by Paul Hill
A twelfth-century copy of a King Edgar (959–75) charter, the authenticity of which is sometimes doubted, would seem to support the idea later known to be fact, of a concept known as shipsoke. Shipsokes are often referred to in post-Conquest documents and their ancestry is often very clear. This particular shipsoke related to the triple hundred known as Oswaldslow to be held by the bishop of Worcester on the condition that it constituted a ‘naucupletionem’, or in English ‘scypsocne’ (a shipsoke). It is not clear if this shipsoke was to provide for one ship and its crew or just a ship, or a crew for a ship, but the mathematics turn out to be seductively convenient. A total of 300 hides at a 5 hides per warrior rule would result in a ship manned by sixty oarsmen.
It is likely then that the territorial based recruitment of ships for service was long established before Æthelred came to the throne. But Æthelred inherited a military system showing signs of decay in many respects. He would later try through legislation to resurrect the once impressive naval system. We cannot know for certain the origin of the many ships the king ordered to be collected at London in 992. This was a response to the renewal of Viking attacks on England. Æthelred ordered all the ships ‘that were of any value’ to be brought to London and when they were, he gave them to a joint command of two ealdormen and two bishops. There is no real evidence of how these ships were found, whether they were press-ganged from ports as merchantmen, or built as part of a territorial duty, or perhaps even the private ships of ealdormen and bishops, or a mixture of all of these. Whatever their origin, Æthelred’s hopes of sending such a giant fleet to entrap its enemy in the Thames Estuary was confounded by the treachery of one Ælfric of Hampshire, one of the king’s appointed commanders who went over to the Danish side and at once destroyed our chances of assessing the effectiveness of Æthelred’s navy in action in the early part of his reign.
As the crisis with the Vikings deepened, there seems to have been an increasingly heavy burden upon the bishops to meet their obligations to the king’s forces. Shipsokes played a part in this. By 1003 we get some evidence that the shipfyrd system was still very much in use and may have been burdensome on the parishioners known to the archbishop of Canterbury. The will of Archbishop Ælfric demonstrates how he left one ship to his lord the king, one to the people of Kent and one to the people of Wiltshire, with whom his career had been connected. The implication is that he was assisting these people in meeting their territorial ship-supplying obligation, but we are not able to say what these exactly were at the time. It is likely that their lands through varying forms of alienation did not amount to 300 anymore. As if to prove the theory, Bishop Æthelric of Sherbourne complained in a writ dated to the early years of the eleventh century that he was not able to collect the ‘shipscot’ (tax for the shipfyrd) that his predecessors had done. This was because of land alienation over the years leaving him short in his assessment by 33 hides. It could be that Æthelric was writing shortly after Æthelred issued his famous order of 1008, which seems to have been targeted at trying to restore English naval provision to its former glory. The church certainly seems to have been a big supplier of vessels for the fleet: the bishop of Dorchester’s triple hundred is thought to represent a shipsoke, as is that of the abbey at Pershore. Whether they supplied the ships themselves or commuted their service for payment is unknown.
