Was Noirmoutier Used as a Viking Wintering Base?
A Deep Dive into the Viking Invasions of Western France — Episode 6
It all starts with the entry for the year 843 in The Annals of St. Bertin, which relays to us the sack of Nantes in 843 as follows: “Northmen Pirates attacked Nantes, slew the bishop and many laypeople of both sexes, and sacked the civitas…finally, they landed on a certain island, brought their households over from the mainland and decided to winter there in something like a permanent settlement.”
The fall of Nantes shocked the entire empire, with one chronicle describing it as an apocalypse. Ermentarius relays that they sailed up the Loire with 67 ships, and the Annals of Angoulême suggest they were Vestfaldingi, or men from the Vestfold region of Norway. More intriguing to our purpose here is the mention in the Chronicle of Nantes, which was composed using earlier manuscripts, that directly references the island of Noirmoutier (then called Herio) as a wintering base for the Vikings.
The Annals of St. Bertin, along with the…
