Viking activity in the Iberian peninsula seems to have begun around the mid-9th centuryFletcher 1984, ch. 1, note 51. as an extension of Viking raids and the establishment of bases in Francia in the early 9th century. While connections between the Norse and eastern Islamic lands were well-established, particularly involving the Rus' along the Volga and around the Caspian Sea, relations with the western edge of Islam were more sporadic.Anne Kormann and Else Roesdahl, "The Vikings in Islamic Lands", in The Arabian Journey: Danish Connections with the Islamic World over a Thousand Years, ed. K. von Folsach, T. Lundbaek, and P. Mortensen (Aarhus: Prehistoric Museum Moesgard, 1996), p. 12. Although Vikings may have over-wintered in Iberia, no evidence has been found for trading or settlement. Indeed, the Iberian peninsula may not have offered particularly wealthy targets in the 9th to 10th centuries.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 5-12. Sporadic raiding continued until the end of the Viking Age.
The knowledge of Vikings in Iberia is mainly based on written accounts. There are archaeological findings of what may have been anchors of Viking ships,Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 7. and some shapes of mounds by riversides look similar to the Norse longphorts in Ireland. These may have been ports or docks for longships. Since 1961, the Viking Festival of Catoira in Pontevedra reenacts a Viking troop landing on their shores.
Terminology
In medieval Latin sources about Iberia, the Vikings are usually referred to as normanni ('northmen') and gens normannorum or gens nordomannorum ('race of the northmen'), along with forms in l- like lordomanni apparently reflecting nasal dissimilation in local Romance languages,Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 15-17. or others which have an obscure etymology, as leodemanorum or lotimanorum, frequent in Galician charters.Morales Romero 2004, p. 87. In Arabic sources, they are referred to as majūs (مَجوس), but as this term denoted a wide range of pagans, references to majūs in Arabic are not necessarily references specifically to Scandinavian raiders.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 17-27. The prominent early Arabic source Al-Mas'ūdī also identified the 844 raiders on Seville partly as Rūs and (probably borrowing from Iberian Latin lordomanni) al-lawdh'āna, which may more specifically indicate Scandinavian raiders.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 23-24.
Non-violent contact Aside from Viking raids in the Islamic Mediterranean, it has been imagined that there were also sustained diplomatic relations between the Vikings and the Islamic world.Ibn-Dihya, translated in Stefansson, Jon, "The Vikings in Spain. From Arabic (Moorish) and Spanish Sources". In Saga-Book of the Viking Club: Vol. VI Proceedings. University of London King's College, 1909, pp. 37–40.W. E. Allen, 'The Poet and the Spae-Wife: An attempt to reconstruct al-Ghazal's visit to the Vikings', Saga-Book, 15 (1960), 149–258.M. González Campo (ed.), Al-Ghazal y la embajada hispano- musulmana a los vikingos en el siglo IX (Madrid: Miraguano, 2002). However, the key evidence, a 13th-century account by Ibn Diḥya in which an Arab diplomat Al-Ghazāl ("the gazelle") is dispatched to a pagan court during the reign of Abd-ar-Raḥman II, has been shown neither clearly to refer to Vikings nor probably even to have happened. It is accepted, however, that in the 10th century the Jewish Hispano-Arabic merchant Ibrahim ibn Yakub Al-Tartushi travelled to the Scandinavian trading town of Hedeby.Gabriel, Judith, "Among the Norse Tribes" , Saudi Aramco World, November/December 1999. Accessed 19 April 2012.
As Scandinavians converted to Christianity and formed stable kingdoms, particularly around the 11th century, opportunities for contact with Iberia changed, still involving raiding but also opportunities for visits associated with crusading or pilgrimage. One elegant example, portrayed in the 13th-century Orkneyinga saga, is Røgnvaldr kali KolssonAnn Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 102. who recites this verse amongst others to Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne:
First raid, 844
The first incursion of the Vikings in Iberia has been characterised as "probably the most significant episode of the whole period of Viking activity in the South."Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 29. It is mentioned in Annales Bertiniani and dated August 844, when a group from a plundering expedition entered the Garonne and reached Galicia. Despite storm damage, some proceeded to south-west Spain.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 30-31. This account is consistent with several later independent sources in Latin and Arabic.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 31-45. In particular, the late 9th- or early 10th-century Chronicle of Alfonso III adds that after plundering a number of coastal villages they were ultimately repulsed in the vicinity of Farum Brecantium (Tower of Hercules). Ramiro I of Asturias gathered troops in Galicia and Asturias for the counter-attack. After the Asturian victory, the Vikings continued their voyage toward Lisbon.Rolf Scheen: Viking raids on the Spanish Peninsula Revistas / Militaria.Stefansson, Jon, "The Vikings in Spain. From Arabic (Moorish) and Spanish Sources." In Saga-Book of the Viking Club: Vol. VI Proceedings. University of London King's College, 1909, p. 32. While some authors consider that the reliability of this chronicle is open to doubt,Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 32-33. others consider that other local chronicles confirm the arrival of the Norsemen.Morales Romero 2004, pp. 130-131.
