The Viking Ships.—In certain material possessions—those belonging to war and naval adventure—the Vikings were ahead of the Christian nations. There is certainly a historical connec tion between the ships which the tribes on the Baltic possessed in the days of Tacitus and the Viking ships, a fact which would lead us to believe that the art of shipbuilding had been better preserved there than elsewhere in northern Europe. Merchant vessels must, of course, have plied between England and France or Frisia. But it is certain that even Charlemagne possessed no adequate navy. Nor was any English king before Alfred stirred up to undertake the same task. The Viking ships had a character apart. They may have owed their origin to the Roman galleys ; they did without doubt owe their sails to them. Their structure was adapted to short voyages in a sea not exposed to the most violent storms or dangerous tides. They were shallow, narrow in the beam, pointed at both ends, and so eminently suitable for manoeuvring (with oars) in creeks and bays. The Viking ship had but one large and heavy square sail, and when a naval battle was in progress it would depend for its manoeuvring on the rowers. In saga literature we read of craft (of "long ships") with 20 to 3o benches of rowers, which would mean 4o to 6o oars. It is not probable that the largest viking ships had more than ten oars a side. As these ships must often, against a contrary wind, have had to row both day and night, it seems reasonable to imagine the crew divided into three shifts which would give twice as many men available to fight on any occasion as to row. Thus a 20 oared vessel would carry 6o men. But some 4o men per ship seems, for this period, nearer the average. In 896, it is incidentally
mentioned in one place that five vessels carried 200 Vikings, an average of 4o per ship. Elsewhere about the same time we read of 12,000 men carried in 25o ships, an average of 48.
The round and painted shields of the warriors hung outside along the bulwarks ; the vessel was steered by an oar at the right side. Prow and stern rose high ; and the former was carved most often as a snake's or dragon's head. The warriors were well armed. The byrnie, a mail-shirt, is often mentioned in Eddic songs; so are the axe, spear, javelin, the bow and arrows and the sword. An immense joy in battle breathes through the earliest Norse literature, which has scarce its like in any other literature ; and we know that the language recognized a peculiar battle fury, a madness by which men were seized and which went by the name of "berserk's way" (berserksgangr). The courage of the Viking was proof against anything, even as a rule against superstitious terrors. He was unfortunately hardly less marked for cruelty and faithlessness. It is also true, however, that they showed a capacity for government, and in times of peace for peaceful organization. Normandy was the best-governed part of France in the i I th century; and the Danes in East Anglia and the Five Boroughs developed a form of society remarkable for its stability amid changing political conditions. Nevertheless, the significance of the Vikings in the history of western Europe lies less in the com munities which they founded than in the stimulus given by their raids to the new military organization of society out of which feudalism was presently to arise.