ABSTRACT

Viking armed forays began in the 750s with Danish raids on the Frisian island chain: a feature of the seascape then being absorbed into the Carolingian Empire but which may not yet have recovered from the population crash it had suffered during drought around ad 500. A leap forward in strategic mobility westwards came with a Norwegian probing of the Dorset coast of England in 786 and then, seven years later, the Lindisfarne sacking. The next ten years saw a succession of Viking strikes around the British Isles. Celtic monastic foundations by isolated coasts were obvious targets. In 836 the Norwegians founded Dublin, and, eight years later, were to appear before Moorish Lisbon and even up-river Seville.