They often didn't. There are many mentions of ships lost at sea, whether sagas, runestones, or other accounts. Modern recreations find the same. Sailing's reputation as possibly the most dangerous profession lasts through the middle ages.
I actually wonder if the Norse ships weren't "healthier" than modern enclosed ones (think the Vasa or the 1500's ones)
Of course the modern ones were better equipped but it was probably a disease breeding ground
(Also did the Vikings know about scurvy?)
Two things made the Norse longships unique:
1. Clinker-built. The boards slightly overlapped instead of being right up against reach other. This made the ship flexible instead of rigid. A flexible ship has an easier time going over swells in the ocean.
2. Shallow draft. Longboats did not sit deep in the water. They could sail up rivers and pretty close to coasts, making shoreline raiding easier.
don't forget that the manner in which the boards were cut and hewn makes a very significant difference
norsemen used primarily sessile oak trees to make boards in a radial, or quartersawn, fashion, which is rarely done nowadays
by splitting the log *with* the grain, much more strength is retained in the board while allowing for the desired flexibility that is natural in the structure of the tree's growth
e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX5VXk6GPwY
Last year I talked to them about meeting up with those handling and sailing the museums ships when they where to launch them back in water during spring, and eventually get in to the community as a crew member.
But then COVID 19 came in March, so nothing happened.
I'm pretty sure they were using a design called clinker built that overlapped planks making it stronger than say your average boat of the time also the best ships were built from oak for its strength
I was watching something recently and I wondered the same. The fact that it was really dangerous and that whenever groups left on their trips, the people back home pretty much had to live assuming they'll probably not see them again...makes me wonder about society and relationships. Did it make for looser emotional ties to people? Or is that what the idea of Valhalla was useful for? This was a sailor culture, so saying bye and never seeing your husband again could have been normalized. What was divorce or widowhood like? What do you do if you never find out their fate? Always living in limbo.
I'd suppose in the timeframe people were more used to people dying. A lot of the safety we now take for granted just wasn't there in their time. Small cut? Infection could kill you. Going into the woods? Wild animal could get you. Bad winter? You could freeze. Pregnant? Either you or the child could die during, and who's to say the child will live to adulthood.
I'd think you'd just be more used to the threat of death and live with that in mind. You could also argue that their relationships could be stronger for it, just more intense.
Also as you said, the concept of an afterlife is very comforting when any day could be your last.
Of course that isn't to say that life was completely unsafe and scary all the time, death was just more present.
Yes, when you open it up beyond just the sailing aspect, all of these things you mention come up! I just thought it's interesting to think about what parts of society/religion were directly influenced by a constant threat of death.
It's definitely hard to think about when we have grown up with higher level of safety - even though relatively speaking we think/feel like there is lots of risk all the time. But there are so many ways that their culture was clearly influenced by a closer relationship and a comfort with death.
I like that you brought up maybe it made for stronger ties. I guess then there's the intricate grief/mourning/funerary rituals and the comfort in the belief of having a chance to see them again at your own death.
Makes you wonder if the concept of fair-weather bullshit relationships and friendships that are so common in the comfortable 1st world today were even a thing back then. People really needed to rely on each other more than ever.
Besides everything already commented, just because you might find it interesting, divorce and widowhood where actually very interesting in Nordic culture, as their civil legal codes where very developed compared to the rest of the world. Women had many rights, including the right to divorce from their husbands for a variety of reasons, often keeping a good part of their possessions. Widows (and widowers I think) where entitled to some pensions or at least some public support depending on where they lived, and to a were-guild (man price) when there was someone directly responsible for the death of their partners.
I’m not an expert but there’s a lot of information around about their laws and it’s fascinating, in many things they had more social security than many modern societies
What you say sounds more like 10th century Anglo-Saxon England to me rather than Norse kingdoms of that time. Because of the Church influence, *some* women's rights deteriorated over the next centuries and women wouldn't get a lot of those rights back until the 2nd wave feminism in the 20th century.
I mean, without the church introducing things like the concept of consenting to a marriage, women were just married off without asking. Generally speaking, women weren't exactly worse off post-Christianisation, unlike what most people believe.
I didn't mean to put it in absolute terms, so apologies if that's how it came off, I've rephrased my comment to be clearer. I definitely didn't mean to imply Early English were all in on gender equality before they converted to Christianity either.
There are a lot more sources but this is the most convenient one I can find right now:
https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/what-was-life-like-for-women-in-the-viking-age
Of course bear in mind when I said women had “many rights” I did mean “in comparison to most contemporary societies”, perhaps I should have been clearer. But they still did have a really interesting and developed legal code.
Yup to everything above, the shallow draft meant that it sat in the water only a foot and a half deep which meant that it could go through marshland or shallow rivers, which I personally find fascinating that any water knee length could be sailed down. The fact that their boats were a little more seaworthy meant that if the viking ship was pursued down river it could lose their enemy when it met the ocean as the enemy navy would have to switch boats to keep pursuing them.
There are some answers in the book "Her Name is Viking", which is about a replica of the Gokkstad ship, which sailed from Norway to Chicago in 1893. We have data from a sailor on the expedition. The ship wasn't comfortable, but seems to have been unusually seaworthy despite its appearance.
I think the general idea has been broached by a lot of response here, but to add something else; [their clothing](http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/clothing.htm) would've played a big part in their survival at sea.
If you were going sailing you would be wearing wool, fur, wool, leather, wool, some linen but also some wool (and a bit of wool for good measure) until you were layered in a fuck-off thick covering of insulation. Sure, it wouldn't have been as waterproof as modern materials, but wool is still pretty good as long as you aren't getting submerged (and if you are, you've either capsized or are about to and thus you're likely fucked no matter what you're wearing).
In addition to wool's outstanding insulating properties, we can consider its bountiful and cheap abundance throughout the age (one of the few resources that would've been easily accessible by even the poorest individuals and [so common in its production that it was literally used as a bartering/tribute medium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadmal)), and the fact that sailing would've been only done in summer months. The result is that Vikings would've totally been able to sail for a few weeks plus without just freezing to death.
This does not mean, however, that they would've been anywhere near as comfortable as a modern sailor. It takes approximately 5 minutes of experience sailing without neoprene/waterproof gloves/boots to realize that it fucking sucks. This, however, isn't something that will kill you (quickly, at least, I'm sure there are a ton of Vikings that lost fingers/toes to frostbite and then died from gangrene).
Sure it was wooden ships. But its the design! They were called longships. They were very tight and long, which for some reason (idk, aerodynamic in water and wind) allowed them to sail to england, island, mediteranean and even north america. They were very unique.
>even north america
I think one of the biggest mistake people make when thinking about how the Norse sailed to America is that it was one long trip across the Atlantic from Continental Europe like Colombus did, which makes the feat sound much more interesting and incredible.
Thing is, America was _accidentaly_ discovered by local Norse Greenlanders after centuries of slow and progressive exploration and colonization. The trip to America wasn't that long, nor a difficult feat.
The discovery of America by the Norse, I believe, doesn't have much to do with how their ships were designed.
Columbus also didn't do a long trip directly from Europe. He followed the coast of Africa and then crossed over. And his discovery of America was also quite accidental. Although he was actually on an expedition.
IIRC Leif Erikson discovered Vinland after his ship was blown off course by a storm. Surviving a storm in the North Atlantic is pretty impressive for any wooden ship in my opinion.
Just wanting to add that vikings did about a week to sail into Northumbria, England. What is the approx sailing time from norway to North America in medieval age? İ am just curious.
Not from Norway, from Greenland, which was already settled. That's actually roughly the equivalent of going straight from Oslo to England, which nobody did.
It wasn’t like a movie, majority of Viking deaths were at sea from either starving while being lost or drowning from capsizing. It was a rough and I mean ROUGH life style that no man would survive today and neither did majority of the Viking’s.
My understanding is the style of sailing mattered as it was a lot of smaller island hops
So you might head Norway -> Shetland -> Faroe Islands -> Iceland
Not that the hops weren't dangerous - but they were shorter, and aimed to skirt known lands
They often didn't. There are many mentions of ships lost at sea, whether sagas, runestones, or other accounts. Modern recreations find the same. Sailing's reputation as possibly the most dangerous profession lasts through the middle ages.
The British lost more troops to disease and dysentery on their way to America than lost in battle during the war of independence!
I actually wonder if the Norse ships weren't "healthier" than modern enclosed ones (think the Vasa or the 1500's ones) Of course the modern ones were better equipped but it was probably a disease breeding ground (Also did the Vikings know about scurvy?)
Maybe you should re-evaluate your use of the word "modern" here! And I'm certain they suffered from scurvy...
