Did VIKINGS use AXES and WHY?

let's talk about viking axes [Music] hey folks matt easton here scholar gladiator now the first thing i want to say is this isn't going to be an exhaustive video just about axes it's more about the context of axes that is did the vikings in the so-called dark ages in the early medieval period did they actually use axes any more than anyone else and why did they use axes or maybe why did they use axes because we can't definitively know the answer to that question so we're going to look a little bit in this video not just at vikings incidentally but also people like anglo-saxons and franks and longer bards did they use axes examples of types of axes that they used what context did they use axes and why this is the important part why might they have used axes instead of swords because swords were pretty much the dominant close combat if we're putting spears aside because spears were always the most common hand combat you know close combat weapons but if we're talking about really close in um combat weapons shorter than spears then swords seem to have been across europe more common than axes i think it's fair to say that in the public mind's eye axes are very much associated with vikings or the norse and so much so that in fact when we look even in the fantasy genre when we find peoples of fantasy environments whether it's barbarians or dwarves or whatever who are very clearly influenced in the terms of their arms and armor and equipment and perhaps even culture to some extent they are often associated with axes axes are often associated with these barbarian types and sometimes they're big giant axes and we're talking a little bit about the so-called dane axes notice the clue in the name they're dane from denmark vikings okay um so we're going to look at why were axes associated with the norse or vikings in this period is that correct and why possibly might they have used axes instead of swords but before we get into some really deep penetration on the subject of viking 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that easy free to play free to download click the description or scan the qr code and i'll see you in game so thanks for sticking with me and now back to the main subject of this video which is viking axes were they used by vikings any more than anyone else why were they associated with vikings what context were they using and why possibly may the vikings have had a particular like for axes and used them not to the exclusion of but alongside swords and spears and why might they have used them more than other people now the first really important piece of context to mention is what was the arms and armor generally being used in this period and indeed by the norse i will try and refer to them more as norse than vikings because the term viking is a little bit problematic in period sources certainly in english sources they're usually referred to as danes norse whatever like that occasionally the word viking is used but as i say that's a more problematic term but obviously in the modern mindset everyone knows what a viking is but i'll say norse so the fact is that we very much associate axes with the norse is that correct well there is actually quite a lot of artistic and archaeological evidence to back that up and indeed in contrast when we look at other places if we look at anglo-saxon england or frankish france or northern italy certain certainly after the early migration period axes aren't particularly common so the context in terms of uh what the arms and armor generally being used in this period was so if we put the axe aside for a minute we've basically got a variety of swords being used which are all roughly similar to this example here they have a minimal hand guard they have a usually a t-shaped junction pommel and they are reasonably long they're longer than most roman swords certainly they're as long as a long cavalry sword from the roman era a sparta so they've usually got between about 28 and 32 inch blades fairly long for the period they're made of good steel and a lot of effort went into the making of swords with pattern welding hardened carbon steel edges and if you were super lucky then you could get your hands on a crucible steel sword like a north burst sword so they put a lot of effort into making long sword blades and you'll notice that they have what we often refer to as a spatula tip they are pointy you can stab things and people with them but they're not particularly pointy certainly if we compare to a 15th century sword for example from the era when they're trying to stab between the gaps of armor in this period most swords seem to be broad what many people would term slashing type blades so they are broad cleaving blades and they're not really specialized for thrusting and certainly if we look at the armor of the day i'm wearing at the moment pretty much the most armor that most people certainly in north west europe so the area is mostly being raided but raided by vikings would be wearing that is a male shirt known as a uh holbergian usually sometimes people might call a horback callback's kind of longer than this a shield of various sorts some people say matt your viking shield's not big enough well that's because it's not a viking shield it's an anglo-saxon shield and anglo-saxon shields according to the burials are somewhat smaller than viking shields viking shields are often up to about 95 centimeters across anglo-saxon shields tend to be smaller than that and if we look at the frankish sources and indeed some anglo-saxon sources it seems that not all of them were flat this is a flat shield which is indeed like what most of the shields that have been found from scandinavia alike from ships and burials and indeed most of them from anglo-saxon england so most shields were made of boards put together covered in leather with a iron steel boss in the middle held center boss gripped so they're not held with straps they're held with a bar in the center either made of wood or metal and pretty much most shields across western europe were made in this way but as i say not all of them were flat particularly in frankia some of them were conical and it does seem that conical shields became popular in england as well in fact or even