The Ambiguous Beginning: The 799 Raid on Noirmoutier

A Deep Dive into the Viking Invasions of Western France — Episode 1

Aug 11, 2025

Norman Pirates in the Ninth Century, oil on canvas, by Evariste-Vital Luminais (1821–1896), Musée Anne de Beaujeu in Moulins. — *Norman Pirates in the Ninth Century*, oil on canvas, by Evariste-Vital Luminais (1821–1896), Musée Anne de Beaujeu in Moulins.

Last weekend at the Salon du Livre in L’Épine, right here on the island of Noirmoutier, I met dozens of curious readers, sold a good number of books, and had some unforgettable conversations. What struck me most was how few people, even on the island itself, knew about Noirmoutier’s place in Viking history. To most, Lindisfarne in 793 is the famous “first” raid. Far fewer have heard of the attack on Saint Philibert’s monastery in 799, which many historians see as the start of two centuries of Viking activity in Western France.

That got me thinking: what if I told this story properly, not in one long article, but as an ongoing deep dive? So, for the rest of the year, I’ll be taking you week-by-week through each significant event in the Viking invasions of Western France, from the raids to the battles to the political intrigue, the debates among historians, and my thoughts on where the evidence points.

Today we start at the very beginning — or perhaps a beginning — with an attack that may not have been a Viking raid at all.

The Conventional Story of The 799 Raid on Noirmoutier

Most modern history books tell us that in 799 A.D., Vikings attacked the monastery of Saint Philibert on the island of Noirmoutier. It’s usually presented as fact. The island’s location at the mouth of the Loire made it an ideal forward base for Scandinavian fleets, and its monastery, like Lindisfarne six years earlier, was wealthy, lightly defended, and easy to reach by sea.

The core of this tradition comes from a letter written by the theologian Alcuin of York, who famously described the horrors at Lindisfarne. Writing to Bishop Arno of Salzburg, Alcuin reports an attack by paganae (“pagans”) on the islands of Aquitaine. The phrasing is vague: no monastery is named, and “pagans” could mean more than one group. But historians have traditionally linked Alcuin’s letter to later Carolingian accounts mentioning Viking activity along the Aquitaine coast.

Two early 9th-century imperial biographers strengthen the case. Rimbert, in The Two Lives of Charlemagne, tells us that around the year 800, Charlemagne encountered a Viking fleet off Aquitaine; when they learned the emperor himself was nearby, they fled. Einhard, in his Vita Karoli Magni, also places Charlemagne in Aquitaine at this time, noting that the area was “infested by Northmen” (Nordmannicis infestum erat).

Later sources are more specific. A letter from the abbot of Saint Philibert in 819 complains of frequent raids, suggesting a pattern stretching back years. In the 830s, the monk Ermentarius wrote of the first attack. But, frustratingly, he gave few details. Still, by stacking these accounts together, the traditional view emerges: Vikings struck Saint Philibert in 799, beginning a long season of raids on the island.

The Revisionist Challenge to The 799 Raid on Noirmoutier

The historian Simon Coupland was one of the first to question this narrative publicly. His main points:

Ermentarius also records a Moorish raid attempt in the region, showing that Muslim fleets from al-Andalus were active on the western coast of France at this time.
Alcuin sometimes used paganae to describe Muslims as well as Vikings. So when he reports pagans attacking “islands of Aquitaine,” he may not have meant Norsemen at all.
Without direct mention of “Northmen” or “Danes,” linking the 799 attack to Vikings could be anachronistic, especially since unambiguous Viking raids in the region are better attested 10–15 years later.

Coupland’s caution is methodological: historians should not conflate every early 9th-century coastal raid with Viking activity simply because Norse attacks dominate the later record.

