Middle Era

Part 5 - Explorers

The Vikings 

 The Vikings, also known as Norsemen, were pirate/traders who came mainly from Scandinavia (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden). Much of the land was mountainous and most towns depended on the North Sea and the Baltic Sea for transport and survival. Consequently, war ships were vitally important.

Viking ships were light, seaworthy ships made from planks as thin as one inch (2.5 cm). Each row of planks overlapped the one below and were held together with wrought iron rivets and sealed with waterproof caulking, creating a strong, flexible hull.

The boats were long and narrow with a shallow draft permitting them to land on beaches and sail in waters only one metre deep. When necessary, they were light enough to be carried over portages. The symmetrical bow and stern allowed ships to reverse direction quickly without having to turn around; a feature that proved useful in sea ice and narrow rivers. They had 13 to 34 rowing benches and were often large enough to carry 100 warriors. Later versions sported a rectangular sail on a single mast which was used to augment the effort of the rowers, particularly on long journeys. Their maximum speed was around 15 knots (nautical miles per hour).

For ocean-going transports, the Vikings built cargo ships about 54 feet (16 m) long with a beam of 15 feet (4.6 m), capable of carrying up to 122 tons. These were capable of sailing 75 miles (121 km) in one day and, with a crew of about 25, routinely crossed the North Atlantic carrying livestock and goods to and from Greenland and Iceland. 

Scandinavians mercenaries served the Byzantine Empire from 839 CE and Vikings regularly traded furs, tusks, seal fat and slaves along Volga river as far as Novgorod, and Kiev (Russia) and Bagdad. In the 10th century CE, they established settlements in France, England, Scotland, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland (Canada). (The Normans who successfully invaded England in 1066 CE were descendant of Vikings who occupied northern France).

The Viking expansion may have been caused by emperor Charlemagne's attempt to force all Scandinavian pagans to adopt Christianity. Either they would convert or be executed. Many of them emigrated instead. Viking ships travelled freely throughout Western Europe, raiding or trading as opportunity permitted, because there was no organized naval opposition until the 12th century. 

 In 1107, the Christian convert, King Sigurd I of Norway sailed to the eastern Mediterranean to fight for the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Danes and Swedes participated energetically in the Baltic Crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries, leaving behind trading posts in many parts of the Mediterranean.

Christopher Columbus sailed West with the objective of establishing direct commercial communications with India and the Asian kingdoms. He left Spain with three ships, in August 1492, and made landfall in the Americas on 12 October. He establishing a colony in what is now Haiti – the first European settlement in the Americas since the Norse colonies almost 500 years earlier.

The Spanish soon realized that the Americas were a new continent not connected to Asia but the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas had assigned the eastern routes, that went around Africa, to Portugal.

Vasco de Gama led a squadron of ships to India via the Atlantic Ocean in 1502. When he returned to Portugal, the Spanish king wanted to avoid damaging relations with the Portuguese and wanted to find a new route to Asia. The idea of a western route had been suggested in 1513, after Balboa discovered the Pacific ocean could be reached by crossing the isthmus of Panama and, in 1518 the king commissioned an expedition to find a new trading route.

This was led by Ferdinand Magellan and Faleiro in command of five vessels. Magellan sailed south through the Atlantic Ocean to Patagonia, passing through the difficult Strait of Magellan into the Pacific Ocean. The expedition reached the Spice Islands in 1521 and complete the first circumnavigation of Earth by returning home via the Indian Ocean and south Africa, but without Magellan who was killed in the Philippines in 1521. When Victoria, the sole surviving ship of the five which had started the voyage, returned to Spain after a journey of 3 years and 1 month, only 18 men out of the original 237 men had survived.