Saxons, A.D. 364.
Their ships. and the Caledonians on the north, who ravaged the frontiers and spread terror throughout the now civilized provinces of Britannia Romana. Nor was this all: while harassed by the descendants of the Celts, the Germanic Saxons invaded England on the east and south, startling the Romans and their subjects by the daring intrepidity with which they skimmed over the roughest seas in "boats of leather," and, without respect of persons or property, plundered and carried off everything worthy of removal. Besides these frail craft the Saxons, however, possessed more than one description of vessel altogether superior to their leather-covered boats, called by the old historians in Latin, Kiulæ; in Saxon, Ceol, or Ciol; and in English, Keels.[1] Some writers also maintain that they had strong open boats adapted to warfare at sea.
That these German rovers possessed larger vessels than even their war-galleys is ascertained by the fact that, within seventy or eighty years after they first gained a secure footing in Britain, they received a reinforcement of "five thousand men, in seventeen ships,"[2] or at the rate of about three hundred men to a ship, besides provisions, stores, and munitions of war. But of their form, size, or equipment no accounts have been preserved, and it can, therefore, tend to no useful purpose to
- ↑ Camden describes Kiulæ as a general name for all Saxon vessels. Other writers say that Kiula meant "long ships," i.e., men of war, or galleys, whatever might be their precise shape. Keel now represents a description of barge which has long been in use in the north of England, and especially on the Tyne, built to hold twenty-one tons four hundredweight, or a keel of coals.
- ↑ Macpherson's "Annals of Commerce," i. p. 217.
