The Vikings are notorious for raiding and terrorizing their neighbors in Britain and France and are understood to have been active in the east around the Balkans and as far as Constantinople. However we hear really little about the Vikings in Spain and Portugal. Did the Vikings leave these neighboring lands untouched?
The Vikings were active on the Iberian Peninsula between the 9th and the 11th centuries. This history is mostly obscured given that this coincides with the rise of Muslim guideline, which had a much more long lasting and prevalent effect of the development of the location. This means that reference of the Vikings is much less prevalent in the surviving written sources, and they also do not seem to have made any settlements.
The Vikings did leave their mark on Spain. Let’s take a look at what we do understand about the Norsemen’s activities on the Iberian Peninsula.
Norsemen in Iberia A number of modern sources describe the Vikings in Spain, but not as”Vikings”. Latin sources call them Normanni, which indicates Norsemen, while Arabic sources describe them as majus ΒΈ which means”heathen adorers of many gods”. This term was used to describe numerous pagan peoples, so it is not constantly clear that they are referring to the Vikings. 9 th Century The Vikings appear to have very first appeared
in Spain in the 9 th century. Their very first major raid is dated to August 844, when they cruised to Galicia with a fleet of ships with red sails after sacking Bordeaux in France. The troop or warriors robbed and plundered a number of the villages along the coast of Galicia up until they were lastly stopped in their descent
by the army of king Ramilo I of Asturias. A regional legend suggests a more magnificent source for the redemption of the Spaniards. They recommend that when the Vikings reached the mouth of the river Masma, the regional Bishop Gonzalo prayed for security, and not long after, a storm sank a good portion of the Cycling fleet. This loss did not stop
the group of raiders who are taped as raiding around Lisbon in September on their method to Seville. The recorded this city in October, but not the main citadel, which remained under Muslim control. Rather, their threatened and intimidated the surrounding residents attempting to require them to turn over the fortress. Eventually the Emir of Corduba, Abd al-Rahman II, sent troops that burned 30 of the Viking longships using “Greek fire”, which sparked in the water. More than 1,000 Vikings were eliminated, and some converted to Islam to be spared. Seville and the surrounding location reclaimed, but reconstructing took many years. Viking activity here may have activated the placement of a shipyard in Seville, which result in the creation of a Spanish fleet.
A single band of adventurers reportedly went back to Spain in 859-862 and raided along the coast until they went through Gibraltar and robbed the little Moroccan state of Nekor, where they apparently defeated a Moorish army. But this story may be more truth than legend, as some claim that these raiders were none other than Hastein and Bjorn Ironside. This duration of activity seems to have ended when the Vikings of Denmark, who were probably also the source of the raiders, sent out an Embassy to Abd al-Rahman II. He reacted by sending his favorite court poet, The Gazelle, to the court of King Harken in Denmark. 10 th Century While minor raids no doubt continued throughout the intervening century, the next major duration of Viking activity in Spain seems to have actually been in the 2nd half of the 10th century.
2 accounts of the death of the famous Viking Erik Bloodaxe suggest that he died in Spain, though many others state that he died in England. While he most likely didn’t pass away in Spain, that it was recommended as a possible story recommends that the Vikings were active in the region.
Many sources for the 970s and 960s refer to Viking raids on abbeys and villages around Galicia, Al-Andalus, and Lisbon. One source recommends another attack on Lisbon in 966 with 28 ships.
In 968, a group of 100 ships led by the Viking Gunderer attempted to rob the location of Iria and made trouble in the location for 3 years before being beat by the forces of an unknown Gonzales Sanchez. In the consequences, Bishop Sisnando strengthened the city of Santiago de Compostela.
The Vikings may have tried to develop a firmer grip in the Iberian Peninsula at this time, as they did in Britain and France, as one charter from 996 utilizes a Norse fortress as a local landmark.
A series of early middle ages rock castles built on hills and mountains of the Galician coast offering broad vision out over the ocean might have been integrated in reaction to the continuing Norse raids.
11 th Century The Vikings were still making their existence understood in Iberia in the 11 th century, with known Viking
raids taped in the Chronicon Lusitanium for 1008 and 1016. But at this stage, they seem to have actually been “going through”instead of making Spain a target. The Heimskingla recommends that
Olaf II of Norway raided the coast on his method to the Holy Land in 2015. Another source suggests that a couple of years later on, a Viking team kidnapped a female called Meitilli and her daughter for ransom. They got a cape, a sword,
a brief, 3
pieces of linen, a cow, and some salt. This is the ransom of passing sailors instead of a raiding force. A charter of King Alonso V of Leon in 1024 combined the bishopric of Tui into that
of Santiago due to the fact that the bishop and other senior authorities of Tui were taken by the Vikings as servants. However while Viking raids might have been less arranged in this duration, they were still troublesome enough that in 1055, Bishop Cresconius of Iria exempted the people from resting on Sundays in the case of a Saracen or Viking attack. Viking Legacy As can be seen, the history of the Vikings in Spain is
patchy, pieced
together by discusses in charters and comparable files. Since the histories composed in this duration focus on the Saracen domination of Spain, this is. There is an increasing interest in the Viking influence on the country. While they might not have established settlements and penetrated the gentility as
they carried out in England and France, the Vikings definitely seem to have hadan impact. Numerous strongholds appear to have actually been a reaction to Viking raids, and the Spanish fleet of the period, which would later on explore the globe, seems to have actually begun as a response to Viking raiders. Residents also mark the Spanish resistance to the Vikings on the very first Sunday of August, when volunteers from the community gown up and sail a replica 11th-century Viking longboat down the river Ulla to the town of Catoira. There they meet townsfolk, who successfully fend them off. The affair ends with
both sides covering themselves
in white wine to represent blood and delighting in local Galician specials. This is the type of event of which the Vikings would have authorized. Discover pieces celebrating the Viking longships in the VKNG Collection.< img decoding=" async"loading="lazy"width="1000"height ="400"src ="https://everythingviking.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/viking-history-the-vikings-in-spain-5.jpg "alt ="Viking
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