| Viking raid on Galicia and Asturias | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Kingdom of Asturias  Kingdom of Galicia |  Norwegian Vikings [1] | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Ramiro I of Asturias | Unknown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 150 ships [2] | |||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 70 longships burnt [3] [4] Heavy human losses [5] [6] | |||||||
The Viking raid on Galicia and Asturias occurred in 844. Many longships were lost in the attack and the fleet retreated to Aquitaine. [7]
In 844, the Vikings, who at that time infested all the maritime provinces of Europe, made a descent at A Coruña, and began to raid the countryside, burning and pillaging. King Ramiro I of Asturias marched against them with a potent army, managed to rout the invaders with a prodigious slaughter, took many of them as prisoners, and burned the best part of their fleet. Ramiro's reception frightened the Viking raiders, so raiding parties no longer troubled the parts of Spain that were under the king's control.
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Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russia, and through the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople and the Middle East, acting as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries. To the west, Vikings under Leif Erikson, the heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up a short-lived settlement in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada. Longer lasting and more established Norse settlements were formed in Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, Ireland, Normandy and Sicily.
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The siege of Paris of 845 was the culmination of a Viking invasion of West Francia. The Viking forces were led by a Norse chieftain named "Reginherus", or Ragnar, who tentatively has been identified with the legendary saga character Ragnar Lodbrok. Reginherus's fleet of 120 Viking ships, carrying thousands of warriors, entered the Seine in March and sailed up the river.
The Viking raid on Išbīliya, then part of the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba, took place in 844. After raiding the coasts of what are now Spain and Portugal, a Viking fleet arrived in Išbīliya through the Guadalquivir on 25 September and took the city on 1 or 3 October. The Vikings pillaged the city and the surrounding areas. Emir Abd ar-Rahman II of Córdoba mobilized and sent a large force against the Vikings under the command of the hajib (chief-minister) Isa ibn Shuhayd. After a series of indecisive engagements, the Muslim army defeated the Vikings on either 11 or 17 November. Seville was retaken and the remnants of the Vikings fled Spain. After the raid, the Muslims raised new troops and built more ships and other military equipment to protect the coast. The quick military response in 844 and the subsequent defensive improvements discouraged further attacks by the Vikings.
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