In his law code of 1008 Æthelred demanded one ship (a ‘scegð’) to be furnished from every 310 hides (or, if we believe the Worcester version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which is corrupt at this point, it was 300 hides for a ‘ship’and 10 further to provide for one scegð). Further to the requirement was a helmet and a mailcoat from every 8 hides. One can fiddle with the mathematics until it works, but there are many imponderables. One possible solution is based on our knowledge that a scegð is mentioned as a gift by Bishop Ælfwold of Credit on to the king in around 1000. It comprised a crew of sixty-four oarsmen. Clearly, a scegð is a large vessel. It might be argued that the additional 10 hides should provide a lighter vessel in addition to this, but there is no evidence for it. The demand for a helmeted and mailed warrior from every 8 hides may or may not be connected with seafaring. If we rest with the 5-hide rule for supplying a warrior and factor it into Æthelred’s new demand for crewing his ships based on land assessed at 310 hides we get a ship with a crew of sixty-two men. If we do this for the 8-hide rule which demands a fully armoured man to be produced we get a seemingly implausible 38.75 men per ship. Whatever the mathematics could possibly be, it is clear that Æthelred was trying to do something impressive with his resources. The calculations allow for a navy of up to 267 ships, albeit a far cry from King Edgar’s allegedly swollen squadrons. There is, however, one other similarity with Edgar’s patrolling fleets and that is that Æthelred wanted these fleets to be ready every Easter just as his forebear had asked: ‘and about the supplying of ships, as zealously as possible, so that each may be equipped immediately after Easter every year’ (Æthelred code V: 27). Also: ‘And if anyone damages a warship of the people, he is diligently to make reparation and pay the king for [breach of] his protection; and if one damages it so that it becomes useless, he is to pay its full value and the [fine for] breach of his protection to the king’. (Æthelred code VI: 34). So, the men of the shires provided the bulk of the English navy in this period and their king was their protector. The amount of ships in question here is not known for sure but within a year of this decree Ealdorman Beorhtric turned up at Sandwich having command of eighty vessels. In 1009 treachery and factionist tendencies undid for the giant fleet. When the fleet was assembled Beorhtric accused the South Saxon noble Wulfnoth (possibly Earl Godwin’s father) to the king and Wulfnoth fled from the fleet, gathering ships through enticement along the coast until his number reached twenty. Beorhtric followed Wulfnoth with his own complement of eighty vessels but foundered on the southern shore, whereupon Wulfnoth duly burnt all his enemy’s ships thus depriving the royal fleet of a huge amount of vessels. The upshot of all this was a collapse in morale among the leadership of the fleet at Sandwich and a return to London by the king. By August, Sandwich was host not to the royal fleet, but to an enormous predatory Danish fleet. Although this is a demonstration of how simple treachery and politics could undo a nation’s hopes, the question is how did Wulfnoth entice his twenty ships? For that the answer may lie with the men of the Sussex and Kent ports.
It would seem there were other contributors within the English kingdom to the naval force besides the fyrdsmen, in particular by the men of the coastal towns that later became the Cinque Ports of the south east. Naval provision here was decidedly different. What little evidence we have from the very end of the Anglo-Saxon era suggests that the special relationship between the later Medieval Cinque Ports of Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich had its roots firmly imbedded in the Anglo-Saxon past.
The ports in question do not appear to have been legally bound together with their subordinate ports as they were in the later Middle Ages, but it does seem that their special form of ship provision was heavily tilted in favour of providing ships in return for various privileges. Although Maldon in Essex is not one of the five ports in question here, its own service provides an example of how these things might have operated. Maldon at the time of the Domesday Book was assessed at 50 hides, one-sixth of a shipsoke. On this basis, for land service it should have owed ten armed warriors to the fyrd, but in reality it is recorded as owing one horse and a ship. Perhaps this was the result of an evolutionary development based on negotiation between the burghers and the Crown. The obligations of Dover and Sandwich are recorded in more detail, although Sandwich is only recorded as having an identical obligation to that of Dover. Dover, according to the Domesday Book, owed twenty ships to the king, each with a crew of twenty-one men plus a steersman and his assistant. They would serve for fifteen days a year. The first thing that leaps out at us is the much smaller size of these ships compared with the scegð mentioned above. It is not known how each port se
rved in conjunction with the other, or whether these ships were confined to coastal patrolling alone, but the vessels–if we take those of subordinate ports such as Pevensey and Fordwich etc.–would provide for over a hundred vessels for the protection of the south-east corner of the kingdom alone.
