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Viking raids on the Iberian Peninsula in the 9th–11th centuries. Reproduced from Haywood 1995.

During the Viking Age (c. 800–c. 1060), seafarers of Nordic origin ravaged numerous communities along the northern, western, southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. In the following centuries, devout Nordic Christians went on pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. But is it possible that individuals of Iberian Peninsular origin undertook travel, together with Scandinavians or perhaps partly on their own, in the opposite direction? And, if so, how far north did they go? The present note summarizes a few potential linguistic, archaeological and genetic indications of links from the mid 1000s to the early 1200s between the Iberian Peninsula and the olden Norwegian capital Nidaros, the present-day Trondheim. (more…)