The Viking Age. Volume 2 (of 2): The early history, manners, and customs of the ancestors of the English-speaking nationsDu Chaillu, Paul B. (Paul Belloni)
History
The Viking Age. Volume 2 (of 2): The early history, manners, and customs of the ancestors of the English-speaking nations
Footnote 149:
The English chronicles mention numerous instances of large fleets
descending on various parts of the coast, of which the following are a
few:—
In the year 860, in the time of Ethelred a large fleet came to the
land, and the crews stormed Winchester.
In the year 893 the Danish army came, from the east westward to
Boulogne, and their war ships. They landed at the mouth of the Limne
with 250 ships (this is in the eastern part of Kent).
In the year 894 the Danes among the Northumbrians and East Anglians
gathered 100 ships and went south to besiege Exeter.
In the year 927 King Anlaf entered the Humber with a vast fleet of 615
sails.
In the year 993 Olave, with 93 ships, came to Staines.
In the year 994 Olave and Sveyn (Olaf of Norway and Svein of Denmark)
came to London with 94 ships.
In the year 1006 a great fleet came to Sandwich and ravaged wherever
it went. It returned in winter to the Isle of Wight; the distress and
fear in the land were extreme. £36,000 and provisions was paid as
tribute to the invaders.
In the year 1009, Thurkills came with his fleet to England, and after
him another innumerable fleet of Danes, the chiefs of which were
Hemming and Ailaf.
In the year 1069 the sons of Svein came from Denmark with 240 ships
into the Humber.
In the year 1075 200 ships came from Denmark under Knut, son of Sweyne
and Hecco, but did not dare to risk a battle with King William. After
plundering in York they went to Flanders.
The Frankish chronicles give an account also of various fleets:—
EGINHARD.
In the year 810 the emperor (Charlemagne), then at Aix-la-Chapelle,
planned an expedition against King Godfrey. He suddenly received the
news that a fleet of 200 ships coming from the country of the North
had landed in Frisia, and ravaged all the islands adjacent to their
shores.
In the year 845 Eurick, king of the Northmen, advanced against Louis
in Germany with 600 vessels along the river Elbe.
In the year 850 Rorik, the nephew of Harold, who had recently left the
service of Lothair, taking with him an army of Northmen, comes by the
Rhine and the Watal with a multitude of ships, devastating Frisia, the
island of Batavia, and other neighbourhood places.
In the year 852 the Northmen arrived in Frisia with 252 ships; after
having received much silver they go elsewhere.
In the year 852 Godfrey, son of Harold the Dane, formerly baptized at
Mayence, under the reign of the Emperor Louis, left Lothair and went
to find his people. Afterwards having assembled a powerful force, he
attacks Frisia with a multitude of vessels, and then enters the
territory bordering on the river Scheldt.
In the year 857 the Danish pirates invaded the city of Paris and set
fire to it. Here there must have been an enormous fleet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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