It is probable that the Danes of this period built ships for war purposes only, though they may have incidentally used some of them for trade. The Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, possessed two distinct classes of vessels, one expressly designed for each object. In Ethelred's laws[1] the distinction is often alluded to. And commerce was specially encouraged by the Saxons after they had fairly settled down in England; for, after having made certain commercial ventures on his own account, and in his own ship, a churl might, by right, attain the rank of thane, or thane that of earl.
There was already regular system of tolls or port dues.[2] At Billingsgate, a small vessel paid one halfpenny, and a sailing craft one penny. If a ceol, or hulk—apparently something still bigger—arrived, she paid fourpence. From vessel laden with planks, a toll of one plank was exacted.[3] It is evident that there was much trade with the continent in wool, cloth, wine, and fish.
The Saxon war navy was supported by pecuniary levies, or Heregeld, raised upon the cultivated land, and was reinforced by contingents obligatorily furnished, in accordance with their tenures, by the chief ports;[4] which also provided a certain number of men. Other towns, including inland ones, had to provide men and stores.[5] But there seems to have been only a very small permanent war navy. Canute, and Harold I. following him, maintained a somewhat larger one; but all approach to permanent naval establishment was ill regarded in the Midlands, and payment of Heregeld for the purpose was there frequently resisted, up to the time when it was abolished by Edward the Confessor.[6]
General descriptions have already been given of the ships of the Saxons and of the Danes, but the subject is of sufficient interest to warrant a return to it; and space may well be found here for an account of the vessel[7] which, in 1880, was dug up from beneath
- ↑ 'Anct. Laws and Instits. of Eng.,' ii. 2, and v. 27.
- ↑ The dues of Sandwich were granted by Canute to Christ Church, Canterbury.
- ↑ For other rules, see 'Anct. Laws and Instits. of Eng.,' p. 127; and Bromton, 897.
- ↑ Domesday, i. 3. Dover and Sandwich each furnished the king with twenty ships for fifteen days once a year, each vessel carrying twenty-one men. Probably other ports, notably these later known as Cinque Ports, had similar obligations.
- ↑ There are numerous examples, some very curious, in Domesday.
- ↑ Sax. Chron., p. 445 (ed. Ingram). It was afterwards revived. See 'Anct. Laws and Instits. of Eng.,' pp. 217, 224, 228.
- ↑ The particulars are summarised from a paper on 'The Viking Ship,' by John S. White, in Scribner’s Magazine, Nov. 1887. To Messrs. Scribner I am indebted for permission to reproduce the accompanying illustrations.