Why I Still Think It Was Vikings

It is true, as Simon Coupland points out, that our evidence for 799 is thin. But thin is not the same as nonexistent, and when I look at what we do have, I find it far more consistent with a Viking raid than with a Moorish one. Alcuin’s phrase “islands of Aquitaine” matches neatly with Noirmoutier, Île d’Yeu, and Île de Ré, similar to the stepping-stone islands the Scandinavians may have already been using elsewhere, such as in Ireland and the Hebrides. The timing also makes sense: after Lindisfarne in 793 and Iona in 795, a push west and south toward the Loire, with its access to the Frankish interior (and salt!), would have been a natural next move.

The imperial sources strengthen the case. Rimbert and Einhard both portray Charlemagne reacting to “Northmen” in the Aquitaine region, which is difficult to reconcile with the idea of a purely Moorish attack. If it were only Muslims on the coast, why the repeated emphasis on Norse threats in separate, independent biographies? Alcuin’s interests also point in the same direction. He wrote extensively on the dangers posed by the Norse to Christendom, and would have been quick to record an attack by them—far more so than a Moorish raid outside his immediate ecclesiastical sphere.

Further evidence comes from the immediate military response ordered by Charlemagne himself. As the Capitularia missorum specialia records, the emperor issued commands “De navigia praeparando circa littoralia maris” (“on preparing ships around the sea coasts”), “De navibus quas facere iussimus” (“on the ships we have ordered to be made”), and “De materia ad naves faciendas” (“on the materials for making ships”). The Astronomer likewise notes that Charlemagne “had given orders at that time to have ships built against the incursions of the Northmen on all the rivers which flow into the sea,” and that he entrusted this task to his son on the Garonne and Loire. These orders, dated by some scholars to around 800, follow so closely on the heels of the 799 attack that they read almost like a direct acknowledgement of a Viking threat. It’s a reaction that would make little sense if the raid had been Moorish in origin.

Finally, there is the matter of continuity. By 819, the monks of Saint Philibert were already complaining of “frequent” attacks. That pattern is much easier to explain if raiding had been going on for years, beginning with the events of 799, rather than starting fresh in the second decade of the ninth century.

No historian can claim absolute certainty here, but when geography, chronology, and contemporary testimony all lean in the same direction, I think the weight of evidence tips toward Vikings rather than Moors.

Why This Event Matters

At first glance, whether the 799 attackers were Vikings or Moors might seem like hair-splitting. But in the bigger picture, it shapes our understanding of how quickly Scandinavians moved from the British Isles into the Frankish world, and how rapidly Charlemagne recognized them as a strategic threat.

If 799 marks the start, then Viking pressure on the empire began during Charlemagne’s lifetime and not after his death. That reframes his coastal policies, his river defenses, and his naval construction in the early 9th century. It also connects Noirmoutier directly to the “opening salvo” of Viking-Carolingian conflict, rather than placing it in a secondary wave.

It also ties directly into my ongoing research on what I call the Salt Hypothesis, which is the idea that early Viking raids on Western France were driven in part by the need for salt to preserve herring for trade with the East. Noirmoutier, with its extensive salt pans, would have been a prime target for Scandinavians seeking to secure this resource. If the 799 raid was indeed Viking, then it marks not just the beginning of their military presence in the region, but also the opening move in a strategic campaign to control one of the most valuable commodities of the early medieval world.

Next Week: The Bouin Raid of 820

If 799 was indeed the first blow, it wasn’t the last. In 820, a Viking fleet attempted to ascend the Seine, was repelled, and instead turned toward the lesser-defended island of Bouin. They returned home with “immense booty.” It’s a story that gives us an even clearer look at Viking tactics in the early years of raiding Western France.

We’ll explore that episode next week: the sources, the strategic implications, and how raids like Bouin set the stage for the permanent Norse presence at Nantes later in the century.

If you’re enjoying this series, you can subscribe to get each episode in your inbox. By the end of the year, you’ll have a complete chronological guide to the Viking invasions of Western France, from Noirmoutier to the fall of Nantes, and beyond.