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Our Viking village: How the Norse raiders left their stamp on Spain
20/02/2022
IF YOU had ancestors in the UK, Ireland, or the far north-eastern tip of the Americas over a millennium ago, you're probably a pirate.
That's because you may well be a distant relative of the Scandinavian colonisers known in Old Norse as víkingr, meaning 'pirate', and which morphed into 'Viking', now synonymous with fierce-looking men in horned helmets.
In reality, though, horns on helmets would have been impractical for combat, and were probably only used in ceremonies, whilst the 'everyday' headgear would have more likely been the spangelhelm, or several flattened bits of iron gripped together.
And women were 'Vikings', in the 'pirate' and the tribesperson senses of the description: They were very much more emancipated in the ninth century than they would have been 1,000 years later, able to choose to divorce or leave their husbands, live independently, own property in their own names, manage family farms and finances in the men's absence, and a few of them knew how to handle swords.
'Danish England' was in place for around 200 years, much of Scotland and especially the islands, along with Iceland, was under Norwegian rule, the western Baltic States and a large chunk of west Russia was ruled by the Swedes, Scandinavian Kingdoms were in place in strategic parts of Ireland for about two-and-a-half centuries, and historians are divided as to whether the Americas were actually 'discovered' by Leif Eriksson at around the start of the 11th century – certainly Greenland, now part of modern-day Denmark and therefore Europe, but in geological or tectonic-plate terms part of the American continent, was largely in Viking hands.
Mediterranean Vikings?
Vikings are rarely associated with the Mediterranean. Brief, relatively unsuccessful strongholds appeared across Normandy and the banks of the river Seine, and whole communities of Vikings were in service as mercenaries in Constantinople – now İstanbul, in Turkey – forming the Byzantine Emperor's Varangian Guard.
But did they ever hit Spain? Whilst Scandinavian DNA is widely present in British and Irish natives, and the English language is peppered with influence from the Scandinavian tongues, the Iberian Peninsula was largely under Moorish rule at the time of the Viking colonisation.
They did circumnavigate what is now Spain and Portugal in the early ninth century, briefly stopping for a raid in the Caliphate of Córdoba in 834, but other than a few attempts at pillaging before being sent packing, the Vikings never gained any kind of foothold in Mediterranean Europe outside of Constantinople.
Which makes it all the more curious to learn that a town in central Spain has a Viking church and bell-tower in the middle of it.
Covarrubias and its Viking chapel
Burgos, a province of the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, is most widely known for its spectacular gothic cathedral in the city of the same name – once you've seen it, you'll have been ruined for every other cathedral visit on earth, simply unable to be impressed; you'll be comparing them all, on every continent, to Burgos, and this one will emerge the winner every time.
Burgos is also known for its soft white cheese, mass-produced and sold in every supermarket, and for being in the heart of the Ribera del Duero wine region, which takes its name from the river Duero – this runs into Portugal eventually, where it is known as the Douro.
But Burgos is not typically associated with the Vikings – other than in Covarrubias.
This beautiful Mediaeval town is one of the best-preserved in the country, a permanent tourist attraction due to its stunning buildings – such as its traditional white houses with wooden outer beams and balconies – where you feel as though you've stepped back centuries, frozen in time and untouched by the hundreds of years of history that has happened since.
And one of its key visitor sites is the Saint Olav chapel, a wooden affair of the same family as Norway's famous stavkirke, or Stave churches.
These started to appear as the Scandinavian countries embraced Christianity in around the 10th century, taking their name from the stav, or solid wooden post used as the base of their structures, with a proliferation of them popping up in Norway up to around the mid-14th century when they started to fall into disuse, largely through a combination of the Black Plague and the Lutherist reform during the Renaissance era.
Ornate and elaborate, stavkirke were starting to become commonplace at the height of Viking rule – even though the Vikings themselves are never thought to have converted to Christianity and continued with their pantheistic beliefs that had been the dominant religion in what is now Denmark, Norway and Sweden since around 500 BCE (BC).
Viking Queen of Spain
Princess Kristina of Norway travelled to central Spain to marry Prince Felipe of Castilla in the 13th century – now over 200 years since the Viking rule had been consigned to the history books in most of its old northern European territories – but as a descendant of the original population of northern colonisers, she was determined to leave her stamp on her new country.
She urged her new husband to build her a chapel in honour of Saint Olav, patron of Norway, in the Viking-era style, as a wedding gift.
Felipe of Castilla agreed, and started the groundwork – but failed to follow through with his wife's greatest wish, and she never got her yearned-for piece of home.
It would be nearly 800 years later when the Princess Kristina of Norway Foundation was set up, in 1992, to promote cultural ties between Castilla y León and the northern European country in her memory.
Thanks to this Foundation, Saint Olav's chapel was finally built and unveiled in September 2011, a huge rectangular affair with a 30-metre (over 98-foot) bell-tower, designed to showcase the patron in his three key rôles: As Viking, as King, and as a Saint.
It's the first-ever chapel to be built in Spain in the 21st century, but its architecture remains faithful to that of 13th-century Norway, and it is now one of the most-visited sites in the province of Burgos after the city cathedral itself.
In summer, the grounds are used for open-air concerts – a complete schedule of these was launched last September to mark its 10th anniversary.
What else to see in Covarrubias
The entire town is a Mediaeval gem, from the traditional wood-and-white houses we mentioned earlier, to the 15th-century Casa de Doña Sancha in the town hall square where the Infanta Sancha de Castilla lived, the huge arch bearing the Royal coat of arms dedicated to King Felipe II, and the solid, four-square stone Torreón de Fernán González, built in the 10th century – whilst the Vikings were busy elsewhere in Europe – and still completely intact.
Burgos itself, and the famed splendid cathedral, is about 37 kilometres away and on a fast train route from Madrid.
