Editing Longship (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Tapisserie bato1.jpg|thumb|Image from the [[Bayeux Tapestry]] showing [[Harold Godwinson]]'s ship approaching a beach, probably in the Somme Estuary<ref>Wolfgang Grape, The Bayeux Tapestry, Prestel. {{ISBN|3-7913-1365-7}}. p. 95.</ref>]]
The Vikings were major contributors to the shipbuilding technology of their day. Their shipbuilding methods spread through extensive contact with other cultures, and ships from the 11th and 12th centuries are known to borrow many of the longships' design features, despite the passing of many centuries.

Many historians, archaeologists and adventurers have reconstructed longships in an attempt to understand how they worked.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/|title=Vikingeskibe og maritime håndværk|website=Vikingeskibsmuseet.dk|access-date=14 December 2021|archive-date=6 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211206135436/https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/|url-status=live}}</ref> These re-creators have been able to identify many of the advances that the Vikings implemented in order to make the longship a superior vessel. The longship was light, fast, and nimble. The true Viking warships, or ''langskips'', were long and narrow, frequently with a length-breadth ratio of 7:1; they were very fast under sail or propelled by warriors who served as oarsmen.<ref name="Chartrand et al 2016">{{cite book |last1=Chartrand |first1=René |last2=Durham |first2=Keith |last3=Harrison |first3=Mark |last4=Heath |first4=Ian |title=The Vikings |year=2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4728-1323-7 |page=188 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dLOhDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA188}}</ref> In Scandinavia, the longship was the usual vessel for war until the 12th–13th centuries. [[Leidang]] fleet-levy laws remained in place for most of the Middle Ages, demanding that the freemen should build, man, and furnish ships for war if demanded by the king—ships with at least 20 or 25 oar-pairs (40–50+ rowers). By the late 14th century, these low-boarded vessels were at a disadvantage against newer, taller vessels—when the [[Victual Brothers]], in the employ of the [[Hanseatic League|Hansa]], attacked [[Bergen]] in late 1393, the "great ships" of the pirates could not be boarded by the Norwegian levy ships called out by [[Margaret I of Denmark]], and the raiders were able to sack the town with impunity. While earlier times had seen larger and taller longships in service, by this time the authorities had also gone over to other types of ships for warfare. The last Viking longship was defeated in 1429.