Piracy and Trade 261 



ready for the formation uf a Heel for either side in any 

 national dispute. These private vessels were by no 

 means exclusively, nay, they were probably not princi- 

 pally, ships of war. It was, indeed, the custom of most of 

 the young nobility to begin their adult years — adult 

 years seem to have begun with these hardy spirits after 

 the twelfth birthday — by one or more voyages of piracy 

 in foreit^n waters. This was a sort of i^rand tour for the 

 gilded Norwegian youth. But after they had been so 

 employed once or twice, the vessels might continue to 

 be used, now as pirate vessels, now as merchantmen. 



The chief export of Norway in those days must have 

 been fish. In Catholic Europe during the Middle Ages 

 fish was a commodity more in demand (proportionately) 

 than it is to-day. There were beside, furs — peltry 

 — of which the country must have possessed a mucli 

 greater supply in those days than it has now. It is very 

 easy to see what imports were the most valued. There 

 would first be arms and armour of the best kind obtain- 

 able, then clothes of various descriptions. Welsh {i.e. 

 French) repps and Welsh swords, says a verse of northern 

 poetry. Before the Northmen learned to smithy the 

 finest weapons for themselves, they must have been a 

 good deal dependent on importation from foreign 

 countries. That very characteristic piece of defensive 

 armour which we read of so often in the Sagas and 

 poems, tlie ring-sark (chain-shirt) or byrnie (brunia) 

 was a manufacture originally borrowed from the Franks. 



For clothes : the Northmen had a great deal of vanity 

 as regards their wearing apparel. In the Icelandic 

 Sagas, for instance, we always hear of the foremost 

 men appearing (at the Thing or wherever else it might 



