859–862
Björn and Hastein in the Mediterranean, 859–861
In 859 a fleet of 62 ships sails from the Loire for the Mediterranean, led by Hastein and Björn Ironside by later accounts. Frankish, Arab, Irish and Norman writers all tell of the voyage, and Ermentarius of Noirmoutier and the Annals of St Bertin record it at the time. The fleet is beaten off in Asturias and by the Muslims at Niebla, then burns the mosque of Algeciras and passes the Strait of Gibraltar.
On the African coast the Vikings hold Nekor for eight days. They raid Orihuela, the Balearic Islands and Roussillon and winter on the Camargue at the mouth of the Rhône. In 860 they plunder Narbonne, Nîmes and Arles and sail up the Rhône as far as Valence.
The Roman amphitheatre of Luni, near the Ligurian coastWikimedia Commons, Phyo91, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Anfiteatro dell'antica città di Luni.jpg)
The fleet then reaches Italy. Dudo of Saint-Quentin, writing at the Norman court more than a century later, tells that Hastein took Luni, believing it to be Rome, by feigning death and asking for a Christian burial inside the town, and that his men then cut their way to the gates. Historians doubt the story. The Vikings sack Pisa and sail up the Arno to Fiesole.
Hastein in the church at Luni, an engraving of 1864 illustrating Dudo’s storyWikimedia Commons, unknown artist, Public domain (Hasting 859 in Luna (167660963).jpg)
On the way home the fleet loses 40 ships in a storm and two more to fire thrown from catapults off Medina Sidonia, and 20 ships return to the Loire in 862. In these years the Vikings also capture King García Íñiguez of Pamplona and hold him for ransom, in 859 by one account and on the way home by another.
Sources
- Dudo of Saint-Quentin, History of the Normans, trans. Eric Christiansen (1998), book 1.
- Peter Sawyer, Kings and Vikings: Scandinavia and Europe, A.D. 700–1100 (1989).
- Ann Christys, Vikings in the South: Voyages to Iberia and the Mediterranean (2015).
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