shown on the bayer tapestry so some of these most of these were flat certainly the viking or norse ones would have been mostly being flat but in other areas sometimes they were smaller sometimes they were conical and finally on the head you'll notice i have an iron in this case mild steel but in period mostly iron helmet now helmets came in a few forms but they don't vary enormously if we're looking across world history of arms and armor let's put the shield down for a second generally speaking they're suspended on the head with um they're not padded inside so much as suspended inside so the steel is actually away from your head which is cooler and this is made of steel sheets some of these would have been made of various parts known as a spang and helm usually four parts four segments then with a crossbar over the top this is a later period one forged out of one piece of steel with an integrated nasal some at the beginning of the so-called viking era some helmets actually have some facial protection as well sometimes cheek pieces particularly in england some of the known helmets from england have cheek pieces like the copper gate helmet a few have something down the back to protect the nape of the neck including sometimes a male kind of hanging skirt at the back like a curtain um a lot have a nasal but not all of them some don't have anything at the front some just are fully open faced and some the famous uh kind of which we call spectacle helms that go by various names but the famous helmets associated with vikings or norse actually have a couple of kind of plate here with two cutouts for the eyes which look a bit like spectacles which obviously protects about half the face so to cut a long story short this is about the maximum amount of armor that most people in western europe at this time would have won i say western europe because if we go to the byzantine empire we do indeed find people with more armor debatably with lamela sometimes over the mail certainly in the later periods sometimes more complete forms of helmet or more encased forms of helmet but if we're talking about anglo-saxon england we're talking about frank frankish what's now france the frankish empire carolinian empire all of whom were fighting the norse a lot and if we're talking about scandinavia itself the majority of helmet the majority of armor is a male shirt pretty much nothing else on the arms and legs except for maybe some type of arming clothes although for the most part there's not really any evidence for anything like a gambeson in this period and then some form of helmet which usually is relatively open-faced and relatively open-sided but sometimes less so sometimes with a ocular plate sometimes with cheek plates so that being the context this being the armor male shirt helmet and shield being pretty much the most armor that people are going to encounter but it's very important to mention that the way that i'm equipped white right now would put me into the category of really a very well-equipped anglo-saxon in the time of say alfred the great in fact this helmet's a later design but if we say you know the the the um kind of 800's 900's through to ethel red's time then this is pretty much the standard equipment of a well-equipped english soldier now in terms of weapons if we're in england or if we're in france or germany then the typical sidearm that is the weapon i wear by my side in a scabbard and a belt is going to be a sword whereas the typical primary weapon in my hand is going to be some form of spear now this is a particularly large headed winged spear most spears have much smaller heads than this and are much lighter and indeed are longer so this is a relatively short and stout example of a spear but nevertheless this type of spear was a round in period and was also used so essentially your primary weapons are shield spear and then a male shirt and a helmet and your primary sidearm for most people is a sword now let's get back to the subject of the norse in actual fact the well-equipped norse would have very very similar equipment to this and in many cases the equipment would actually be taken from people they fought against so we know that frankish swords which what was then the frankish empire were covered what's now france and germany and the countries in between and we know that a lot of swords were made they're very good quality swords that found their way to britain and found their way to scandinavia and indeed further afield they phoned their way as far as africa and the middle east and all over russia so very often the weapons and equipment that the norse warriors had was exactly the same as the weapons that their frankish or anglo-saxon opponents had because those weapons had come from those places so if we look in norwegian graves we can literally find english swords we can find english silver coins we can find frankish items jewelry sometimes axes and um and swords so the simple fact is that many of the weapons used by the vikings or used by the norse were the exact same weapons that they had either bought or won in conquest from their enemies so then the question has to come why do we make this assumption if it is an assumption that the the norse used axes more than other people in europe well the fact is that the evidence actually supports it so um i'll just grab a day max to illustrate the point so we do have written sources we've got archaeological sources and we've got art sources okay so when you're a student of this period you're relying on the text you're relying on the archaeology from the ground and you're relying on art and all three of those things can support the fact that scandinavians commonly known as vikings did use axes more than most people they encountered now at that point i just want to make a slight tangent to mention the people they encountered using axes so the franks are famous for using the francisca which is a type of throwing axe the longer bards certainly in the migration era earlier than this really a couple of hundred years earlier were famous for using a type of axe with a hammer on the back and you sometimes find this type of axe elsewhere as well sometimes you find it in english graves sometimes you find it in frankish graves and indeed you find axes