of the Gokstad ship across the Atlantic in 1893.[113]
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The anchor and its cable were essential parts of a ship's equipment. As described by Crumlin-Pedersen, anchors could be made of wood weighted with stone (stjóri) or of iron with a wooden stock (akkeri). The anchor from the ship-grave at Ladby on the island ofFunen in Denmark was found well preserved in the bow of the ship. It is 1.26 metres (4 ft 2 in) long and 0.83 metres (2 ft 9 in) wide and attached to a chain which is estimated to originally have been ca. 11 metres (36 ft) long.[115] It was shaped like a modern-day anchor but had smallerflukes. The anchor weighed only 40 to 50 kilograms (88 to 110 lb), but the length of iron linked chain attached between it and the anchor line provided a spring that helped damp out the snatch of the rope in a swell, and prevented its being abraded on the stones of the seafloor.[72]
The archaeologist and historianHaakon Shetelig describes how the Gokstad grave-ship's anchor, which had been placed on the deck-boards forward of the mast for the burial, was so rusted when excavated that it disintegrated immediately, but the oaken anchor stock was intact. It measured 2.75 metres (9 ft 0 in) long, from which he deduces that the anchor itself was 1.10 metres (3 ft 7 in) long, assuming that the proportions would have been the same as in the Oseberg ship.[61]
TheMästermyr chest, a jointed Viking Age tool chest made of oak[116] and found in Gotland in Sweden, contained blacksmithing and woodworking tools. Recent research suggests that it was lost during transportation in what was possibly a lakeshore environment at the time.[117] A farmer found the chest in 1936 while plowing a field. Many tools from the Mästermyr find are part of an exhibit at theSwedish History Museum. The wood-working tools have previously been interpreted as boat-building and fine carpentry tools, based on the fact that similar tools are used in traditional carpentry nowadays.[118] The tools includeaugers,scrapers, draw knives, axes, adzes,[119]wedges, sledge hammers,[120] and planes, along with a rivet iron for forging ship's rivets.[88] The Mästermyr chest may date to 950-1000. Given that most finds of Norse tool chests have occurred on the shores of lakes, Julie Lund believes that the chests were likely to have been deliberately placed in such locations for a ritual purpose, similarly to the locating of smithies in Old Norse folklore.[121] Christer Westerdahl, a field archaeologist and ethnologist, calls the unknown owner of the chest an "itinerant boatbuilder and smith" who may have lost or sacrificed his complete toolkit.[122]
Writing on the process of the working of wood in the period when Viking ships were built, Forte describes the contents of a 13th-century Norwegian treatise,Konungs skuggsjá, which lists the tools used byshipwrights of the time. These include broadaxes, augers, and gouges, but no saws. He notes that theBayeaux Tapestry contains a scene that shows the construction of a ship from the felling of trees for its timber to itsfitting out. The scene depicts men using axes to fell trees, cut branches, and cleave planking for the hull. An axe with a longer blade and a shorter handle is shown being used to shape the planking.Adzes, arouter plane, and a bore are also shown, but again no saw is in evidence. Some of the planks of the Skuldelev vessels had distinct axe cuts, and possibly adze cuts as well. The smooth cutting marks and occasional gouges left by planes are visible in the wood worked during the ships' construction. The marks left by routers, drawknives, and scrapers are apparent. Drilled holes are also to be seen.[96]
Seán McGrail writes that woodworking tools excavated in a number of Viking Age burials demonstrate that Viking shipwrights used a wide variety of handtools. He says inspection of these tools, of toolmarks found on the wooden remains of Viking boats, and of boatbuilding scenes portrayed by artists of the early Middle Ages, such as on the Bayeux Tapestry, indicate that the premier Viking Age shipbuilder's tool was the axe. The craftsmen who used the tools were so skilled that they commonly performed the final dressing of oak planks with axes. The planks of the ships in the Skuldelev finds were finished with adrawknife, and adzes apparently were used to shape some curved surfaces. Hammers and mallets, knives, gouges, wedges, and chisels were often employed, while holes were bored with a bit inserted in a T-shaped handle.[98]
The archaeologist Dagfinn Skre writes that Viking warriors, who used their ships to reach Northern European coasts where they raided settlements and monasteries, had inherited a long tradition of expertise in naval warfare that evolved over three thousand years. Their light and swift ships were eminently suited to storming these locations and making off before counter attacks could be mounted. These ships were the basis of warrior identity and their battle tactics, while the sea provided a theatre of operations where they attained power and prestige. Thus they developed matchless seamanship, naval warfare, and shipbuilding skills.[124] According to the historianRégis Boyer, an argument can be made that the Vikings provoked the West into an awareness of itself as a global entity, forcing it to set up a common defence and to reorganize itself politically with stronger centralized powers. He says, "[T]hey possessed a ferment of activity and dynamism that lay dormant in the south. They came at just the right moment to breathe new life into the (Indo-)European personality."[125]
