Vikings reached Seville and Constantinople. Did they reach your town?

Three ships came ashore in Wessex in the reign of King Beorhtric. The king’s reeve rode out, took them for merchants, tried to take them to the royal town and was killed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls them the first ships of the Northmen; Æthelweard, writing in the 980s, calls them a fleet of Danes.

Æthelweard, writing about 200 years later, gives the dead man’s name as Beaduherd and says he was at Dorchester when the ships were reported.

The Chronicle entry is under 787; many works give 789. Neither it nor Æthelweard names Portland, so “Portland 789” is a later identification. Portland raids appear separately under 837 and 982.

Raiders plundered and killed at St Cuthbert’s monastery on Holy Island. Alcuin, then at Charlemagne’s court, wrote about it to the king of Northumbria and the bishop of Lindisfarne. It is the first attack on a great monastery that the sources record.

Alcuin wrote that nobody in Britain had thought such an attack from the sea was possible in the nearly 350 years the English had lived there.

The Chronicle gives no number of ships or dead. The day is 8 January in one translation and 8 June in another. Ships had already come ashore in Dorset earlier.

After plundering Ipswich, the raiders killed Ealdorman Byrhtnoth at Maldon. The Chronicle says it was then decided to pay tribute to the Danes for the first time: 10,000 pounds, on the advice of Archbishop Sigeric.

The Chronicle records the sums that followed: 16,000 pounds (994), 24,000 (1002), 30,000 (1007), 48,000 (1012) and 72,000 (1018).

The Chronicle gives no number for the raiding fleet in 991. The 10,000 pounds, like the later sums, is the chronicler’s figure.

In June 826 Louis the Pious held an assembly at Ingelheim, where envoys of the sons of Godofrid, king of the Danes, sought peace. That year Harald, baptised at Mainz, was given a county in Frisia. In 839 Louis found that Rhos men who had come with Greek envoys belonged to the Swedes.

1. June 826Harald came to Louis the Pious with his wife and many Danes, was baptised at Mainz and received gifts and the county of Rustringen in Frisia.
2. 839Emperor Louis found that Rhos men who came with Greek envoys belonged to the Swedes, thought they might be spies and kept them while writing to Theophilos.

On his way home through Frisia Harald was given the county of Rustringen (“Hriustri”), where he could take refuge with his goods if necessary.

The baptism took place at St Alban's in Mainz; Ingelheim is only where the assembly met. The annal calls him “Herioldus” and does not give the by-name Klak that historians use.

Dorestad, the great Rhine trading town, was attacked again and again: plundered and partly burned in 834, taken by force in 857 and ravaged in January 863, when many Frisian merchants were killed. In 850 the emperor Lothar, who could not drive Rorik out, gave him Dorestad.

The Annals of Fulda say Rorik, a Northman, had first held Dorestad with his brother Harald as a benefice under Louis the Pious, and later took it back by force.

The annals use “Danes”, “Northmen” and “pagans” interchangeably and never say where the raiders came from; no excavation report tying finds to Scandinavians has been found.

In 841 Danish pirates sailed up the Seine and ruined Rouen; other places along it were laid waste or spared after large payments. In 861–862 Weland came up the Seine with more than 200 ships, the annalist says, and in 862 came to Charles the Bald with his wife and sons and became a Christian.

1. 841Danish pirates sailed up the Seine and ruined Rouen with plunder, sword and fire, killing or capturing its monks and people.
2. 861–862Charles the Bald levied 5,000 pounds of silver to hire Weland, who with more than 200 ships besieged Danes in a fort on the Seine island of Oscellus.

Already in 841 the annalist records that monasteries and places along the Seine were either laid waste or left alone after large sums were paid.

The account is one annalist's, written within a few years of 841. He names no abbey and places the attack only after the battle of Fontenoy on 25 June.

In summer 843 pirates attacked Nantes, killed the bishop and many clergy and lay people, and plundered the city. Ermentarius of Noirmoutier puts the fleet at 67 ships. The raiders then made for lower Aquitaine.

They spent the winter on an island, bringing houses across from the mainland; the annal does not name the island.

The day is disputed: 24 June in a Nantes chronicle, Holy Saturday in Regino, no day in the Annals of St-Bertin. The 67 ships are one monk's count.

In March 845 a fleet of 120 ships, by the annalist's count, reached Paris and left after Charles the Bald paid it. In 885–886 a fleet of 700 ships under Sigfred, by Abbo's account, besieged the city without taking it; the Northmen dragged their ships overland past Paris and came back in 887 for payment.

1. March 845The annalist counts 120 ships coming up the Seine to Paris; Charles the Bald could not oppose them and paid 7,000 pounds by weight of unnamed metal.
2. 856–861Danes burned Paris on 28 December, sparing the churches of St Vincent and St Denis for a large sum; in January 861 they burned St Vincent.
3. October 865 to June 866For about twenty days from 20 October 865 Northmen carried loot out of Saint-Denis; they left in June 866 when Charles agreed to pay 4,000 pounds of silver.
4. 885–886Under Sigfred, not Rollo, Northmen besieged Paris from November 885; Bishop Gozlin refused them passage, the city held and they dragged their ships overland around it.