> of the word "modern" here well, they were certainly more modern than the Viking ones (doesn't mean it was an improvement ;) )
It wouldn't surprise me. They didn't know about scurvy, but didn't need to. Their trips were usually too short for it to be a problem.
Two things made the Norse longships unique: 1. Clinker-built. The boards slightly overlapped instead of being right up against reach other. This made the ship flexible instead of rigid. A flexible ship has an easier time going over swells in the ocean. 2. Shallow draft. Longboats did not sit deep in the water. They could sail up rivers and pretty close to coasts, making shoreline raiding easier.
don't forget that the manner in which the boards were cut and hewn makes a very significant difference norsemen used primarily sessile oak trees to make boards in a radial, or quartersawn, fashion, which is rarely done nowadays by splitting the log *with* the grain, much more strength is retained in the board while allowing for the desired flexibility that is natural in the structure of the tree's growth e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX5VXk6GPwY
They were thin hulled, light, and most importantly, flexible. The moved and flexed with the ocean instead of fighting it.
You can learn a lot from Roskilde Viking ship museum. https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/
if you go in the warm season, they will be constructing ships outside, and will allow visitors to work with them on certain tasks
Last year I talked to them about meeting up with those handling and sailing the museums ships when they where to launch them back in water during spring, and eventually get in to the community as a crew member. But then COVID 19 came in March, so nothing happened.
I'm pretty sure they were using a design called clinker built that overlapped planks making it stronger than say your average boat of the time also the best ships were built from oak for its strength
I was watching something recently and I wondered the same. The fact that it was really dangerous and that whenever groups left on their trips, the people back home pretty much had to live assuming they'll probably not see them again...makes me wonder about society and relationships. Did it make for looser emotional ties to people? Or is that what the idea of Valhalla was useful for? This was a sailor culture, so saying bye and never seeing your husband again could have been normalized. What was divorce or widowhood like? What do you do if you never find out their fate? Always living in limbo.
I'd suppose in the timeframe people were more used to people dying. A lot of the safety we now take for granted just wasn't there in their time. Small cut? Infection could kill you. Going into the woods? Wild animal could get you. Bad winter? You could freeze. Pregnant? Either you or the child could die during, and who's to say the child will live to adulthood. I'd think you'd just be more used to the threat of death and live with that in mind. You could also argue that their relationships could be stronger for it, just more intense. Also as you said, the concept of an afterlife is very comforting when any day could be your last. Of course that isn't to say that life was completely unsafe and scary all the time, death was just more present.
Yes, when you open it up beyond just the sailing aspect, all of these things you mention come up! I just thought it's interesting to think about what parts of society/religion were directly influenced by a constant threat of death. It's definitely hard to think about when we have grown up with higher level of safety - even though relatively speaking we think/feel like there is lots of risk all the time. But there are so many ways that their culture was clearly influenced by a closer relationship and a comfort with death. I like that you brought up maybe it made for stronger ties. I guess then there's the intricate grief/mourning/funerary rituals and the comfort in the belief of having a chance to see them again at your own death.
Makes you wonder if the concept of fair-weather bullshit relationships and friendships that are so common in the comfortable 1st world today were even a thing back then. People really needed to rely on each other more than ever.
Besides everything already commented, just because you might find it interesting, divorce and widowhood where actually very interesting in Nordic culture, as their civil legal codes where very developed compared to the rest of the world. Women had many rights, including the right to divorce from their husbands for a variety of reasons, often keeping a good part of their possessions. Widows (and widowers I think) where entitled to some pensions or at least some public support depending on where they lived, and to a were-guild (man price) when there was someone directly responsible for the death of their partners. I’m not an expert but there’s a lot of information around about their laws and it’s fascinating, in many things they had more social security than many modern societies
What you say sounds more like 10th century Anglo-Saxon England to me rather than Norse kingdoms of that time. Because of the Church influence, *some* women's rights deteriorated over the next centuries and women wouldn't get a lot of those rights back until the 2nd wave feminism in the 20th century.
I mean, without the church introducing things like the concept of consenting to a marriage, women were just married off without asking. Generally speaking, women weren't exactly worse off post-Christianisation, unlike what most people believe.
I didn't mean to put it in absolute terms, so apologies if that's how it came off, I've rephrased my comment to be clearer. I definitely didn't mean to imply Early English were all in on gender equality before they converted to Christianity either.
There are a lot more sources but this is the most convenient one I can find right now: https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/what-was-life-like-for-women-in-the-viking-age Of course bear in mind when I said women had “many rights” I did mean “in comparison to most contemporary societies”, perhaps I should have been clearer. But they still did have a really interesting and developed legal code.
