[Regia-NA] The shield wall

[Conall]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <wjy851@mail.usask.ca>


> I ran across the above article online last week. Does it seem that the
author is
> perhaps assigning too much formality and discipline to the Viking Age
shield
> wall? Do you think the average 10th century army could effectively pull
off the
> different arrangements and layouts?

I have an interesting  book called "The Viking Art of War" by Paddy
Griffith, Greenhill Books/Lional Leventhal Ltd., London, 1995.  ISBN
1-85367-208-4.  Mr. Griffith was a senior lecturer at RMA Sandhurst for
sixteen years and is apparently a fairly noted author on the history of
warfare.

    In the book he has examined the sagas, Anglo Saxon Chronicle,  accounts
of the Battles of Maldon, Hastings, and other contemporary accounts to
discuss whether the "Vikings" did in fact have any formal military
organization and if so, what it was.  The author seems to have done his
research pretty thoroughly, and he argues pretty convincingly that while the
Norsemen may not have had the rigid formalized type of military structure
that we normaly associate with the Romans, they did in fact seem to have had
a a relatively standardized type of "basic training" that perhaps developed
from a cultural basis rather than from any cohesive government.  Also, that
through common tradition and experience they may have evolved a few sets of
effective tactics and techniques that may have been somewhat "common
knowledge" and possibly widely used.

    Just my two silver siggtrygs,

    Conall,
Going back into the fog.