However, in 834 the Danish civil wars were at an end. The Danish king was the savage Horik, ‘Fel Christianitatis’—the Gall of Christianity. In Frankland the kindly but weak Emperor Ludwig ‘the Pious’ was engaged in civil war with his sons. In England the Mercian supremacy had come to an end, and had been succeeded by that of Ecgberht of Wessex. The opportunity appeared to have come, and the Danes, backed by adventurers from all Scandinavia, began a series of terrible ravages in Western Europe. First, as with the English attacks on Britain, there were isolated plundering descents; then larger and better organized expeditions; finally, great hosts migrating for purposes of settlement.
Such terms as ‘great’ must here be taken in a relative sense. Scandinavia is to-day the most thinly-peopled region of Europe; a thousand years ago its population was far scantier.
The Viking ships were long open boats, raised at bow and stern, steered by a paddle fastened to the starboard quarter. They had one mast with a square sail, but were normally propelled by oars. In size they varied. At first they were certainly small, and though excellent in the fjords, were of little use for rough sea work. Doubtless the Scandinavian builders soon discovered this, and began to develop their craft, until they turned out Olaf Tryggvason’s Long Serpent, the wonder of the North. But the average number of men to each ship can hardly have exceeded sixty, and it is doubtful whether the Vikings in England ever collected more than 10,000 men in one field.
THE OSEBERG DRAGON SHIP.
(From the Museum at Christiania.)
The hosts were heterogeneous, unstable, and ill-disciplined, liable to disown an unlucky or unpopular chief at a moment’s notice.
The Vikings, however, began with at least three advantages. It is doubtful if the early English were ever, except from necessity, a maritime people. In any case, it is clear that in the ninth century they had almost entirely forgotten the nautical qualities of their ancestors, and that no English state possessed warships. The Franks appear to have allowed such squadrons as Charles the Great had constructed to check the Danes to decay.
Secondly, neither in England nor Frankland was there as yet any real sense of national union. The various English states were jealous and disunited. Wessex was slow to aid Mercia, and Northumbria, apart from its anarchic condition, disliked both. Concerted action was almost an impossibility. Even more so was this the case in Frankland. The Vikings, on landing, could generally rely upon having to meet only the local levies.
Thirdly, the invaders had for a long time at least an immense tactical superiority. They were for the most part trained fighting men, physically powerful, brave, ferocious, thoroughly inured to war and bloodshed, well equipped with arms offensive and defensive. The only troops on the English side equal to them were the ‘thegns’ and the royal bodyguard, and the Vikings could easily rout superior numbers of the ill-trained and ill-equipped country folk.