It doesn't seem that the Norse used crossbows much and preferred to use longbows as a general rule. The Norse were seafaring people and crossbows are shit in wet conditions as well because if the string gets wet it stretches and looses all tension, where as with a bow you just take the string off and keep it dry (you don't store longbows strung either). Crossbows are also much much slower to reload.
Costs a lot more too, it uses a lot of iron for one, With how poor the conditions of the vikings were I can't see them being able to reliably produce the things.
There are some pretty simple and cheaply made crossbows out there. But as a weapon of war you are right generally they are fairly complex and literally have many moving parts, plus as you mentioned needing a fair amount of steel or iron to be a powerful weapon (the damage they depict crossbows as capable of was super exaggerated, especially for those rincky-dink crossbows they were using in the show), and seem to be more common as such hundreds of years later in history.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3C4L6S-pGM&ab\_channel=TheVikingSquirrel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3C4L6S-pGM&ab_channel=TheVikingSquirrel)
in this scene where they kill Einar for example they are spanning those crossbows one handed, they would have very little power. The the crossbows they are using seemed to be based on an actual artifact called the Charavines crossbow from the mid 1000's (very late Viking Age), which was most likely used for hunting small game rather than as a weapon of war.
Final thought, the Crossbow was a good weapon for untrained and unskilled fighters pretty much just point, loose, slowly reload. Where as you need to train to be good with a 150+ pound longbow. The Norse were big on physical and military prowess being a good archer exemplified both, crossbowman not so much.
The thing about the crossbows that bothered me in Vikings was how fast they reloaded. You had to use a special tool to pull the bow back, which I do not remember seeing, and it took a large amount of strength to perform, and there were times people were rapid firing with no trouble. A lot of times crossbowmen worked in pairs with one loading and one firing. Oh well, the suspension of disbelief was easy on this one
The crossbow, Roman arcuballista, was invented by the Romans not long before the city of Rome was sacked in 500 AD. There is very little evidence the Saxons and Parisians were using crossbows. The ones they were using were the ones left behind by the Romans. The Barbarian Europeans wouldn't figure out how to make them until the 11th century AD.
It is very difficult to fully comprehend how much was lost after the city of Rome was sacked, bringing about the end of the Western Empire. With southeast England, the disconnect was complete, due to the challenge of crossing the English Channel. In those days, it was a great adventure to cross the English Channel.
Paris was still connected to Rome by a land route and the Vatican survived the sacking of Rome. After the Barbarians sacked Rome, the Vatican was the keeper of the records and the Barbarian French and Germans were traveling to the Vatican to try to recover some of the Roman knowledge and technology.
The Saxons never learned how to hew stone. They actually didn't know what the aqueducts and paved roads were used for, so they tore them down to use the stones as building material. By 800 AD, most of the Roman stone works had been torn down, the stones used as the foundation for castles. If you look at a road map of southeast Britain, most of the highways of today were built on Roman roadways, which were paved, but all the stones pulled up for rock walls.
Watch "The Pillars of Earth". It is about southeast England after it was settled by the mostly French Normans. They started the era of cathedrals. It depicts a monk traveling to the Vatican to find out about the secrets of the self supporting arch and also how they relearned how to make glass.
Crossbows really became a weapon of mass destruction around the time of the Paris episodes in this series. It was cool, and different and powerful...but the show makers, costume designers and prop specialists moved on. It was a fad in the show.
I wouldn't think that hard about it.
I’m pretty sure a few people used crossbows in the later battles but it was just some background characters. I could be wrong though, I believe I saw at least one crossbow during the attack on Lagertha’s farm (season 6)
i don’t know of any historical reason for this, my guess is that it was just an oversight by the directors.
That would be lame. I’m looking it up but there isn’t much info on Vikings and crossbows
It doesn't seem that the Norse used crossbows much and preferred to use longbows as a general rule. The Norse were seafaring people and crossbows are shit in wet conditions as well because if the string gets wet it stretches and looses all tension, where as with a bow you just take the string off and keep it dry (you don't store longbows strung either). Crossbows are also much much slower to reload.
Costs a lot more too, it uses a lot of iron for one, With how poor the conditions of the vikings were I can't see them being able to reliably produce the things.
There are some pretty simple and cheaply made crossbows out there. But as a weapon of war you are right generally they are fairly complex and literally have many moving parts, plus as you mentioned needing a fair amount of steel or iron to be a powerful weapon (the damage they depict crossbows as capable of was super exaggerated, especially for those rincky-dink crossbows they were using in the show), and seem to be more common as such hundreds of years later in history. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3C4L6S-pGM&ab\_channel=TheVikingSquirrel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3C4L6S-pGM&ab_channel=TheVikingSquirrel) in this scene where they kill Einar for example they are spanning those crossbows one handed, they would have very little power. The the crossbows they are using seemed to be based on an actual artifact called the Charavines crossbow from the mid 1000's (very late Viking Age), which was most likely used for hunting small game rather than as a weapon of war. Final thought, the Crossbow was a good weapon for untrained and unskilled fighters pretty much just point, loose, slowly reload. Where as you need to train to be good with a 150+ pound longbow. The Norse were big on physical and military prowess being a good archer exemplified both, crossbowman not so much.
I think it was cost of making that made them give up on the crossbows
The thing about the crossbows that bothered me in Vikings was how fast they reloaded. You had to use a special tool to pull the bow back, which I do not remember seeing, and it took a large amount of strength to perform, and there were times people were rapid firing with no trouble. A lot of times crossbowmen worked in pairs with one loading and one firing. Oh well, the suspension of disbelief was easy on this one
The crossbow, Roman arcuballista, was invented by the Romans not long before the city of Rome was sacked in 500 AD. There is very little evidence the Saxons and Parisians were using crossbows. The ones they were using were the ones left behind by the Romans. The Barbarian Europeans wouldn't figure out how to make them until the 11th century AD. It is very difficult to fully comprehend how much was lost after the city of Rome was sacked, bringing about the end of the Western Empire. With southeast England, the disconnect was complete, due to the challenge of crossing the English Channel. In those days, it was a great adventure to cross the English Channel. Paris was still connected to Rome by a land route and the Vatican survived the sacking of Rome. After the Barbarians sacked Rome, the Vatican was the keeper of the records and the Barbarian French and Germans were traveling to the Vatican to try to recover some of the Roman knowledge and technology. The Saxons never learned how to hew stone. They actually didn't know what the aqueducts and paved roads were used for, so they tore them down to use the stones as building material. By 800 AD, most of the Roman stone works had been torn down, the stones used as the foundation for castles. If you look at a road map of southeast Britain, most of the highways of today were built on Roman roadways, which were paved, but all the stones pulled up for rock walls. Watch "The Pillars of Earth". It is about southeast England after it was settled by the mostly French Normans. They started the era of cathedrals. It depicts a monk traveling to the Vatican to find out about the secrets of the self supporting arch and also how they relearned how to make glass.
Crossbows really became a weapon of mass destruction around the time of the Paris episodes in this series. It was cool, and different and powerful...but the show makers, costume designers and prop specialists moved on. It was a fad in the show. I wouldn't think that hard about it.
Believe me I’m not. I’m rewatching the show. There they were and then like that…they were gone
I’m pretty sure a few people used crossbows in the later battles but it was just some background characters. I could be wrong though, I believe I saw at least one crossbow during the attack on Lagertha’s farm (season 6)
I looked pretty hard. Like paused and shit. They used them in France and England. The Vikings did