Historians, archaeologists and adventurers have reconstructed longships in an attempt to understand how they worked.[126] The longship was light, fast, and nimble. The true Viking warships, orlangskips, were long and narrow, frequently with a length to beam (width) ratio of 7:1; they were very fast under sail or propelled by warriors who served as oarsmen.[12] The overall length to beam (width) ratio of the excavated Viking longships Skuldelev 5 and the Ladby ship was 7:1, and that of Skuldelev 2 was 8.3:1.[127]
In Scandinavia, the longship was the usual vessel for war until the 12th–13th centuries.Leiðangr fleet-levy laws remained in place for most of the Middle Ages in Norway, where the active participation of theleiðangr was still strategically necessary —their military obligations had not been fully replaced by systems of taxation as they had been in Sweden and Denmark. These laws required that when summoned by the Crown, the freemen peasantry should build, man, and furnish ships for war—ships with at least 20 or 25 pairs of oars (40 or 50 rowers).[128] By the late 14th century, these low-boarded vessels were at a disadvantage against newer, taller warships. When theVictual Brothers, in the employ of theHansa, attackedBergen in late 1393, the "great ships" of the pirates could not be boarded by the Norwegian levy ships called out byMargaret I of Denmark, and the raiders were able to sack the town with impunity. While earlier times had seen larger and taller longships in service, by this time the authorities had also gone over to other types of ships for warfare. The last known mobilization of theleiðangr occurred in 1429, when the Victual Brothers defeated the naval levies of the Norwegian western counties (fylker) outside Bergen.[128]
Several of the original longships built in the Viking Age have been excavated by archaeologists. The following is a list of vessels that have been important to knowledge of longship design and construction:
Important longships known only from written sources include:
Crumlin-Pedersen says that experimental ship archaeology can provide a methodology to gain insight studying the remains of ancient ships in context of the past—their construction, use, and maintenance being reflections of its maritime aspects. Sometimes, however, a research-driven approach to such projects is subordinated to other, opposing goals. A number of full-scale replicas of several ships of the past have been built in various places, their builders claiming to make important contributions to a modern understanding of the practice of navigation in the past. He says that sometimes "the use of the terms 'experimental' and 'replica' is just a cover-up for raising money for a project whose aims have little relevance to scholarly study."[141]
Even in those instances where archaeological, iconographic or textual evidence is available for the replica builder to consult, there are frequently large gaps in the original sources on the nature of the equipment and rigging of ancient ships, and even of important hull components. A lack of research, poor construction techniques, and inept seamanship on the part of the crew because of inadequate experience, may lead to false conclusions about the characteristics and seaworthiness of the ancient vessels.[141] The naval historian Alan Binns says even modern-day replica Viking ships that are accurate reproductions of the originals must be treated cautiously as historical evidence for a ship's capabilities, as they are usually sailed by professional sailors with modern backup, and are not representative of the actual ships that sailed in the Viking Age.[142]
According to Anton Englert, an archaeologist and curator of the Viking Ship Museum, most of the trial voyages of reconstructed ancient ships have been performed by amateurs who wanted to prove a certain hypothesis by re-enacting a voyage. He says it is arguable whether or not such hypotheses have contributed to experimental archaeology. Only a few projects were built on substantial archaeological evidence, as with the construction ofViking andSaga Siglar.[143] Forte writes: "The fact that a reconstruction of the Gokstad ship successfully crossed the Atlantic should not be interpreted as indicating that this was the type of vessel that travelled the North Atlantic runs to Iceland and Greenland a thousand years ago." Binns says Magnus Andersen's replica of the Gokstad ship, with its deeper keel, buoyancy fender, continuous deck, and anachronistic rig (including staysails), cannot reasonably be considered evidence for the sailing characteristics of the original.[142]
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During the Viking Age the impact of Scandinavian Vikings in both west and east is marked. This expansion and movement would not have been possible without the iron rivets that held the clinker-built ships together; this, together with other iron objects used such as iron anchors and necessary tools are other important sources for the Viking Age demand for iron in the coastal areas of Scandinavia.