The Annals of Xanten call Reginheri “chief of the wicked” and say more than 600 of them fell in Gaul, yet Charles still paid them thousands of pounds of gold and silver.

The Annals of St-Bertin give 7,000 pounds without naming the metal or a leader; Reginheri appears only in Xanten, and linking him to Ragnar Lodbrok is a guess.

In the winter of 881–882 the Northmen attacked the abbeys of Prüm, Inden, Stavelot and Malmedy and the palace of Aachen. The Annals of Vedast say the Danes burned the famous palace of Aachen and the monasteries.

The Annals of Fulda say the Northmen made a stable for their horses in the king's chapel at Aachen.

The stable is attested in one contemporary source, the Annals of Fulda, which says “the king's chapel” without naming Charlemagne; the Annals of Vedast say only that the palace was burned.

In 891 the Northmen, having devastated Lothar's kingdom, settled in a fortified camp on the Dyle at a place called Lovonnium (Leuven). King Arnulf came upon them unexpectedly, had the Franks fight on foot and won: many Northmen were driven into the river and drowned, and their two kings Sigifrid and Gotafrid were killed.

Fulda says the Danes in that camp were the strongest of the Northmen, a people never before heard of as captured or beaten in a fortification.

The annalist says the Northmen drowned “by hundreds and thousands”, which is rhetoric and gives no count. The battle is described by Fulda alone.

Dudo, writing shortly after 1015, places a meeting of the king and Rollo at Saint-Clair, granting Rollo and his successors the land from the Epte to the sea. Flodoard says only that Northmen received maritime districts with Rouen. No treaty text survives; the earliest document naming Rollo is a charter of 918.

1. traditionally 911Dudo, writing about a century later, places a meeting at Saint-Clair that gave Rollo the land from the Epte to the sea; no treaty text survives.
2. 14 March 918Charles the Simple's charter, giving an abbey to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, leaves out the part granted to Rollo and his companions “for the defence of the kingdom”.

In Dudo, Rollo's envoy tells the king that the land offered is uncultivated, without cattle or people, so that Rollo could live on it only by plunder.

The place, the terms and the setting come from Dudo, who wrote about a century later; Flodoard and the 918 charter give no place and no date for the grant.

According to the Chronicle of Alfonso III, King Ramiro I fought the raiders 'at the place called Farum Brecantium', killed many and burned their ships; the survivors put to sea and went south. The later Historia Silense (early 12th century) gives the number of ships burned as 60.

The Annals of St-Bertin (844) say that raiders who 'attacked Galicia' were destroyed partly by crossbowmen and partly by a storm.

The ninth-century chronicle gives no ship count; the 60 comes from the later Historia Silense. That Farum Brecantium means the Tower of Hercules is the editor's identification.

Ibn Idhari says the Majus (the Arabic word for Magians, non-Muslim pagans) took Seville by force and held it seven days, killing or enslaving its people. Cordoba's cavalry and provincial levies gathered at the Aljarafe, and after several fights the raiders were beaten; Ibn Idhari counts 42 days from arrival to departure.

1. October 844Ibn Idhari says the raiders stayed three days on Captel island, then entered Koura (Coria del Río), 12 Arab miles from Seville, and killed many Muslims.
2. October 844Ibn Idhari says the Majus held Seville seven days; the Latin Chronicle of Alfonso III says the survivors of the Galician fighting entered Hispalis and killed many Muslims.
3. 10 or 11 November 844Ibn Idhari says the raiders were beaten at Talyata, lost 30 ships to fire, and that many were hanged at Seville and on palm trunks.

According to Ibn al-Qutiyya, when gold and silver were offered for their Muslim prisoners, the Majus refused both and accepted only clothing and food.

The Arabic accounts date from the 10th century or later and disagree: 7 or 13 days, about 80 ships, 16,000 men in Ibn al-Qutiyya (not to be taken literally).

Al-Bakri says the Majus took Nekor, on the Rif coast of Morocco, plundered it, held it eight days and carried off inhabitants; two princesses of the ruling family were captured and later ransomed by the Umayyad emir Muhammad. The Chronicle of Alfonso III lists 'Nacchor, a city of Mauritania' among their targets.

The town appears both in an Arabic geographer and in a Latin chronicle from Christian Asturias, two traditions with no evident link.

Ibn al-Qutiyya dates the sack to 844 and says the prince was taken; Dozy shows it was 858 and two female relatives. The Arabic says Majus; 'Normands' is the translator's gloss.

The Annals of St-Bertin, in the entry for 860, say that the Danes who had been on the Rhône went to Italy and took Pisa and other cities, plundering and devastating them. The other cities are not named.

This one line is the only contemporary evidence for Scandinavians in Italy; the better-known Luni story is Dudo's, about 150 years later, and does not mention Pisa.

Only a Frankish annal written far from Italy says this; no Italian text of the period or excavation supports it. The same annals blame 'Moors and Saracens' for plundering Luni in 849.

