CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THE VIKINGS IN SPAIN, NORTH

AFRICA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

Neil Price

L

ike the Carolingian kingdoms, the Iberian peninsula was also a divided land in the
Viking Age. No borders can really be considered fixed at this time, but the southern
limits of the Frankish Empire of Charles the Bald most often ran approximately along
the natural barrier of the Pyrenees, and extended a short way into modern Spain. This
‘Spanish March’ was of variable size and subject to continual dispute, but the sphere
of Frankish influence sometimes stretched as far south as Barcelona and the River Ebro.
The rest of northern Iberia, especially in the north-west, was occupied by a number of
smaller Christian kingdoms and principalities. Some of these, such as the tiny kingdom
of Pamplona, had come into being in the context of border conflicts with the Franks.
Others, including the largest and most powerful such as the kingdom of Galicia and the
Asturias, had been formed in the aftermath of the event which more than any other
shaped the political map of Spain in the Viking Age: the Arab invasion of the early
eighth century. Over and above their individual rivalries, the northern states joined
with the Franks in manning what they saw as the front line against the potential
advance of Islam, which was perceived as an even greater threat to Christian Europe than
the Vikings themselves (see Hodges and Whitehouse 1983 for some still controversial
observations on the complications, even benefits, of these tensions, with a more current
view in McCormick 2001 ).
In 661 a new Arab dynasty, the Umayyads, had fought their way to power in
Damascus and at once begun a massive campaign of conquest. North Africa had been
overrun in the 670 s (Brett 1978 a), and in 711 the first Muslim troops landed in Spain,
their ranks primarily filled with newly converted Berbers from Morocco and Algeria.
They rapidly advanced north and in a few years most of Iberia was under Islamic control
(Collins 1994 ). The remnants of the earlier Visigothic kingdom managed to survive in
the north-east of the peninsula, and the Christian realm of the Asturias had been
established after the battle of Covadonga in 718 or 722. By the time of the Vikings, the
Umayyad caliphate had in turn been swept away by a revolt that had spread from Persia
in the mid-eighth century, an event which had a great impact on Spain and by extension
on Christian Europe. The leaders of the rebellion were descendants of Abbas, one of
the prophet Muhammad’s uncles, and were known as the Abbasids. Their rule, from a
new capital at the recently founded city of Baghdad, was to continue for much of the