As incursões vikings no Norte de Portugal

Abstract

A significant body of research, recently revived,has gathered some information about Viking expeditions tothe Iberian shores between the 9th and early 12thcenturies, drawing mostly on narrative sources (Nordic,Latin and Arabic). Very little is known, though, about thescenario that the Vikings actually encountered when theymoored along this coast or entered its estuaries and aboutthe types of interaction involved in (and ensuing) theirattacks; which is the kind of issue best approachedthrough local records. Using both archaeological andwritten sources, this paper aims to reassess the scantyevidence available to us on the Portuguese Christian areain order to answer a basic question: was such interactionall about violence and loot? We shall first look at coastalsettlement, traditionally seen as being very sparse,although this image owes much to the geographicalcoverage of the extant records. Then we shall dwell onthree main aspects of the Vikings interaction with localpeople: (i) their attacks, as viewed from the standpoint oflocals, (ii) the ransoms these had to pay to have theircaptive relatives released, and (iii) some places that mightsuggest some kind of Viking settlement.