According to Sampiro, 100 Norse ships under King Gunderedus entered Galicia in the second year of Ramiro III, killed Bishop Sisnando of Compostela near the town and ravaged the whole province. In the third year, he says, Count Gonzalo Sánchez killed the raiders and their king and burned their ships.

The later Chronicon Iriense says Sisnando, in full armour, ran after the raiders to a place called Fornelos and fell in the middle of their ranks.

Sisnando's death is dated 968 in one manuscript and 970 by Florez and Dozy, because he is named at a council in June 969. No text says Compostela was taken.

Constantine VII lists seven rapids, each with a ‘Russian’ name and a Slavonic name. At the fourth, the great one, the Rus land, post watchers against the Pechenegs and carry the slaves in chains six miles past it by land while they drag or carry the boats.

1. mid-10th centurySeven rapids have ‘Russian’ and Slavonic names; at the fourth the Rus land, post watchers against the Pechenegs and lead their slaves in chains six miles by land.
2. mid-10th centuryThe Rus reach an island called St Gregory (Khortytsia), where they sacrifice live cocks under a giant oak, peg arrows into the ground and cast lots.
3. mid-10th century; spring 972After the seventh rapid the Rus pass ‘the ford of Vrar’, where Pechenegs attack; the Chronicle says their prince Kurya killed Svyatoslav at the rapids in spring 972.

A runestone at Pilgards on Gotland, dated to about 1000, says of some brothers ‘They came far and wide in Eifor’, the Old Norse name of the rapid Constantine writes Aeifor.

The ‘Russian’ names are in Greek spelling and scholars read several as Old Norse, for example Ulvorsi as Holmfors. Aifor is disputed, and which rapid each name matches is uncertain.

Constantine VII’s account of the yearly Rus convoy names Constantia as a stopping place on the coast, in Bulgarian territory; Jenkins identifies it with Constanța, on the Dobrudja coast. The text says the Rus pass by.

From the Danube, Constantine writes, the Rus ‘proceed to the Konopas, and from the Konopas to Constantia, and from Constantia to the river of Varna’.

The identification with Constanța is Jenkins’s. The text says the Rus pass by and gives no Scandinavian name for the place; nothing found at Constanța shows Scandinavians.

In Constantine VII’s account of the yearly Rus voyage, the Rus ‘come to the Selinas, to the so-called branch of the Danube river’, while the Pechenegs keep pace with them along the shore until they are past it. The Selinas is generally identified as Sulina.

After the Selinas the Rus, in Constantine’s words, ‘fear nobody’: they are now in ‘the territory of Bulgaria’.

The identification with Sulina is general but not proved. The Rus are shown following the coast past the Danube mouth and do not sail up the river.

Leo the Deacon, a Byzantine writer of the late 10th century, describes the siege of the Rus at Dorostolon, now Silistra in Bulgaria. He names Ikmor, killed in the fighting, and Sphengelos, third in rank after Svyatoslav, and says the Rus burned their dead and drowned infants and cocks in the Danube.

Leo says Svyatoslav met the emperor on the Danube rowing like a common oarsman, in a plain white garment and a gold earring with two pearls and a red stone.

Leo’s figures, 60,000 Rus and 38,000 killed, are contradicted by the Chronicle and unreliable. He calls the Rus ‘Scythians’. The identification of Sphengelos with Sveneld is a later scholarly proposal.

Al-Masudi says the Rus came down the Volga into the Caspian, sent cavalry against Gilan, Daylam and Tabaristan, and attacked Abaskun, a town on the Gorgan coast, and the naphtha country. He gives the fleet as about five hundred ships with a hundred men each.

Al-Masudi says the peoples of these coasts had never been attacked by sea; their shores had seen only merchant ships and fishermen.

The ship numbers are al-Masudi’s and unverifiable. He calls them Rus (Russes in the French translation), without saying Norse or Vikings.

Ibn Fadlan, an envoy of the Caliph in Baghdad, saw the Rusiyyah arrive on a trading expedition and land at the river Atil. He describes tall fair men with tattoos and Frankish-type swords, and women with neck rings and brooches. He also describes a ship funeral.

1. 921–922Ibn Fadlan, the Caliph’s envoy, saw the Rusiyyah land at the river Atil on a trading expedition; he describes tall fair men with tattoos and Frankish-type swords.
2. 921–922The dead man lay ten days in a temporary grave; his ship was hauled onto a scaffold and burned with him, a slave girl, food, drink and animals.

He says their swords are ‘of the Frankish variety, with broad, ridged blades’.

Montgomery argues that Ibn Fadlan’s Rusiyyah need not be Vikings or Russians and that the description mixes Varangian and Khazar traits. The manuscript and Yaqut’s longer quotation of it differ.

Miskawayh says the Russians sailed the Caspian, went up the river Kur, defeated a local force and took Barda’a, taking its inhabitants captive. About 5,000 volunteers and a few hundred Daylamite troops are named as its defenders; the Russians later embarked and left.

The Russians proclaimed that there was no quarrel over religion and that they wanted only sovereignty.

Miskawayh wrote after the event, citing named informants. He calls the invaders Russians and says they came from behind the Khazars; he does not call them Scandinavians. The defenders’ numbers are his.