ABSTRACT
All through the Dark Ages there were two great weapons of offence in siegecraft, the ram and the bore. The ram was often a vast bulk, the largest tree of the countryside, fitted with an enormous head, and requiring forty or sixty men to swing it. Among the minor tools of early siegecraft the many devices of twisted hurdle-work deserve mention. These mantlets were mainly used to shelter the advancing assailants. Two main points of interest strike the reader who studies the details of the great leaguer. The first is the extraordinary skill in the technique of siegecraft which the Danes had attained after sixty years of raiding in the empire. The second, contrasting strangely with the first, is the fact that they completely failed to appreciate the necessity of cutting off the communication of the city with the outer world.
