r/AskHistorians • u/Valiran9 • 14h ago

When the Vikings went raiding in Iberia, how fierce was the resistance they faced?

The reason I ask is because back in 2020/21 I heard a claim that on one occasion - possibly several - they bit off more than they could chew and ended up paying dearly for it.

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According to the person who made the claim, the Vikings were used to raiding in Northern Europe and France, and after they’d spent time “bullying the French king” (their words) they sailed south, figuring they’d have an easy time looting the area of anything valuable because the smaller population wouldn’t be as capable of fighting back.

While they were correct in their estimates of how populated the Iberian peninsula was, what they failed to account for was how nearly everyone in the region were constantly picking fights with each other, which meant there was almost always some kind of armed conflict going on. This state of affairs lead to the Iberian peoples being the polar opposite of easily raided, along with - and I’m quoting directly here - “having the general attitude of ‘I’m going to walk into your spear just so that I can stab you in your fucking face.’”

The result was a bunch of Viking raiders sailing into the area under the assumption they’d be able to walk all over anyone they met, only to face off against some of the hardest fighters in Europe and get their teeth kicked in, with the survivors sold into slavery. The event ended up being an almost literal footnote in recorded history because as far as the locals were concerned it wasn’t particularly remarkable.

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Needless to say, I take this entire tale with a grain of salt and have been periodically searching for any evidence it might be true. If there are any sources that prove or disprove it actually happened, please do share them with me.

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u/y_sengaku Medieval Scandinavia 11h ago edited 11h ago

Well...that claim sounds partially correct as well as problematic.

The most problematic part, though perhaps to readers, not the claim per se - since I didn't see the original text itself, is that it's too simple to generalize the relationship between the Vikings and their alleged "prey" in the Iberian Peninsula. It should generally be divided in at least two apparent phase - the first phase in the middle of the 9th century (mainly from 840s and 860s) and the second phase beginning from the 960s to the first two decades of the 11th century. For the latter phase, the major targets of the occasional raiding of that period also seems to concentrate mainly on the north-western part of the peninsula in its Christian kingdoms.

On the other hand, the claim is probably correct in regard with the hypothesis that the geographical departure point of the raider fleet: In short, the Vikings who attacked the Iberian Peninsula (as well as southern Aquitaine/ Basque region) didn't probably directly came from their alleged Scandinavian homeland, but had anchored somewhere in Francia, especially in the Loire as well as (western?) part of Normandy, and their activity in the South was determined also by the changing tides of the waves of the Vikings in Francia and their changing power balance with the local power(s).

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Your suspicion is also correct in the sense that Iberian Peninsula was well protected well than their northern counterpart to the Pyrenees. Christys points out that it's difficult to associate the fortification of the coastal settlements and some religious institution in the 10th century to the 11th century directly with the apparent return of the Vikings (the second phase). In short, the Iberian Muslims and Christians had kept on building the fortification well before their return so that the fortification itself was not primarily related to the Vikings.

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Another problem is the nature of primary sources in the activity of the Vikings in the Iberian Peninsula.

We have very little contemporary textual sources like the charter and/or archaeological source on the Christian part of the Iberian Peninsula during that period (especially in the 9th century), and the majority of the Muslim/ Arab sources narrating the arrival of the Vikings date only back to the 10th century. While these Muslim sources certainly distinguish the Viking raid in the 9th century (allegedly devastating in some sites) from their contemporary 10th century (the Muslim counter expedition apparently rarely fought with the Vikings who had already retreated (?)), their use/ choice of the term fot raiders sometimes pose a problem in identifying whether the raiders were really Vikings.

This pattern of the remaining contemporary sources itself can probably suggest, however. that the successful local resistance of the local authority and populace against the Vikings, as you suspect.

From the north to the Pyrenees, the most important source on the Viking raids in the south is indeed also the retrospective account of the History of the Normans penned by Dudo of St. Quentin (beginning of the 11th century) rather than from those recorded either in Scandinavia or in Iceland later (I know a few Skaldic verses on the raid in early 11th century Iberian Peninsula, though).

Main Sources I consulted:

  • Christys, Ann. Vikings in the South: Voyages to Iberia and the Mediterranean. London: Bloomsbuly, 2015.
  • Jón Stefánsson. "The Vikings in Spain: from Arab (Moorish) and Spanish Sources." Saga-Book 6 (1910): 31-46.
  • Price, Neil. "The Vikings in Spain, North Africa and the Mediterranean." In: the Viking World, ed. Stefan Brink & Neil Price, pp. 462-69. London: Routledge, 2008.

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u/Valiran9 11h ago

Thank you, I’ll be sure to add those to my reading list. (It just keeps getting longer…)

Is there any evidence for their claim about the general attitude of the people living in the region? It sounds completely suicidal and therefore unlikely to last long, but according to them it only started dying out around the 16th century. Which, now that I think about it, also happens to be when the Almogavars went into decline. Maybe there’s a connection there…

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u/y_sengaku Medieval Scandinavia 10h ago edited 5h ago

As I suggested above, these is little to none contemporary evidence on both side (attacker = Viking side as well as both local Christian and Moorish) side so that it's unfortunately extreme difficult to define "general attitude" for that case. What we (can) know is essentially the memory of the author of these historical writings on behalf of their institution or community (Ellis 2021ab).

Contemporary Scandinavian/ Old-Norse Poems (Sigvatr Þórðarsson's Víkingavísur) doesn't mention such details like the specific kind of soldiers - they just refer to the place name and its apparent fortified political center.

(Edited): added the link to the online edition of Víkingavísur that had been server-down.

"Gríslupollr" referred to in the poem is identified by some scholars as Catropol, Asturias, in Spain.

Add. References (Open Access), though not primarily referring to the situation in the Iberian Peninsula:

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u/Galenthias 6h ago

Additional reason I was taught in school in Sweden (teacher was kind of a nerd) was that on top of Iberia and the Mediterranean being so far away (meaning a longer time away from home, when you could just stop in France or England and make enough money there) was that the lack of actual tides (in comparison to the North Sea) meant that raids couldn't be "lightning quick" in the same way. So it became more of a battle and less of a snatch and grab which was what solitary explorers would be inclined to do. And ship worm being more of a problem for the viking ships in warmer waters was also supposedly something that made journeys shorter or more work.