The three other ports of later Cinque Ports fame do not have their Anglo-Saxon period obligations recorded, but the shipmen of Hastings make a specific intervention in local waters on behalf of King Edward the Confessor in 1050. The ships of the rebellious Earl Swein Godwinson were attacked and captured, their crews killed, their vessels seized and taken to Sandwich. Crucially, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions that it was the men of Hastings and ‘thereabout’ who performed the service for the king. The number of ships is not known, nor for that matter is the origin of the men from the ports and places ‘thereabout’. The noble Wulfnoth’s Sussex background, his enticement of twenty vessels in 1009 and subsequent impressive seamanship in the Channel might suggest that the origins of the sailors goes further back than the reign of Edward the Confessor, but this cannot be proved.
On the matter of those additional and subordinate ports, the Domesday Book does mention Fordwich as owing a ship at the time of King Edward. Twelfth-century documents indicate that the small settlement of Dengemarsh owed ship service as a subordinate to Lydd, which in itself was subordinate to Romney. We cannot with any certainty track this back further into the Anglo-Saxon period, but it remains the case that similar such arrangements may have existed.
It is argued that the rise in the importance to the royal fleet of these coastal towns coincided with King Edward’s dismissal in 1050 and 1051 of part of his mercenary fleet. Also argued is the point that the shipfyrd became less important at the end of the period, but against this we ought to observe that this was an institution that existed well into the high Medieval period. In 1049, when Earl Godwin became aware of hostile ships in the Channel to the west, he took two of the king’s ships commanded by his sons Harold and Tostig respectively, plus forty-two ‘landes manna’ ships. This probably indicates that these latter mentioned were the shipsoke contingent. King Edward is then recorded as allowing his Mercian contingent to go home, perhaps indicating that these men were indeed fyrdsmen. So, if the fleet of the late Anglo-Saxon kings consisted of the large ships of the shipfyrd, the smaller vessels of the coastal towns and the personal vessels of the senior earls and bishops plus those of the king himself, then what of the naval mercenary?
That there had been mercenaries in the English fleet prior to the eleventh century is hardly in doubt. The Frisians and possibly some Danes had already played a part in the fleets and naval resources of English kings from Alfred onwards. The defection in 1012 of Thorkell the Tall to King Æthelred brought forty-five crewed vessels into immediate play at a considerable cost. They will have been theoretically able to put to sea at a moment’s notice. During the reign of Cnut (1016–36) a fleet of forty ships was retained on this basis, which went down to just sixteen ships at the end of his reign. It was then raised to sixty ships under Harthacnut in 1040.
One of the terms used to describe the men of these ships during this period is ‘liðsmen’ or ‘lið’. When used in the English sources it seems to represent the word ‘sailor’, but in the Scandinavian sources it refers more to ‘warrior’. Crucially, in the English sources these men are often mentioned in connection with receiving or awaiting payment. This occurs in both 1051 and 1055. When Edward dismissed part of his stipendiary fleet of 14 ships in 1051 and discontinued the heregeld, he promised to pay the remaining 5 ships 12 months’ pay. In 1055 when the rebellious Earl Ælfgar sent a fleet to Chester they are said to have stayed there awaiting payment for their service. Liðsmen are once again mentioned in the service of King Harold in 1066 on his northern campaign. This came long after the abolition of the tax raised for precisely this purpose and it could be that the historian could find no other word to fit the description of men sent by the king of Denmark to Harold in support of his cause, or it could be that Harold simply paid for them.
A glimpse into the potential quality (and indeed cost) of such mercenary ships of the period can be found in John of Worcester’s description of Harthacnut’s (1040–2) short reign as English king, which includes the elaborate gift given to him by Earl Godwin by way of atonement for the murder of the Ætheling Alfred:
Thereupon he [Harthacnut, who was in Bruges] fitted out fifty ships, and embarking Danish troops, before midsummer sailed over to England, where he was received with universal joy . . .
After this, he ordered that eight marks be paid to every rower in his fleet, and twelve to each steersman, to be levied from the whole of England; at tax so burdensome, that scarcely anyone would pay it . . .