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IF YOU had ancestors in the UK, Ireland, or the far north-eastern tip of the Americas over a millennium ago, you're probably a pirate.
That's because you may well be a distant relative of the Scandinavian colonisers known in Old Norse as víkingr, meaning 'pirate', and which morphed into 'Viking', now synonymous with fierce-looking men in horned helmets.
In reality, though, horns on helmets would have been impractical for combat, and were probably only used in ceremonies, whilst the 'everyday' headgear would have more likely been the spangelhelm, or several flattened bits of iron gripped together.
And women were 'Vikings', in the 'pirate' and the tribesperson senses of the description: They were very much more emancipated in the ninth century than they would have been 1,000 years later, able to choose to divorce or leave their husbands, live independently, own property in their own names, manage family farms and finances in the men's absence, and a few of them knew how to handle swords.
'Danish England' was in place for around 200 years, much of Scotland and especially the islands, along with Iceland, was under Norwegian rule, the western Baltic States and a large chunk of west Russia was ruled by the Swedes, Scandinavian Kingdoms were in place in strategic parts of Ireland for about two-and-a-half centuries, and historians are divided as to whether the Americas were actually 'discovered' by Leif Eriksson at around the start of the 11th century – certainly Greenland, now part of modern-day Denmark and therefore Europe, but in geological or tectonic-plate terms part of the American continent, was largely in Viking hands.
Mediterranean Vikings?
Vikings are rarely associated with the Mediterranean. Brief, relatively unsuccessful strongholds appeared across Normandy and the banks of the river Seine, and whole communities of Vikings were in service as mercenaries in Constantinople – now İstanbul, in Turkey – forming the Byzantine Emperor's Varangian Guard.
But did they ever hit Spain? Whilst Scandinavian DNA is widely present in British and Irish natives, and the English language is peppered with influence from the Scandinavian tongues, the Iberian Peninsula was largely under Moorish rule at the time of the Viking colonisation.
They did circumnavigate what is now Spain and Portugal in the early ninth century, briefly stopping for a raid in the Caliphate of Córdoba in 834, but other than a few attempts at pillaging before being sent packing, the Vikings never gained any kind of foothold in Mediterranean Europe outside of Constantinople.
Which makes it all the more curious to learn that a town in central Spain has a Viking church and bell-tower in the middle of it.
Covarrubias and its Viking chapel
Burgos, a province of the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, is most widely known for its spectacular gothic cathedral in the city of the same name – once you've seen it, you'll have been ruined for every other cathedral visit on earth, simply unable to be impressed; you'll be comparing them all, on every continent, to Burgos, and this one will emerge the winner every time.
Burgos is also known for its soft white cheese, mass-produced and sold in every supermarket, and for being in the heart of the Ribera del Duero wine region, which takes its name from the river Duero – this runs into Portugal eventually, where it is known as the Douro.
But Burgos is not typically associated with the Vikings – other than in Covarrubias.
This beautiful Mediaeval town is one of the best-preserved in the country, a permanent tourist attraction due to its stunning buildings – such as its traditional white houses with wooden outer beams and balconies – where you feel as though you've stepped back centuries, frozen in time and untouched by the hundreds of years of history that has happened since.
And one of its key visitor sites is the Saint Olav chapel, a wooden affair of the same family as Norway's famous stavkirke, or Stave churches.
These started to appear as the Scandinavian countries embraced Christianity in around the 10th century, taking their name from the stav, or solid wooden post used as the base of their structures, with a proliferation of them popping up in Norway up to around the mid-14th century when they started to fall into disuse, largely through a combination of the Black Plague and the Lutherist reform during the Renaissance era.
Ornate and elaborate, stavkirke were starting to become commonplace at the height of Viking rule – even though the Vikings themselves are never thought to have converted to Christianity and continued with their pantheistic beliefs that had been the dominant religion in what is now Denmark, Norway and Sweden since around 500 BCE (BC).
Viking Queen of Spain
Princess Kristina of Norway travelled to central Spain to marry Prince Felipe of Castilla in the 13th century – now over 200 years since the Viking rule had been consigned to the history books in most of its old northern European territories – but as a descendant of the original population of northern colonisers, she was determined to leave her stamp on her new country.
She urged her new husband to build her a chapel in honour of Saint Olav, patron of Norway, in the Viking-era style, as a wedding gift.
Felipe of Castilla agreed, and started the groundwork – but failed to follow through with his wife's greatest wish, and she never got her yearned-for piece of home.
It would be nearly 800 years later when the Princess Kristina of Norway Foundation was set up, in 1992, to promote cultural ties between Castilla y León and the northern European country in her memory.
Thanks to this Foundation, Saint Olav's chapel was finally built and unveiled in September 2011, a huge rectangular affair with a 30-metre (over 98-foot) bell-tower, designed to showcase the patron in his three key rôles: As Viking, as King, and as a Saint.
It's the first-ever chapel to be built in Spain in the 21st century, but its architecture remains faithful to that of 13th-century Norway, and it is now one of the most-visited sites in the province of Burgos after the city cathedral itself.
In summer, the grounds are used for open-air concerts – a complete schedule of these was launched last September to mark its 10th anniversary.
What else to see in Covarrubias
The entire town is a Mediaeval gem, from the traditional wood-and-white houses we mentioned earlier, to the 15th-century Casa de Doña Sancha in the town hall square where the Infanta Sancha de Castilla lived, the huge arch bearing the Royal coat of arms dedicated to King Felipe II, and the solid, four-square stone Torreón de Fernán González, built in the 10th century – whilst the Vikings were busy elsewhere in Europe – and still completely intact.
Burgos itself, and the famed splendid cathedral, is about 37 kilometres away and on a fast train route from Madrid.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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