[477] Sir H. Nicolas (“Hist. Roy. Navy,” i. p. 10) states that the Snekkar, or Serpent, was manned by twenty rowers. See also Depping, “Hist. des Exped. Maritimes des Normands.” i. 71-73.
[478] Macpherson, in his “Annals of Commerce,” vol. i. p. 254, says that “the Norwegians and Danes, under the names of Ostmen (i.e. eastern men), Gauls, Gentiles, Pagans, &c., were the chief, or rather the only commercial, people in Ireland, and continued for several centuries to carry on trade with the mother countries, and other places on the west coast of Europe, from their Irish settlements.”
[479] See Saxon Chronicle A.D. 897, Florence of Worcester; Simeon of Durham, the Chronicle of Melros; and Pauli, “Life of Alfred,” p. 212.
[480] Pauli, “Life,” &c., p. 178.
[481] If Asser is correct in his statements, London had been almost destroyed by the Danes just before the accession of Alfred.—Asser, “Vit. Alfred,” p. 51.
[482] William of Malmesbury, Gest. Reg. Angl. 24, a. Some of the jewels of curious manufacture which Bishop Sighelm brought home were to be seen among the treasures of the church at Sherbourne; and Asser says that King Alfred one morning gave him a silk robe, and as much frankincense (incense) as a man could carry; from which it may be inferred that, after the visit of Sighelm, a trade was opened out between England and India, or with other countries of the East, where frankincense was produced or stored. For the Christians in Malabar, see a curious story in the “Legenda Aurea;” in Buchanan’s “Christian Researches;” in the Journal of Bishop Heber; and in Thomas’s “Prinsep’s Indian Essays,” vol. ii. p. 214. Sighelm, who had previously been sent to Rome by King Alfred, is thought by Pauli to have been a layman, as his name is not found in the episcopal registers of Sherbourne.—Life of Alfred, p. 146.
[483] Thorpe, “Ancient Laws of England,” p. 31; and Macpherson, vol. i. pp. 266-268. There is another order of Ethelred, “that the ships of war should be ready every year at Easter.”—Ancient Laws, p. 137.
[484] William of Malmesbury, i. p. 215.
[485] The Saxon Chronicle gives to his predecessor, Edward the Elder, a fleet of some hundreds of ships, but this number is evidently too indefinite for any historical purpose. (Sax. Chron. A.D. 911.) If the charter granted to Worcester by this king in A.D. 964 be genuine, which Kemble doubts (Cod. Diplom. Ævi Saxon. ii. 404), he would seem to have been the first English monarch who claimed the “sovereignty of the sea.”
[486] Bp. Wilkins, “Leg. Saxon.” p. 78. Nearly eighty mints of Edgar’s money are known. Hawkins’s “Silver Coins of England,” p. 57.