Godwin, to obtain the king’s favour, presented him with a galley of admirable workmanship, with a gilded figurehead, rigged with the best materials and manned with eighty chosen soldiers splendidly armed. Every one of them had on each arm a golden bracelet weighing six ounces, and wore a triple coat of mail and a helmet partly gilt, and a sword with gilded hilt girt to his side, and a Danish battle-axe inlaid with gold and silver hanging from his left shoulder; in his left hand he bore a shield, the boss and studs of which were also gilt, and in his right hand a lance called in the English tongue an ‘Atagar’.
So, at 8 marks of silver per rower and 12 for the steersman, you clearly got what you paid for in eleventh-century England. The term liðsmen begins to fade at the end of the period, particularly after the dismissal of part of Edward’s stipendiary fleet. However, another term that has been taken to indicate a naval mercenary but which may also indicate the employment flexibility of the men of the coastal ports, is the term ‘butsecarl’. This term is mentioned in the Domesday Book in the entry for Malmesbury. Here it is said that when the king went on expedition he had from Malmesbury ‘either twenty shillings to feed his butsecarls or he took one man from each honour of five hides’. This may not necessarily indicate the use of mercenaries. Butsecarls are mentioned in 1052 when the triumphant Godwin ‘enticed all the men of Kent and all the butsecarls in the district of Hastings’ to his service. These men were clearly in some way or another, despite their arrangement with the Crown, prepared to negotiate employment with the earl. It could be that during the upheaval of 1051–2 with the king and earl at loggerheads and the liðsmen being partially paid off, the men of the coastal ports were up for grabs, so to speak. Butsecarls continued to be used after the Norman Conquest, notably in 1071 during the Norman campaigns at Ely. William II (1087–1100) also used them to defend the coast against his brother’s intended invasion from Normandy. However, we may never discover the true identity of these men, but their origin from within the kingdom of England as opposed to being foreign mercenaries seems the most likely of all.
Clearly the system of raising a fleet for the English king was complex and time consuming. The shipfyrd still was a major supplier even at the very end of the period, despite the increasing reliance on the men of the ports. Perhaps we should think of the massive effort made by King Harold to keep his fleet all through the summer of 1066, finally allowing it to go home after its supplies had run out. It is ironic that a kingdom that had such a vast naval resource was undone by a duchy that had no standing navy other than that which it could build or buy for one sole purpose. The pre-Conquest English fleet was widely deployed around the island of Britain and indeed abroad. It was even requested by the king of Denmark in 1047 who wanted Edward the Confessor to provide him with fifty ships in his struggle against King Magnus of Norway. Edward declined the invitation, but in 1049 he accepted his part in an international blockade of Baldwin of Flanders on behalf of Henry III, the Holy Roman Emperor. The sheer numbers of ships the king could put to sea must have made such blockade actions very effective.
So what was it like to fight on board one of these vessels? One classic account of naval action is highlighted below (pp. 114–17) and relates to Alfred’s deployment in 896 of his new
type of vessel. From this account and from others such as Cnut’s Battle of the Holy River in 1026 (in southern Scania), in which English vessels took part, it is possible to observe that fighting seems to have taken place not just onboard the vessels but on the nearby shores too. At Holy River, many English vessels were inundated and sunk by a deliberately burst dam and some fighting took place across a small bridge. Evidence, however, for what happened at open sea when ship forces collided is slim indeed, but we may permit ourselves to guess that these vessels acted as fighting platforms for infantry engagements perhaps preceded by missile fire. Viking sagas speak of ships lashed together to form floating islands. The many Viking-style boarding axes from this period may be testimony to this style of fighting. The results would surely have been bloody, as the main goal would have been to clear each vessel systematically of its crew. Anyone standing who fell overboard wearing a mailcoat weighing several kilograms would surely have had no hope of swimming to safety and would have faced a grim and watery death. Perhaps there are at the bottom of Scandinavian fjords and English coastal inlets some grim remains of armour-clad warriors from this heroic seafaring age.
Chapter 3
Strategy and Tactics
Ravaging, Harrying and the Use of the Landscape
