Clauses recording the duty of landholders to provide army service, work on bridges important for the mobility of armies and on fortifications, had been in English charters since the eighth century.
Such records have led scholars to consider the sense of obligation in Anglo-Saxon military forces and to debate the extent to which landholders — or those who actually worked the land — contributed to those military services. In some cases obligations may have taken the form of payments which could then be used to employ others, including Viking mercenaries, who after all had much in common with Anglo-Saxon warriors.
But such obligations are not the whole story. Many charters also include lists of those present at assemblies, which were often convened by rulers for the purposes of demonstrating their position at different places around the kingdom. While many such assemblies may have been concerned with the day-to-day business of the kingdom as well as high politics — from the granting of land to a church to agreeing a law-code — they were also where the army came together to go on campaign.
Some assemblies even took place during campaigns. Those who attended were the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, drawn together by the shared warrior values of the male elite. Such participation can be seen in two charters from the reign of Athelstan, dating from May and June , the same year in which Athelstan launched a campaign into Scotland with a land and naval force. One charter, from the end of May, records the nobles, from archbishop to thegn a kind of early knight , at an assembly in Winchester.
A few days later, another charter tells us that many of the same people were present in Nottingham in northern Mercia, near the edge of the territory under the direct control of the English crown. In , as at other times in the ninth and tenth centuries, warfare was a demonstration of status, of power, by a state harbouring imperial ambitions.
A ruler could feed his followers en route in a succession of overnight sojourns as a means of cementing their loyalty. If the followers who made up the retinue, including bishops, in turn fed and rewarded those in their own retinues — who might include the less wealthy or well-armed of the warriors — so much the better. Many historians of the Middle Ages have recognised that warfare was about much more than battle: much of the evidence for Anglo-Saxon England bears that out.
But warfare was not all about eating, drinking, treasure and posturing. The experience of warfare for the vast majority of the population is difficult to ascertain, given the focus of most sources. Monastic chroniclers wrote of the innocent victims of Vikings, often men and women of the church, in colourful language. Yet that language often became more colourful the further the author was from the events that were recorded.
Many such accounts are stereotyped but that does not mean that warfare did not affect ordinary people. Much early medieval warfare was waged with the aim of destroying buildings and seizing crops — especially from estate centres at harvest times.
And we should not forget that seizing slaves was part of early medieval warfare. Such actions were not solely the preserve of rampaging Viking armies: indeed, the economy of late Anglo-Saxon England relied on slavery. After that time, too, when a unified English kingdom often found itself on a defensive footing against Viking attacks, English warriors launched raids into the territory of neighbouring kingdoms.
Many members of the lower classes were obliged to serve in the baggage trains of campaigning armies. An early tenth-century administrative document known as the Burghal Hidage — which records land assigned to fortifications in southern England — suggests that large numbers of people were obliged to work on fortifications, a duty that appears to have included manning the ramparts.
However, there is evidence that networks of men performed watch and beacon duties — a vital role when Viking forces arrived and moved around in fleets of ships.
The extent to which the defenders were ready to act varied greatly over two centuries. To keep a network functioning effectively would have been onerous and expensive and, for many, the experience of Anglo-Saxon warfare would have included long periods of shivering wakefulness and boredom. But what of the experience of battle?
The details provided by the Maldon poem are not the whole story. Or it could be a hard slog lasting a day, with thousands of men in the front line, as we see in that final battle of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, at Hastings in In the ninth-century, what may have defined a battle was whether a king participated in it, and how it was adjudged in the aftermath.
Such Viking longbows have been found at Hedeby. Measuring cm in length, these must have had a range of a couple of hundred metres. When the Viking warriors came closer to their enemy, spears were thrown. Upon making contact with the enemy, they used lances, axes and swords as weapons, whilst protecting themselves with shields. We also have some knowledge about the tactics that were deployed in the major attacks carried out by Viking fleets.
This is because the chronicle writers often give an estimate of how many ships and men were involved in the individual attacks. The Vikings were very effective at deploying their advanced ship technology. The longships, with their narrow and deep keels, were perfect tools for carrying out surprise attacks and sailing on long European rivers. By the time local lords got word of a raiding party and rallied their troops to respond, the Norse ships and their crews were long gone—often leaving a trail of corpses and looted monasteries in their wake.
Indeed, when they found themselves facing a well prepared opponent on equal footing, victory was far from assured. According to contemporary chronicles, the Vikings lost about as many pitched battles as they won. But even when luck turned against them, warriors from the north were more likely to stay and fight—thanks, in part, to peer pressure. Viking armies were organized into boat crews, usually a group of a few dozen men from the same village or town.
As a result, Vikings joined the fray confident that their comrades would watch their backs. And Viking religion promised warriors who fell in battle a place in Valhalla, where they would feast and fight among friends until the end of time. Read "How to Eat Like a Viking. That same social pressure kept Vikings from turning and running during a fight. Cowardice in battle would follow a faint-hearted Viking home, bringing shame and ruin to his family.
Far from it: Vikings were in it for the money. They preferred soft targets, like isolated monasteries and poorly defended churches—places where the risks were low and the returns were high. They had no sense of chivalry, and favored ambushes or sneak attacks when it served their purposes. And what about berserkers, the legendary Viking fighters whose fury in battle turned them into a synonym for insanity?
Archaeological evidence for their existence is slim, but there are a few tantalizing clues, like a carved walrus ivory chess piece found in Scotland showing a bug-eyed warrior chewing his shield. Evidence suggests berserkers may have been an elite warrior class, a notable distinction in a society already geared towards combat.
They could then take advantage of the chaos to fight one-on-one. A line of Vikings with shields and spears was a formidable obstacle. All rights reserved.
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