106 Part I The Early Middle Ages

Northmen, which lays waste our realms, deliver us, O God.” And in the northern Italian peninsula: “Against the arrows of the Magyars be thou our protector.” Like the barbar-ians who had both troubled Rome and revitalized it in the fourth and fi fth centuries, the invaders of the ninth and tenth centuries would eventually bring good as well as harm to the European West. But at fi rst contact, Muslim pirates, Viking raiders, and Magyar horsemen infl icted suffering and terror.

Map 5.2 The Viking, Magyar, and Muslim Invasions, c. 800–1000 In the ninth century, Europeans faced threats on all sides. To the east, they faced Magyars who raided deep into the Holy Roman Empire and down the Italian peninsula. To the south, they feared Muslim raiders who harried the French and Italian coasts and all islands in between. And to the north and west, they dreaded the sight of Viking ships. The Danes and Norse ravaged western coasts, whereas the Swedes swept through central Europe, following the Dnieper to the Black Sea and Constantinople.

Ni l

e

Po

Rhô

ne

Sein eDniester

Loire

Ebro

Tagus

Danub

Dnieper

Danube

Rhine

Dvina

Elbe

V istula

V olga

0

0 250 500 kilometers

250 500 miles

A T L A N T I CO C E A N

M E D I T E R R A N E A N S E A

B L A C K S E A

Novgorod(820)

Kiev (882)

Tours

Paris

Aachen

Constantinople(860, 907, 941)Rome

(846)

Marseilles

Lechfeld (955)

Viking settlements

Vikings

Muslims

Magyars

B Y Z A N T I N E E M P I RE

F A T I M I D C A L I P H A T E

A L - A N D A L U S859

853

870

875

D A N E S

S W E D E S

M A G Y A R S

NO

RS E

ben85506_ch05_102-130.indd 106ben85506_ch05_102-130.indd 106 10/26/09 10:09:23 AM10/26/09 10:09:23 AM

CONFIRMING PAGES