Anglo-Saxon shipbuilding belonged, just like its Danish counterpart, in the clinker-building tradition. An account in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle from the year — that is from the historical part of the chronicle — suggests that the Scandinavian ships were comparatively small. If we assume that the greatest part of the Danish army was killed, and incidentally elect to believe the figures mentioned in the account, this would give an average crew size of men.
The many accounts in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of Viking attacks give us a good chance of following the changes in the size of the Viking fleets.
The first accounts to report on the size of the invading fleets derive from the historical section of the chronicle and can sometimes give rise to some scepticism.
For the year , for example, it is said that no fewer than ships carried a large army up the Thames. Since this army was defeated the same year by the West Saxons, one is inclined to the suspect the chronicler of exaggerating the size of the fleet in order to increase the glory of the West Saxons and hence of Alfred.
Most of the accounts from the late 9th and the 10th centuries refer to attacks and plundering by small groups of fewer than a score of ships, e. The first time we hear of the size of its fleet is in , 27 years after its first arrival in England.
Here it is recorded that the fleet contains no fewer than ships, making room for 9, men, if the fleet consisted of ships of the size of the Ladby ship. From the end of the tenth century the numbers of the groups of ships that are involved seem to grow and it is generally a case of ships, whether the ships are attacking or defending.
There are a couple of striking exceptions. In the period around and just after the Norman Conquest of England the size of the fleets increase further.
The rich complained and the poor murmured, but the king was so strong that he took no notice of them. King William and the chief men loved gold and silver and did not care how sinfully it was obtained provided it came to them. He William did not care at all how wrongfully his men got possession of land nor how many illegal acts they did. The Anglo Saxon World. But the king nevertheless fought hard against him, with the men who were willing to support him, and there were heavy casualties on both sides.
Then King Harold was killed, and Earl Leofwine his brother, and Earl Grythe his brother, and many good men, and the French remained masters of the field The sufferings of the common people during the Civil War of Stephen and Matilda are also vividly described When the traitors saw that Stephen was a mild good-humoured man who inflicted no punishment, then they committed all manner of horrible crimes. They were all forsworn and their oaths broken. For every great man built him castles and held them against the king; they sorely burdened the unhappy people of the country with forced labour on the castles, and when the castles were built they filled them with devils and wicked men.
By night and by day they seized those they believed to have any wealth, whether they were men or women; and to get their gold or silver, they put them into prison and tortured them with unspeakable tortures, for never were martyrs tortured as they were.
They hung them up by the feet and smoked them with foul smoke. They strung them up by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung coats of mail on their feet. They tied knotted cords around their heads and twisted them until it entered the brain. Many thousands starved to death. I know not how to, nor am I able to tell of, all the atrocities nor all the cruelties which they wrought upon the unhappy people of this country.
It lasted throughout the nineteen years that Stephen was king, and always grew worse and worse. Never did a country endure greater misery, and never did the heathen act more vilely than they did.
And so it lasted for nineteen long years while Stephen was King, till the land was all undone and darkened with such deeds and men said openly that Christ and his saints slept.
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