Ships and seamanship Although shipbuilding in Viking-Age Scandinavia were not fundamentally different from those in other parts of northern Europe, archaeological evidence shows that Viking ships were lighter, slimmer, faster, and thus probably better sailers than the heavier vessels used by the English and, presumably, the Franks at that time.
There are two main reasons for these differences. The first is geographical. In Scandinavia waterways and access to the sea were more important factors in determining the location of settlements than they were in other parts of northern Europe. In Norway and Sweden most people lived near the coast or around large lakes, while the forests and mountains were very sparsely settled. Inland waterways were not only sheltered; they were also routes to the sea. No part of Viking-Age Denmark was far from the sea; it was virtually an archipelago, joined to the Continent by a narrow strip of land, and separated from the interior of the great Scandinavian peninsula by a deep barrier of forest. These natural features also meant that the authority of many rulers in Viking-Age Scandinavia, unlike that of their contemporaries in Europe, to a large extent depended on ships and control of the sea. The extensive empire that Danish kings ruled at the end of the eighth century was to a significant degree based on naval power.
The second reason is historical. Scandinavia was sufficiently remote from the Romans and, later, the Franks for its political and religious life to flourish relatively unaffected by the transformations that occurred in other parts of Europe in the first millennium AD. One feature that survived was the central role of the ship as both a religious and secular symbol, a role that is illustrated by the fact that Bronze-Age stone ship-settings metal representations of ships were already well developed over a thousand years before Christ. The symbolic significance of ships naturally led to refinements in their construction: a fine ship conferred prestige on its owner. In the clash between Christian and Nordic culture that occurred in the Viking Age, ship burials were more frequent than they had previously been, implying that ships had acquired even greater significance as a religious symbol, at least among the pagans who resisted the advance of the new religion.
The symbolic and practical importance of ships in early Scandinavian society resulted in such improvements in ship design that Scandinavians were well equipped in comparison with other north Europeans. The contrast was all the greater because in many parts of Europe one of the main functions of ships had long been to carry cargoes, a purpose for which speed and elegance were not highly prized qualities. On the Atlantic and the North Sea Viking ships met the same challenges as the ships of the English, Frisians, and Franks, but they did so for different reasons.
(From: The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings.)
