The Vikings in “Syden”

Part I: The western Mediterranean

Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Raiding Vikings portrayed on a 9th century tombstone, known as the “Viking Doomsday Stone”, from Lindisfarne, England. Like their Arab and Southern European contemporaries in the western Mediterranean, the English found it difficult to forget their encounters with the “Northmen”, or the “Rus (rowers)’” or the “Majūs (fire worshipers)” as they were known in the Mediterranean.

Terje Birkedal
Laguna Woods, Calif.

The Vikings, like their present-day Scandinavian descendants, were also drawn to “Syden.” What is “Syden” you might ask? “Syden” does not just mean “the South” in the Norwegian language; today, in popular culture, it now refers to all the lands around the Mediterranean coast, where there are beaches, fun, and sun.

The Vikings, however, unlike their modern counterparts, did not go to the Mediterranean lands for cheap drinks and a sunburn. What attracted them to the region was the sheer wealth of the Mediterranean countries and the opportunity to win fame.

In this two-part journey into the past, we will first take a look at the Vikings in the western Mediterranean; in the next article we will see what they were up to in the eastern Mediterranean. Though related, there are two distinct stories here, and they are best told apart.

My own curiosity about the Vikings in the Mediterranean was aroused in  the Greek island of Crete in the fall of 2023, when I learned, to my surprise, that medieval Arab coins minted on the island had turned up in Viking Age Scandinavia.

Upon my return to the United States, I discovered that the topic of the Vikings in the Mediterranean had been covered in a number of prior scholarly books and articles, but the subject had been most recently and thoroughly examined by Professor Neil Price of Uppsala University and his colleagues in a learned volume of papers entitled Vikings in the Mediterranean  published in 2023 by the Norwegian Institute at Athens.

Image: © Neil Price
Map of Viking raids in the western Mediterranean region, 9th to 11th centuries. Map drawn by Neil Price.

The first Vikings to be lured to the western Mediterranean or “the-middle-of-the-earth-sea” came in A.D. 844. This was a sizable expedition made up of 60 to 80 ships and around 2,000 warriors. The leaders’ names are unknown, but they launched their huge fleet from the mouth of the Loire River in France.

After plundering the west coast of Spain and Portugal, the Vikings decided it would be a good idea to attack the powerful Arab kingdom of Al-Andalus, which occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula at that time. They first captured the southern port of Cadiz. The frightening image of the Viking fleet’s approach to the city lived on in memory; the many red sails of the longships were said to have “filled the ocean” like “dark red birds.”

Their next target was the wealthy interior city of Seville, which they thoroughly sacked. Outraged by this attack, the emir of Al-Andalus, sent his army against the Vikings and killed over 500 in battle and hanged hundreds more from the palms of Seville. Despite their defeat, the surviving Vikings managed to return to France with some 30 ships loaded with silver and other booty.

Fourteen years later, in A.D. 858, the Vikings assembled another enormous fleet at the mouth of the Loire River with the aim of seeking both wealth and fame in Al-Andalus and beyond. This time, the fleet was led by a Viking chieftain named Hástein and another leader who was called Björn, possibly Björn Ironsides, the renowned son of the legendary Ragnar Lothbrók. The two commanded 62 longships and over 2,000 eager warriors. And so began what came to be remembered as “The Great Raid.”

It, too, started with the usual plundering of the west coast of Spain and Portugal, but by early A.D. 859, the fleet had taken Cadiz and headed up the Guadalquiver River into the interior of Al-Andalus. However, this time the emir was ready for another Viking incursion and he soundly rebuffed their advance toward Seville with his army and navy.

After their defeat by the emir, the Vikings sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar and this voyage represents the first time that Scandinavians passed into the Mediterranean Sea from the west. Their first target was the city of Algeciras, just beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, which they conquered and made into a base for further operations. Part of the fleet then headed south to the African coast and successfully attacked the Arab Kingdom of Nakūr, where they captured two of the daughters of the emir of Al-Andalus and held them for ransom.

Next, the focus of the Viking fleet was the east coast of Spain, known to today’s Scandinavian tourists as the Costa Blanca. Starting from Algeciras on the south, they leapfrogged their way up the coast, alternatively building temporary fortified bases and raiding and trading as the mood struck them and according to their appraisal of the cost/benefits.

The Balearic Islands also caught their eye, and these were duly plundered for their wealth before the Vikings moved on to the French coast of Provence. Here they set up a fortified base at Camarque, at the mouth of the Rhone River, before harrying the Rhone River Valley and sacking the northern Italian towns of Luna, Pisa, and Fiesole.

After the attacks in Italy, Hástein and Björn’s longships temporarily disappear from history, though a Viking attack near Constantinople and a report in that same year of a Viking trading expedition in Alexandria, Egypt, may hint at their active presence in the eastern Mediterranean in A.D. 860.

The fleet finally reappears in Arab chronicles when it approaches the Strait of Gibraltar in A.D. 861, and it is beset by a destructive storm plus the waiting navy of the emir of Al-Andalus. After four years, the remnant survivors of the fleet, somewhere around 20 ships, returned in triumph to the Loire River in A.D. 862, loaded to the gunwales with untold riches and tales to tell. However, most likely in response to the stiff Arab armed resistance the expedition encountered, no other Viking fleet ventured into the western Mediterranean again.

This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of  The Norwegian American.