Western Civilization.p

138Chapter 8

Danube Valley and began to plunder their neighbors to
the west (see map 8.1).
The motives behind this activity varied. For many
Muslims, the Christian west represented a backward so-
ciety that could be pillaged at will. A wealthier, more
technologically advanced society usually attempts to
exploit a poorer one in close proximity. In fast sailing
vessels using the triangular lateen rig of the Arab
dhows, the North Africans raided extensively along the
coasts, primarily to acquire slaves. An advanced base
was established in the Balearic Islands. By 842 they had
infested the Camargue, a marshy region on the Euro-
pean mainland, and were raiding in the valley of the
Rhone as far as Arles. A half-century later they estab-
lished themselves in an impregnable position at Freinet
near the present site of Saint-Tropez. From these Euro-
pean bases they could devastate the countryside in a
systematic way. By the middle of the tenth century de-
tachments of Muslims had raided villages and monas-
teries as far afield as St. Gall in the Swiss Alps. In Italy,
the raider’s task was simplified by the Muslim conquest

of Sicily. Palermo fell to the North Africans in 831, but

more than seventy years of warfare, enlivened by native

revolts against both Greeks and Muslims, were required

to gain control of the island. The last Byzantine garri-

son was not expelled until 965. Long before this, west-

ern Sicily had become a staging point for raids on the

Italian mainland. Muslim slavers were still encountered

as far north as the environs of Rome at the beginning of

the eleventh century.

The Magyars had been driven westward across the

Carpathians by another of those population move-

ments characteristic of the central Asian heartland. Or-

ganized into seven hordes, they probably numbered no

more than twenty-five thousand people, but they were

formidable warriors and had little trouble in moving

into the power vacuum created by Charlemagne’s de-

feat of the Avars. Their raids, which extended as far

west as the Meuse, were an extension of their nomadic

tradition. The Magyars moved rapidly in fairly large

numbers and were at first willing to meet western

armies on equal terms. Later, they became more

866 - 878

VIKINGS

MAGYARS

MUSLIMS

WESSEX

IRELAND

Corsica

Sardinia

Sicily

Crete

Balearics

ICELAND

(^84)
(^7) - 8
(^65)
843 - (^882)
859 -^861
To Greenland
914
Atlantic
Ocean
North Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Black
Sea
Faeroes
Shetlands
Danube
R.
800
874
800
896-911
(^844842)
(^846827904)
883
839
895
895
924
899
(^917900)
Vistula
R.
Lisbon
Santiago
Marseilles Rome
Thessalonika
Constantinople
Kiev
Aachen
Bordeaux
Barcelona
Novgorod
NORMANDY
841

-^88

4

840

-^89

6

941

907

866

882

Balti^820

cS

ea

Dniep

erR

.

Ni

leR

.

0 400 800 Miles

0 400 800 1200 Kilometers

Vikings

Magyars

Muslims

Attack routes

MAP 8.1

The Great Raids of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries