It was easy for Scandinavians to be in York, Frisians in Ipswich, Saxons in London, and the fact was so unremarkable that it is hardly recorded. You didn’t need a harbour to land because you could beach a flat-bottomed boat on any stretch of sand; so the great customs ports like Quentovic were tucked into estuaries or else, like Dorestad, upstream on the Rhine. More, going off to sea did not always mean building a huge ship and recruiting a large crew, although having more men who could fight off raiders was often a good idea; there was no need, on the coastal runs, to share the costs and
...more