elsewhere as well and even if we look at the anglo-saxon art certainly from the viking era onwards you do see axes featured as well but that's an important point because in england england was repeatedly conquered by the norse by the danes most famously knut for example and so this what i'm holding here is a danax as it's commonly called today probably more correctly termed a graytax but in fact these types of axes are most featured um in art most famously on the bayer tapestry which is obviously um a an episode from english history or is it well it's more complicated than that because prior to the wessex kings returning to the throne in a way through harold godwinson although he wasn't really royalty um he claimed the throne um prior to that there had been a series of norse of danish kings okay from knut and and so on and in fact this was a hangover from them so the it does seem from the sources available that the royal bodyguards from knuts time onwards carried these big two-handed great axes and so these were a viking thing moreover than that we have some archaeology some very compelling archaeology from london so london was repeatedly like many uh english cities we've repeatedly raided and attacked sometimes successfully sometimes not incidentally the the the raiders the norse raiders weren't always successful in fact very often about 50 of the time they were not successful and they were driven off and defeated um and one of these unsuccessful times they attacked london bridge now london bridge don't imagine tower bridge don't make that mistake like that famous american who bought the wrong bridge london bridge at this point wasn't a stone bridge as far as we know it was purely wooden construction okay and at this time the river thames was narrower and deeper so it didn't have to span such a wide distance and the wooden bridge was attacked by norse raiders in ships and they attempted to basically assault the bridge and the bridge was defended by the londoners by the anglo-saxons who fought them off ultimately but at that site in the thames there are a series of what are believed to be norse weapons which have been discovered from the river thames including a whole bunch of these and they're now in the museum of london we've looked at those previously in other videos so we have actually a lot of evidence that these big great axes were something associated very much with the the viking attackers in england and it goes further than that in fact because we have texts we have texts describing um the norse using axes we also have um the the north sources such as they are things like the icelandic sagas but also additionally we have the names of people recorded eric blood axe surprise surprise eric bloodaxe probably used an axe we additionally have archaeology in scandinavia an archaeologist in scandinavia primarily from graves from burials from pre-christian burials does show a presence of axes now in terms of the axes don't imagine that they were all massive two-handed grey taxes like this in fact these statistically are not terribly rare but they are a minority the vast majority of axes in use actually were quite small okay were things like this and some of them were a bit bigger like this so you've got bearded axes and various other types of axes and there are axe typologies if you want to learn more about scandinavian axes of this period so we've got everything from a kind of tomahawk size all the way through typical kind of battle exercises all the way up to massive grey taxes so there's a big variety of axes just from scandinavia so therefore we've got text we've got written history that backs up the norse using axes we've got archaeology backing up that they used lots of axes and we've got um we've got a variety of types that are shown in art as well that we also find in archaeology and written texts so i think we can clue can conclude that indeed the norse or vikings did indeed use a whole bunch of axes did they use axes more than the people they were fighting against against in this period i think on balance of evidence yes if we look for this sort of preponderance of axes in anglo-saxon england or frankish france or germany do we find it no not really what we find in fact are loads of swords so the question is why why did the vikings or the norse use axes to such a large degree seemingly in preference to swords or was it well i want to answer that first bit first because i have seen a lot of people over the years when i've made videos talking about this era and these sorts of weapons express to me the point there is a valid point on paper that indeed to make a sword is a huge amount of work and a huge draw on your resources whereas to make something like an axe especially a small axe is really quite easy okay now the first thing i want to say is yes that's absolutely true and i don't disagree with that point and that might be a valid point it might be that for some reason due to resources trading whatever isolationist the fact that they weren't as they weren't part of the christian um interlocking trade networks and perhaps they found it difficult to import swords in normal ways we don't know that's the case we do also know that they made swords there were swords made in scandinavia very good quality ones so i'm not fully buying into this argument already but then we have to add a very important thing when we're talking about the vikings you know what the vikings did right so i've already mentioned that there are viking burials we find them in ireland which you've got to bear in mind was essentially a norse kingdom at that point we find them in all over scandinavia particularly in norway and very often those graves contain things that aren't from scandinavia they contain things that are from all over the places that vikings raided traded and just came into contact with so the simple fact is they could easily obtain things that were from outside of scandinavia and we know this because a lot of the swords found in scandinavia aren't actually scandinavian many of them are frankish many of them are english um so we know that they could obtain swords now you could still make the argument that only the most powerful people would end up with those swords only the richest you know the chieftain