Hastein

Hastein in Luna, Italy ca 859.Histoire Populaire de la France1st edition, author: Ch. LahureHastein (Old Norse: Hásteinn, also recorded as Hastingus, Anstign, Haesten, Hæsten, Hæstenn or Hæsting and alias Alsting ) was a Viking chieftain of the late 9th century who made several raiding voyages.

Early life Little is known of Hastein's early life. He is described as a Dane in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but the 11th-century chronicler Raoul Glaber states that Hastein may have been born in the Pays de Troyes (county of Troyes), in modern-day France, a claim at odds with sources identifying him as Scandinavian.

Historian Michel Dillange suggests these views may be reconcilable, theorizing that around the year 800, Charlemagne relocated many Saxons and Danes to Christian lands to prevent rebellion in Saxony. Hastein may have been born around 810 to one of these families, later discovering his heritage and returning to Scandinavia, where he rose to become a notable ship captain and Viking leader.

Hastein is credited with being involved with various raids on the divided Frankish Empire. He also reportedly led a great raid into the Mediterranean in 859.

At first the raiding did not go well, with Hastein being defeated by the Asturians and later the Muslims of the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba at Niebla in 859. Success followed with the sacking of Algeciras, where the mosque was burned, and then the ravaging of Mazimma in the Idrisid Caliphate on the north coast of Africa, followed by further raids into the Umayyad Caliphate at Orihuela, the Balearic Islands and Roussillon. They occupied Nekor for 8 days.

Hastein and Björn wintered at Camargue island on the mouth of the Rhone before ravaging Narbonne, Nîmes and Arles, then as far north as Valence, before moving onto Italy. There they attacked the city of Luna. Believing it to be Rome, Hastein had his men carry him to the gate and tell the guards he was dying and wished to convert to Christianity. Once inside, he was taken to the town's church where he received the sacraments, before jumping from his stretcher and leading his men in a sack of the town. Another account has him claiming to want to convert before he died, and feigning death on the following day. Luna allowed his body and 50 of his men clad in robes enter for his burial. Hastein's men had concealed swords under their robes, and once inside Hastein leaped from his coffin, decapitated the priest and sacked the city. However, the veracity of this is much debated. He sailed down the coast and sacked Pisa and, sailing on the River Arno, ravaged Fiesole. The fleet then possibly raided the Byzantine Empire's territories in the eastern Mediterranean.

On the way back to the Loire, he stopped off in North Africa where he bought several African slaves (known to the Vikings as 'blámenn', blue men, possibly Soussians or Tuaregs) whom he sold in Ireland. They were presumed to have lost 40 ships in a storm, and lost two more at the Straits of Gibraltar on their way home, near Medina-Sidonia, but still managed to ravage Pamplona before returning home to the Loire with 20 ships.

Loire and Seine

Settled back in Brittany, Hastein allied himself with Salomon, King of Brittany against the Franks in 866, and as part of a Viking-Breton army he killed Robert the Strong at the Battle of Brissarthe near Châteauneuf-sur-Sarthe. In 867 he went on to ravage Bourges and a year later attacked Orléans. Peace lasted until spring 872 when the Viking fleet sailed up the Maine and occupied Angers, which led to a siege by the Frankish king Charles the Bald and a peace being agreed in October 873.

Hastein remained in the Loire country until 882, when he was finally expelled by Charles and relocated his army north to the Seine. There he stayed until the Franks besieged Paris and his territory in the Picardy was threatened. It was at this point he became one of many experienced Vikings to look to England for riches and plunder. Alfred the Great positioned a Wessex army between them to keep them from uniting, the result of which was that Hastein agreed terms, including allowing his two sons to be baptised, and left Kent for Essex. The larger army attempted to reunite with Hastein after raiding Hampshire and Berkshire in the late spring of 893, but was defeated at Farnham by an army under Edward, Alfred's son. The survivors eventually reached Hastein's army at Mersea Island, after a combined Wessex and Mercian army failed to dislodge them from their fortress at Thorney.

As a result, Hastein combined his forces from Appledore and Milton and withdrew them to a fortified camp at Benfleet, Essex. He used this camp as a base to raid Mercia. However, while his main force was out raiding in 894, the fort was attacked by the bolstered militia of eastern Wessex, who defeated the garrison in the Battle of Benfleet. The entire fort, along with the Danes' families – including Hastein's wife and sons – was captured, along with their ships. Hastein re-established his combined force at a new fort, at Shoebury in eastern Essex, Hastein had his two sons returned to him. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, this was because Hastein's sons had been baptised in early 893, with Alfred and his son-in-law Aethelred of Mercia as sponsors. Thus Alfred was godfather to one boy and Aethelred godfather to the other.

The negotiations apparently achieved little because, shortly afterwards, Hastein launched a second raid along the Thames valley and from there along the River Severn. Hastein was pursued all the way by Aethelred and a combined Mercian and Wessex army, reinforced by a contingent of warriors from the Welsh kingdoms. Eventually the Viking army was trapped at a place called Buttington—possibly the island by that name on the Severn, near Welshpool, Powys. At the subsequent Battle of Buttington, several weeks later, Hastein's forces fought their way out, with many casualties, and returned to the fortress at Shoebury.

In mid-893, Hastein's forces moved their camp from East Anglia, to the ruined Roman fortress at Chester. Hastein apparently planned to rebuild the fortifications and use it as a base for raiding northern Mercia. However, the Mercians had other ideas, they laid siege to the fortress and attempted to starve the Danes out by removing or retrieving any livestock and destroying any crops in the area.

Legacy

Hastein disappeared from history in around 896, by then an old man having already been described as "the lusty and terrifying old warrior of the Loire and the Somme",

He is identified with the Jarl Hasting who held the Channel Islands for a while.

Some scholars have suggested that the Hastings area of Sussex in England may have been founded by a forebear of Hastein.