At first sight, this book seems to have little to offer the military or naval historian. While clearly a work of considerable scholarship, it seems to be exclusively aimed at philologists and archaeologists with a particular interest in Viking society. The detailed discussion of fragmentary and confusing texts, either carved on various stone memorials or recorded in verses seems far from the interests of those concerned with the strategy and tactics of warlike encounters or the design and use of weapons. This perception, however, would fail to do justice to the way in which Judith Jesch makes the reader aware of the wider context to which her texts relate.
First she clearly establishes the nature of the evidence under discussion and then considers in turn words found in these sources relating to Viking activities in general, the destinations of their voyages and their ships and their equipment. She also discusses words used of crews, fleets, battles and the general ethos surrounding both war and trade. As she herself states, � it is first in the Viking age that it is possible to compare the evidence of the ships themselves with that of the words in which the people of that period referred to them.� There are moreover, �texts which can help reconstruct the social, political and economic contexts in which ships were used.�
This is not an easy book for one unfamiliar with a linguistic approach to texts to read. Individual words are often subject to lengthy discussion of their usage in different sources and to some extent a familiarity with Norse is assumed. However, to take the example of the section on Battles at Sea, some insights of value to naval historians also emerge. Six major battles are celebrated in skaldic verses between c.980 and 1062. The poets or skalds make plain the preparations before battle, with some indication of the size of fleets. They convey quite precise details of the location of the fighting. They may describe parleys before battle is joined. They then give an outline of the tactics used; the fleets come together, the opposing vessels are laid alongside each other; the attack involves boarding and ferocious hand to hand fighting. Various verses include vivid and gory descriptions of the ships during the battles; �the dark planks were awash with blood�; or �blood splashed onto the pliable sheer-strake�. Jesch does not consider to what extent these descriptions may be conventional, perhaps not seeing this as her remit, but even so the accumulation of evidence and examples from a large number of sources is valuable.
The book includes clear and informative photographs of many inscriptions, a very full bibliography and appendices relating to both the runic and the skaldic corpus.
This is a book aimed primarily at the specialist but those with a more general interest in the Viking age and its ships will find much of interest. For them the author has demonstrated how the careful study of the vocabulary of the period can reveal much of the world to which it relates.
Susan Rose
University of Surrey Roehampton.
� 2002 De Re Militari