Evidence for the subsequent development of the raid mainly comes from later Arabic-language sources. The earliest and most important of these, despite a number of implausible details, is Ibn al-Qūṭiyya. Overall, it seems clear that after their raid on Galicia and Asturias, the Vikings proceeded south, raiding Lisbon and Seville. In the assessment of Ann Christys, "that is perhaps as much as we can say for certain."Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 33-45 (quoting p. 45). However, the raid on Seville has attracted extensive scholarship in which researchers have attempted to extract a fuller history from late sources.
A local Galician legend claims that when the Vikings arrived at the mouth of the river Masma in northern Galicia, Gonzalo, the holy Bishop of the local diocese of Britonia, prayed from atop of a hill prayed for protection from the heavens against the forthcoming attack: a major storm was unleashed, sinking most of the flotilla but a ship that could flee to warn the rest of the fleet.Hélio Pires 2012, pp. 239-241. A series of early medieval rock castles placed atop hills and mountains with large visual field over the ocean, extending along the coasts of Galicia, have been tentatively identified as temporary shelters and watchtowers built by local communities or lords against Norse raids..
Second raid, 859-61
Vikings returned to Galicia in 859, beginning what seems to have been a three-year campaign, during the reign of Ordoño I of Asturias. The main source for these events are Arabic histories compiled by Ibn Ḥayyān in the 11th century, though some near-contemporary Latin sources also mention the events, and later Latin sources offer more elaborate but less reliable accounts.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 47-48. In the assessment of Ann Christys, what can be known about the Viking raids on Iberia in 859-61 is thatThe expedition of 859–861, like that of 844, seems to have involved a single band of adventurers. Returning to the scene of Viking incursions in northern Iberia and al-Andalus, but meeting with little success, they sailed on to raid targets on the shores of the Mediterranean. Here they may have taken captives for ransom or to trade as slaves. Vikings seem to have over-wintered in Francia, perhaps waiting on the northern shore of the Mediterranean for favourable tides and currents to exit the sea through the Straits of Gibraltar. They may even have sailed to Italy, Alexandria and Constantinople.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 64.Some historians have given credence, however, to a range of accounts in late sources about raids in this period as evidence for this Viking incursion. Yet different sources mention different figures; not all potentially relevant raids recounted were necessarily by Vikings; and the sources are likely more to reflect the political context in which they were composed than actual events in 859–61. For example, on the basis of an account by Al-Bakrī it has been supposed that in 859 or 860, Vikings sailed through Gibraltar and raided the Emirate of Nekor and defeated a Moorish army.Ibn-Adhari, translated in Stefansson, Jon, "The Vikings in Spain. From Arabic (Moorish) and Spanish Sources". In Saga-Book of the Viking Club: Vol. VI Proceedings. University of London King's College, 1909, pp. 40–41. The raiders have been identified as the legendary Hastein and Björn Ironside, but this is based on modern extrapolation from unreliable medieval sources.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 60-61. There was a well-attested raid on Constantinople in 860, which may have been by Vikings and which has been associated with the raids on Iberia, but there is no evidence that the raid on Constantinople was by the same people who were active in the western Mediterranean at the time. Moreover, it is plausible that the Constantinople raiders came from the north by the river routes running from the Baltic into the Black Sea (known in Old Norse as the Austrvegr).Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 61-63. A story about an attack in the period 859–61 on Banbalūna (which could mean modern Pamplona but also the whole kingdom of Navarre) may or may not reflect activities of Vikings.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 63-64.
Raids in the 960s and 970s Evidence for Viking activity in Iberia after 861 is sparse for nearly a century: while often late, and perhaps reflecting later efforts to construct histories of Viking depredation for contemporary political gain, a range of sources including Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Ibn Ḥayyān, and Ibn Idhārī, along with charters from Christian Iberia, together afford convincing evidence for Viking raids on Iberia in the 960s and 970s.Ann Christys, Vikings in the South (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 79-93.Morales Romero 2004, pp. 175-193.