the leaders the fames only they would end up with the swords possibly but i think it's more than that i think there was a choice involved i think they actually chose to use axes more than other people now why might that be well rather than looking at the advantages of the swords which there are some advantages to it i'm going to focus on the advantages of the ax and possibly why the norse particularly people who went viking who were raiding might have preferred axes but just very very briefly i just want to extol a couple of the chief virtues of swords so one of the major advantages of swords is the whole thing is a blade backwards and forwards will cut and you've got a point it's difficult to grab difficult to grapple or disarm from someone so it's a very good weapon and it's got good hand protection not so much in this era it has to be said but still better hand protection than the typical axe although that's offset by the fact that you're using a large shield and when you're using a large shield in the right way the hand is not necessarily vulnerable but to me one of the chief advantages of the sword is it's super easy to wear at your side in a scabbard the way it's balanced the balance being more towards the hand than the tip makes it quite comfortable to wear it doesn't really swing around very much and it doesn't get in the way and in a scabbard it's completely safe so they are very very good sidearms for wearing they're big knives really aren't they they're big daggers so super easy to wear super easy to have as a backup weapon and remember that in many cases whether it's an axe or a sword that's your backup weapon that's your side arm the thing you wear at your belt the main weapon is still the spear for pitched battles so back to the axe why might lots of norse have preferred the axe well at this point it would be only too easy for me to talk a long time about the advantages of axes at smashing shields at hooking shields at smashing people in armor and just having an impact damage on helmets for example so if you are fighting armoured opponents an axe is a lot of the time a better weapon than uh than a sword is particularly this type of sword which doesn't have a great piercing point you can't cut through most armor certainly can't cut through helmets you can't really cut through a male shirt and the point isn't going to stab through a male shirt either so if you're just going to whack someone really really hard in the mail shirt on the helmet this is a much better item for the job because it combines a cutting blade with some aspects of a mace all of the inertia is up at the tip of the weapon but i'm not going to go into that as the main point rather i'm going to think about how different armies fought so if we're looking at anglo-saxon england or the frankish empire then quite simply a lot of these armies were geared up to fight other armies okay so you're dealing with spears and shields used in formation in shield walls um and your men are aiming to march for a long distance and then form up somewhere hopefully in an advantageous position maybe halfway up a hill um and then either defend that position or they're aiming to attack attack some type of fortification like a burr for example which is an earth and wood ramparted area usually around a town and this kind of thing so you're aiming you're equipping your troops to fight pitched battles but quite simply this often wasn't what the north were aiming to do when they were attacking an area so if you're invading first of all you're moving in quick relatively light ships in some cases the ships they would pull out of the water move across land and dump them in another river somewhere else so you're aiming to hit and run now in hit and run tactics a lot of the time you're attacking people who aren't necessarily prepared or ready for it now if we just compare an axe for a second with a sword most people would accept that a sword is a better defensive weapon it's quicker it's more nimble you can parry with it a little bit better it can move around a shield very nicely but the axe is basically more offensive so as a weapon of attack i would argue that the axe is potentially a more offensive weapon some people at this point might argue on max matt you can also use it as a as a as a tool arguably yes it depends on the type of act certainly both of these i have cut wood with and they both work perfectly well something like the uh giant graytax or danax is got a very thin blade and you could chop with wood with it but you likely to shorten the the um usable life the service life of the axe by doing so because it's really optimized for fighting so it's a very thin long fighting blade but certainly some types of axes could be used at all also they could be used for breaking into fortresses remember of course that the norse a lot of the time were attacking church settlements so if you're trying to break your way into a monastery complex breaking through doors windows if they've got glass although not a lot of them would have had at this time i don't think but yeah absolutely if you're doing that kind of rough kind of breaking into places destroying stuff capturing people to sell as slaves remember this was a major part of the norse uh viking operation was capturing humans particularly in ireland uh famously so capturing humans to sell in the slave trade but additionally you know just just generally looting and rampaging an axe will be a good all-purpose kind of thing but moreover than that i think it's it's actually even in single combat it's a weapon of great offense if you're coming up against unarmored opponents or armored opponents this is super super useful and super super effective now there is another sort of elephant in the room here some of the evidence suggests that very often the norse the vikings were not as well armored as their opponents sometimes they may have even chosen not to be because they were trying to be quick moving and in fact even if we go to the battle of stamford bridge in 1066 harold hardrada's army is described as not having time to put their armor on so they did have armor this is quite a late period in the viking era it has to be said it's the after the middle of the uh 11th century so it's quite late in in