Viking activity in the Iberian peninsula seems to have begun around the mid-ninth century as an extension of Viking raids on and establishment of bases in Frankia in the earlier ninth century. While connections between the Norse and Eastern Islamic lands were well-established, particularly involving the Rus' along the Volga and around the Caspian Sea, relations with the Western edge of Islam were more sporadic and haphazard. Although Vikings may have over-wintered in Iberia, no evidence has been found for trading or settlement. Indeed, the Iberian peninsula may not have offered particularly wealthy targets, in the ninth to tenth centuries. Sporadic raiding continued until the end of the Viking Age.
The knowledge of Vikings in Iberia is mainly based on written accounts. There are archaeological findings of what may have been anchors of Viking ships, and some shapes of mounds by riversides look similar to the Norse longphorts in Ireland. These may have been ports or docks for Viking longships.
Terminology
In medieval Latin sources about Iberia, the Vikings are usually referred to as normanni ('northmen') and gens normannorum or gens nordomannorum ('race of the northmen'), along with forms in l- like lordomanni apparently reflecting nasal dissimilation in local Romance languages, or others which have an obscure etymology, as leodemanorum or lotimanorum, frequent in Galician charters. In Arabic sources, they are referred to as majūs (مَجوس), but as this term denoted a wide range of Pagans, references to majūs in Arabic are not necessarily references specifically to Scandinavian raiders. The prominent early Arabic source Al-Mas‘ūdī also identified the 844 raiders on Seville partly as Rūs and (probably borrowing from Iberian Latin lordomanni) al-lawdh’āna, which may more specifically indicate Scandinavian raiders.
Non-violent contact
Aside from Viking raids in the Islamic Mediterranean, it has been imaged that there were also sustained diplomatic relations between the Vikings and the Islamic world. However, the key evidence, a thirteenth-century account by Ibn Diḥya, in which an Arab diplomat Al-Ghazāl ("the gazelle") is dispatched to a pagan court during the reign of Abd-ar-Raḥman II, has been shown neither clearly to refer to Vikings nor probably even to have happened. It is accepted, however, that in the tenth century the Jewish Hispano-Arabic merchant Ibrahim ibn Yakub Al-Tartushi travelled to the Scandinavian trading town of Hedeby in Schleswig.
As Scandinavians converted to Christianity and formed stable kingdoms, particularly around the eleventh century, opportunities for contact with Iberia changed, still involving raiding but also opportunities for visits associated with crusading or pilgrimage. One elegant example, portrayed in the thirteenth-century Orkneyinga saga, is Røgnvaldr kali Kolsson (d. 1158), who recites this verse, amongst others, to Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne:
First raid, 844
The first incursion of the Vikings in Iberia has been characterised as 'probably the most significant episode of the whole period of Viking activity in the South'. It is mentioned in Annales Bertiniani, and dated August 844, when a group from a plundering expedition entered the Garonne and reached Galicia. Despite storm damage, some proceeded to South-West Spain. This account is consistent with several later, but independent sources in Latin and Arabic. In particular, the late ninth- or early tenth-century Chronicle of Alfonso III adds that after plundering a number of coastal villages they were ultimately repulsed in the vicinity of Farum Brecantium (i.e. the Tower of Hercules). Ramiro I of Asturias gathered troops in Galicia and Asturias for the counter-attack. After the Asturian victory, the Vikings continued their voyage in direction of Lisbon. While some authors consider that the reliability of this chronicle is open to doubt, others consider that other local chronicles confirm the arrival of the Norsemen.
Evidence for the subsequent development of the raid mainly comes from later, Arabic-language sources. The earliest and most important of these, despite a number of implausible details, is Ibn al-Qūṭiyya. Overall, it seems clear that after their raid on Galicia and Asturias, the Vikings proceeded south, raiding Lisbon and Seville. In the assessment of Ann Christys, 'that is perhaps as much as we can say for certain'. However, the Viking raid on Seville has attracted extensive scholarship in which researchers have attempted to extract a fuller history from late sources.