Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 179, the Battle

of Carrom. This show is free and independent due to

member support and as thanks for helping keep the community going I offer members only

content including extra episodes and rough transcripts. And right now members are listening

to an episode on Viking Marriage and it's a inevitable conclusion Viking divorce. So if you're

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Podcast.com and thank you very much to Brian, Pete and Kathy for contributing already.

When we left off last week 35 ships had launched from Denmark and set their course for England.

As we have been learning the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were now seriously in danger of Viking

or attacks having lost the protection of the Frankish Coast Guard. Not only that but over the last

approximately 40 years the Vikingers and the kingdoms that supported them had been growing quite

wealthy and powerful from plundering their neighbors and absolutely hammering Scotland and Ireland.

And perhaps it was those decades of success that led to an expansion of the scale of their

voyages because we aren't talking about three ships landing quickly looting a monastery and then

disappearing before the warbands could be raised. Things had changed and now we're looking at more

than 10 times the number of ships being launched for a single attack. So we're not dealing with a

small raiding band looking for opportunistic sights to loot. We're looking at an army and the question

should be asked if there was an army what exactly is its purpose. When you're dealing with more than

a thousand warriors they're probably going to have some sort of plan. Not only that but the warriors

are going to want to get paid and you really can't pay for all of that just by sacking an occasional

monastery. The cost benefit ratio would be nightmarish for something like that. They would have to

hit either somewhere larger or have a long-term strategy that would entice the warriors to stick around.

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