[I]n other words, the planks were smooth and secured directly by trenails to the frames, not lashed to the frames at the cleats as in the Nydam ship. This was a change which meant much simpler and more economical boatbuilding as the thick cleats of the Nydam ship were wasteful of both wood and labour.
the old Norse name for a luff spar which was used in Viking ships, particularly the knarr, to hold the luff of the sail taut, thus enabling the vessel to claw off to windward. A step was fitted in the vessel just forward of the mast with one or two socket holes each side, and the end of the beitass was stepped in one of these when in use.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)In der altnordischen Sprache der Skandinavier ist von zweierlei Schiffbauern die Rede, von den „Stafnasmidir", die den Kiel und die z. T. kunstvoll geschnitzten Steven schufen, und von den „filungr", jenen Männern, die mit Axt und Dechsel die Planken für den Klinkerschiffbau zurechtschlugen..." English: "In the Old Norse language of the Scandinavians, two types of shipbuilders are mentioned: the "Stafnasmidir," who created the keel and the sometimes artistically carved stems, and the "filungr", the men who used axes and adzes to cut the planks for clinker shipbuilding...
Das 1. Glied homlu- wird vom Sb. hamla 'Grummetstropp' abgeleitet - einem besonderen Stück, Tauwerk, wel-ches die Remen an den Keipen hält (> 'Schiff ohne Remen') -, 10 meist aber mit dem das Steuerruder an der Bordwand befestigende Tauwerk (stýrihamla) in Verbindung gebracht (> 'Schiff ohne Ruder'). English: "The first element homlu- is derived from the noun hamla "grommet rope" – a special piece of rope that holds the oars to the oarlocks (> "ship without oars") , 10 but is usually associated with the rope (stýrihamla) that attaches the rudder to the ship's side (> "ship without a rudder").
English: "The toolbox from Mästermyr has so far been dated to around the year 1000 (Roesdahl 1992,s. 251). A new look at the typological dating of several of the objects in the box may contribute to the possibility that the entire find should be redated. The tool chest contained a lead stamp pad with hourglass-shaped stamps. These stamps were in use on Gotland from the late 800s to around 1000 (Thunmark-Nylén 1973, p. 39). The axes from the find are of the 800s type. Thebismer weight, on the other hand, is an object type that has traditionally been considered medieval. However, such a weight has also been found in the tool depot from Smiss, which can be dated quite precisely to around 950. This suggests that the chest from Mästermyr may date from around 950-1000.
I have noted that the Vikings made certain great nations—France, Great Britain, Russia—aware of their natural unity by demonstrating the geographical, economic, strategic, and political importance of cities such as Paris, London, and Kiev. They led them, by force or by what we would today call political genius, to gather around a center and become aware of their identity. It could even be argued that they gave the West a sense of its existence as a global entity: it was forced to establish a common defense and thus to reorganize itself politically, to invent stronger centralized powers... After all, the Vikings or Varangians were also familiar with the East and at least part of the southern shore of the Mediterranean. But it was in Europe that they disrupted and overturned structures, because that was where they were at home. Nothing is less barbaric, in the Greek sense of the term, than the Vikings. For various reasons, they possessed a ferment of activity and dynamism that lay dormant in the south. They came at just the right moment to breathe new life into the (Indo-)European personality.
