Saracen was a term used both in Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Petraea and Arabia Deserta. The term's meaning evolved during its history of usage. During the Early Middle Ages, the term came to be associated with the tribes of Arabia.
Formentera is a Spanish island located in the Mediterranean Sea, which belongs to the Balearic Islands autonomous community (Spain) together with Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza.
Ibiza is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is 150 kilometres from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands in area, but the second-largest by population. Its largest settlements are Ibiza Town, Santa Eulària des Riu, and Sant Antoni de Portmany. Its highest point, called Sa Talaiassa, is 475 metres above sea level.
Sigurd Magnusson, also known as Sigurd the Crusader, was King of Norway from 1103 to 1130. His rule, together with his half-brother Øystein, has been regarded by historians as a golden age for the medieval Kingdom of Norway. He is otherwise famous for leading the Norwegian Crusade (1107–1110), earning him the eponym "the Crusader", and was the first European king to participate in a crusade personally.
Kungälv is a city and the seat of Kungälv Municipality in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It is also a part of Greater Gothenburg Metropolitan Area. It had 22,768 inhabitants in 2010. In 2021, the main Kungälv - Ytterby - Kareby conurbation had a combined population approaching 30,000.
Eysteinn Magnusson was king of Norway from 1103 to 1123 together with his brothers Sigurd the Crusader and Olaf Magnusson, although since Olaf died before adulthood, only Eystein and Sigurd were effective rulers of the country.
Fraxinetum or Fraxinet was the site of a Muslim stronghold at the centre of a frontier state in Provence between about 887 and 972. It is identified with modern La Garde-Freinet, near Saint-Tropez. The fortress was established by Muslims from al-Andalus. From this base, the Muslims raided up the Rhône Valley, into Piedmont and as far as the Abbey of Saint Gall. Their main business was slave-raiding of Europeans for export to Islamic markets. For a time, they controlled the passes through the western Alps. They withstood several attempts to oust them, but were finally defeated by the combined forces of the Provençal and Piedmontese nobility at the battle of Tourtour in 972.
Peter I was the second son of King Sancho I of Portugal and his wife Dulce, infanta of Aragon, and would eventually become Count of Urgell and Lord of the Balearic Islands.
Thorir Hund was one of the greatest chiefs in Hålogaland. Tore Hund was one of the leaders of the Stiklestad farmer faction opposing Norwegian King Olaf II of Norway, later named St. Olaf. He was reported to have been among the chieftains who killed the king in the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030. He also served in the forces of King Canute the Great on several occasions.
The Arab raid against Rome took place in 846. Muslim raiders plundered the outskirts of the city of Rome, sacking the basilicas of Old St Peter's and St Paul's-Outside-the-Walls, but were prevented from entering the city itself by the Aurelian Walls.
The history of Islam in Sicily and southern Italy began with the first Arab settlement in Sicily, at Mazara, which was captured in 827. The subsequent rule of Sicily and Malta started in the 10th century. The Emirate of Sicily lasted from 831 until 1061, and controlled the whole island by 902. Though Sicily was the primary Muslim stronghold in Italy, some temporary footholds, the most substantial of which was the port city of Bari, were established on the mainland peninsula, especially in mainland southern Italy, though Muslim raids, mainly those of Muhammad I ibn al-Aghlab, reached as far north as Naples, Rome and the northern region of Piedmont. The Arab raids were part of a larger struggle for power in Italy and Europe, with Christian Byzantine, Frankish, Norman and local Italian forces also competing for control. Arabs were sometimes sought as allies by various Christian factions against other factions.
Ancient Estonia refers to a period covering History of Estonia from the middle of the 8th millennium BC until the conquest and subjugation of the local Finnic tribes in the first quarter of the 13th century during the Teutonic and Danish Northern Crusades.
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago forms a province and autonomous community of Spain, with Palma de Mallorca being its capital and largest city.