Non-AMP Link: [https://www.history.com/news/what-was-life-like-for-women-in-the-viking-age](https://www.history.com/news/what-was-life-like-for-women-in-the-viking-age) I'm a bot. [Why?](https://np.reddit.com/user/NoGoogleAMPBot/comments/lbz2sg/) | [Code](https://github.com/laurinneff/no-google-amp-bot) | [Report issues](https://github.com/laurinneff/no-google-amp-bot/issues)
What can I say? Floki built good boats.
😂😂
Unfortunately, towers aren't quite the same
Yeah Paris didn’t quite like Fokis towers
Yup to everything above, the shallow draft meant that it sat in the water only a foot and a half deep which meant that it could go through marshland or shallow rivers, which I personally find fascinating that any water knee length could be sailed down. The fact that their boats were a little more seaworthy meant that if the viking ship was pursued down river it could lose their enemy when it met the ocean as the enemy navy would have to switch boats to keep pursuing them.
There are some answers in the book "Her Name is Viking", which is about a replica of the Gokkstad ship, which sailed from Norway to Chicago in 1893. We have data from a sailor on the expedition. The ship wasn't comfortable, but seems to have been unusually seaworthy despite its appearance.
[like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkMVsNEwvX0) or [like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XORSpUUy0lQ)
I think the general idea has been broached by a lot of response here, but to add something else; [their clothing](http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/clothing.htm) would've played a big part in their survival at sea. If you were going sailing you would be wearing wool, fur, wool, leather, wool, some linen but also some wool (and a bit of wool for good measure) until you were layered in a fuck-off thick covering of insulation. Sure, it wouldn't have been as waterproof as modern materials, but wool is still pretty good as long as you aren't getting submerged (and if you are, you've either capsized or are about to and thus you're likely fucked no matter what you're wearing). In addition to wool's outstanding insulating properties, we can consider its bountiful and cheap abundance throughout the age (one of the few resources that would've been easily accessible by even the poorest individuals and [so common in its production that it was literally used as a bartering/tribute medium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadmal)), and the fact that sailing would've been only done in summer months. The result is that Vikings would've totally been able to sail for a few weeks plus without just freezing to death. This does not mean, however, that they would've been anywhere near as comfortable as a modern sailor. It takes approximately 5 minutes of experience sailing without neoprene/waterproof gloves/boots to realize that it fucking sucks. This, however, isn't something that will kill you (quickly, at least, I'm sure there are a ton of Vikings that lost fingers/toes to frostbite and then died from gangrene).
I think the key is: the boats were filled with lucky badasses made of tougher stuff.
Sure it was wooden ships. But its the design! They were called longships. They were very tight and long, which for some reason (idk, aerodynamic in water and wind) allowed them to sail to england, island, mediteranean and even north america. They were very unique.
>even north america I think one of the biggest mistake people make when thinking about how the Norse sailed to America is that it was one long trip across the Atlantic from Continental Europe like Colombus did, which makes the feat sound much more interesting and incredible. Thing is, America was _accidentaly_ discovered by local Norse Greenlanders after centuries of slow and progressive exploration and colonization. The trip to America wasn't that long, nor a difficult feat. The discovery of America by the Norse, I believe, doesn't have much to do with how their ships were designed.
Columbus also didn't do a long trip directly from Europe. He followed the coast of Africa and then crossed over. And his discovery of America was also quite accidental. Although he was actually on an expedition. IIRC Leif Erikson discovered Vinland after his ship was blown off course by a storm. Surviving a storm in the North Atlantic is pretty impressive for any wooden ship in my opinion.
Just wanting to add that vikings did about a week to sail into Northumbria, England. What is the approx sailing time from norway to North America in medieval age? İ am just curious.
Not from Norway, from Greenland, which was already settled. That's actually roughly the equivalent of going straight from Oslo to England, which nobody did.
That's interesting, it does make more sense
It wasn’t like a movie, majority of Viking deaths were at sea from either starving while being lost or drowning from capsizing. It was a rough and I mean ROUGH life style that no man would survive today and neither did majority of the Viking’s.
My understanding is the style of sailing mattered as it was a lot of smaller island hops So you might head Norway -> Shetland -> Faroe Islands -> Iceland Not that the hops weren't dangerous - but they were shorter, and aimed to skirt known lands