viking history um so they did have armor but they they were whatever they were doing at camp or whatever else they they didn't have it on okay so they weren't in the process of raiding they were probably just not ready for battle but the fact is that if we look at artistic evidence at least there is some suggestion perhaps that the scandinavians didn't have as great an access to male shirts for example as some of the people who are fighting against so maybe a weapon if they if you go on the offense maybe a weapon like an axe is even more appropriate in that scenario because it's a way of just closing and attacking and it's a very attacking mindset so if you just think about single combat for a minute a person using an axe and shield against someone with the sword and shield instantly has a very dep very very different mindset because this weapon is top heavy okay it's top heavy but any impact with it is going to be really really severe on the opponent as long as you hit the opponent of course rather than their shield a sword by and large is much more nimble is much longer so it's easier to hit the opponent but when you do hit them it's going to have less effect yeah i mean if you if you hit someone with a sharp sword in the leg it's going to take part of their leg off but you've got to get to their leg and in fact legs with shield systems are relatively easy to protect by distance okay so it's the upper targets are really easier to get to so i regard an axe as a far more offensive and attacking weapon than a sword a sword i think is better overall but if your prime directive is attacking and completely subduing almost with a rush if you imagine the highlanders of the 17th century they knew that they couldn't stand and duke it out in a firefight with british government forces but they knew that if they charged down on those government forces and came to hand-hand combat as quickly as possible then they stood a chance now if we look at pitched battles between the norse and people like the anglo-saxons if we look at the anglo-saxon chronicle and look at the statistics then we'll see that very often in pitched battles the north didn't do particularly well what they really excelled at was attacking quickly forces that weren't ready or indeed people that weren't forces at all attacking civilian settlements and doing hit-and-run guerrilla warfare and i think the axe really stands out in this context so in conclusion i would argue that yes absolutely the norse absolutely did use axes more than other people why did they use axes more than other people i don't think it's to do with resources i think there was plenty of weapons and armor and silver and money flowing into scandinavia in this period from numerous sources due to their activities i don't think it was to do with resources i think they chose that's the that's the first thing to say i think that scandinavians chose to use axes and i don't have the answers for exactly why but my current thinking and this may evolve in future and i would really welcome you to post underneath with your views and thoughts on this subject but my current thinking is that yes they absolutely did use axes more than pretty much everyone else in europe and the main reason why is because the type of warfare they'd specialized in hit and run quick lightning attacks almost we could use the term blitzkrieg here and being very very offensive and so i think this was really what they excelled at and i think when we get all the way to the 11th century when things like this big great acts were involved i think what we're starting to see is a specialization they have specialized in axis for so long that we're getting distinct different types of weapons you might have had axes that were more specialized for throwing you might have had axes which were more specialized for smashing in armor like big heavy thick bladed bearded axes and indeed specialized axes that were for taking on multiple opponents and occupying a space very similar job to the later montante or greatsword behind me whereby you can occupy multiple opponents and of course at the battle of stamford bridge we have this famous account of the um of the norse warrior on a bridge holding off fending off holding the bridge and fending off a bunch of anglo-saxon opponents he was then eventually stabbed from below the spear apparently allegedly um so i think what we see is such a degree of specialization in the acts amongst norse warriors that we see these different types of axes much how in other places in later centuries we see different types of swords developed for different purposes what we see in the viking era are different axes developed for different purposes but this is something we really only see either in scandinavia or in the scandinavian sphere and i would include england in that because for parts of english history we were almost at what we were basically a scandinavian country under scandinavian kingship and just to mention as well while i think of it harold harold godwinson himself often described as an english king his mother was uh danish i believe so he was half scandinavian himself so um when we see things like this in the bear tapestry and think that is an english house call whoa is it it's kind of kind of a scandinavian house car really it might be an englishman in dna terms but culturally in terms of the weapon he was using possibly even the fighting style and the tactics could indeed really have been described as a viking so i hope that's thought provoking i'm very interested to hear your thoughts on this do you agree with me that uh that that axes were indeed exceptionally popular in viking scandinavia and amongst the norse i think that's undeniable i think it's pretty well proven in the text the archaeology and the art and lastly why why do you think it was why do you think the main reasons it's unlikely to just be one reason but i think a major reason is their style of warfare thanks for watching i hope you've enjoyed the video and i'll see you really soon on the channel again for another video cheers folks you

Channel: scholagladiatoria

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Id: 6bTBlT_8dkU

Length: 35min 17sec (2117 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 23 2021