The Liber maiolichinusde gestis pisanorum illustribus is a Medieval Latin epic chronicle in 3,500 hexameters, written between 1117 and 1125, detailing the Pisan-led joint military expedition of Italians, Catalans, and Occitans against the taifa of the Balearic Islands, in particular Majorca and Ibiza, in 1113–5. It was commissioned by the commune of Pisa, and its anonymous author was probably a cleric. It survives in three manuscripts. The Liber is notable for containing the earliest known reference to "Catalans" (Catalanenses), treated as an ethnicity, and to "Catalonia" (Catalania), as their homeland.
In 1114, an expedition to the Balearic Islands, then a Muslim taifa, was launched in the form of a Crusade. Founded on a treaty of 1113 between the Republic of Pisa and Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, the expedition had the support of Pope Paschal II and the participation of many lords of Catalonia and Occitania, as well as contingents from northern and central Italy, Sardinia, and Corsica. The Crusaders were perhaps inspired by the Norwegian king Sigurd I's attack on Formentera in 1108 or 1109 during the Norwegian Crusade. The expedition ended in 1115 in the conquest of the Balearics, but only until the next year. The main source for the event is the Pisan Liber maiolichinus, completed by 1125.
The Norwegian Crusade, led by Norwegian King Sigurd I, was a crusade or a pilgrimage that lasted from 1107 to 1111, in the aftermath of the First Crusade. The Norwegian Crusade marks the first time a European king personally went to the Holy Land.
In 1015 and again in 1016, the forces of Mujāhid al-ʿĀmirī from the taifa of Denia and the Balearics, in the east of Muslim Spain (al-Andalus), attacked Sardinia and attempted to establish control over it. In both these years joint expeditions from the maritime republics of Pisa and Genoa repelled the invaders. These Pisan–Genoese expeditions to Sardinia were approved and supported by the Papacy in aid of the sovereign Sardinian medieval kingdoms, known as Judicates, which resisted autonomously after the collapse of the Byzantine rule on the island. and modern historians often see them as proto-Crusades. After their victory, the Italian cities turned on each other. For this reason, the Christian sources for the expedition are primarily from Pisa, which celebrated its double victory over the Muslims and the Genoese with an inscription on the walls of its Duomo.
The term Norwegian Realm and Old Kingdom of Norway refer to the Kingdom of Norway's peak of power at the 13th century after a long period of civil war before 1240. The kingdom was a loosely unified nation including the territory of modern-day Norway, modern-day Swedish territory of Jämtland, Herjedalen, Ranrike (Bohuslän) and Idre and Särna, as well as Norway's overseas possessions which had been settled by Norwegian seafarers for centuries before being annexed or incorporated into the kingdom as 'tax territories'. To the North, Norway also bordered extensive tax territories on the mainland. Norway, whose expansionism starts from the very foundation of the Kingdom in 872, reached the peak of its power in the years between 1240 and 1319.
The siege of Chandax in 960-961 was the centerpiece of the Byzantine Empire's campaign to recover the island of Crete which since the 820s had been ruled by Muslim Arabs. The campaign followed a series of failed attempts to reclaim the island from the Muslims stretching as far back as 827, only a few years after the initial conquest of the island by the Arabs, and was led by the general and future emperor Nikephoros Phokas. It lasted from autumn 960 until spring 961, when the main Muslim fortress and capital of the island, Chandax was captured. The reconquest of Crete was a major achievement for the Byzantines, as it restored Byzantine control over the Aegean littoral and diminished the threat of Saracen pirates, for which Crete had provided a base of operations.
The Siege of Lisbon was a military campaign and siege at the city of Lisbon. The Norwegian Realm fought the Iberian Muslims at the city in 1109. The Norwegians eventually won, suffering very low casualties. The siege in particular had a significant impact on Lisbon because of the ongoing Christian and Muslim conflicts on the Iberian Peninsula.
