843–844
Nantes and Seville, 843–844
In 843, after Lambert II and his Breton allies have defeated and killed Renaud, the count whom Charles the Bald had set over Nantes, a Viking fleet sacks Nantes on the Loire and kills its bishop. The Vikings have held a base on the island of Noirmoutier, off the mouth of the Loire, since about 824.
The Tower of Hercules at A Coruña, a Roman lighthouse, near which Ramiro I of Asturias defeats the Vikings in 844Wikimedia Commons, Fernando, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Torre de Hércules 2023.jpg)
In 844 a fleet from Francia sails south. It plunders Asturias but loses heavily at A Coruña, where King Ramiro I defeats it by the Tower of Hercules. In August or September it takes Lisbon and holds it for 13 days, then raids Cádiz, Medina Sidonia and Algeciras.
On 25 September the fleet sails up the Guadalquivir and camps on Isla Menor in the marshes. It beats the local Muslim forces on 29 September and takes Seville by storm on 1 or 3 October, but the citadel holds out. Emir Abd ar-Rahman II sends his hajib Isa ibn Shuhayd, who musters the governors’ troops at Córdoba and sets up his headquarters on the Aljarafe hills, and Musa ibn Musa, lord of the Banu Qasi, joins him.
Courtyard of the Church of the Saviour in Seville, once the court of the great mosque of Ibn Adabbas built in 829–830, which the Vikings tried to burn in 844Wikimedia Commons, José Luis Filpo Cabana, CC BY 3.0 (Patio de los Naranjos. Iglesia del Salvador, Sevilla.jpg)
After several clashes the Muslim army wins at Talyata, now Tablada, on 11 or 17 November. Muslim writers give 500 to 1,000 Vikings killed, 30 ships burned and at least 400 captured and hanged from palm trees, details that Ann Christys thinks later authors may have added. The survivors trade their plunder and captives for food and clothes and leave Spain. Abd ar-Rahman builds an arsenal at Seville and walls round its towns, and the Viking raids of 859 and 966 fail.
Silver dirham of Abd ar-Rahman II struck in the year 230 of the Hijra, 844–845Wikimedia Commons, Numismática Pliego, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Dirham abd al rahman ii 20192.jpg)
Sources
- Ann Christys, Vikings in the South: Voyages to Iberia and the Mediterranean (2015).
- Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus (1996).
- Neil Price, "The Vikings in Spain, North Africa and the Mediterranean", in Stefan Brink and Neil Price (eds.), The Viking World (2008), pp. 462 to 469.
Prev: Dorestad, 834–837Next: Paris and Hamburg, 845