University of Gothenburg
none
Slaget vid Stamford Bridge, från The Life of King Edward the Confessor, Cambridge University Library, MS Ee.3.59, f. 32v; MS från c. 1250-60.
Photo: Cambridge University Library,
  2. News and events
  3. Find events
  4. A Viking in the Sun: Harald Hardrada as the best documented “ Viking” visitor to the Mediterranean

A Viking in the Sun: Harald Hardrada as the best documented “ Viking” visitor to the Mediterranean

Culture and languages

The Medieval Committee at the University of Gothenburg invites you to the first seminar of the spring! Harald Hardrada is especially well known, both within and outside academia, for his exploits as king of Norway, as testified by his popular epithets ‘hardrada’ and ‘the last Viking’. The lecture will be held in English and is open to the public.

Seminar
Date
12 Feb 2026
Time
15:15 - 17:00
Location
Sal J303, Humanisten, Renströmsgatan 6.
Good to know
The lecture will be held in English and is open to the public. It can also be followed digitally. For the link, please contact Auður Magnúsdóttir (audur.magnusdottir@history.gu.se)
Organizer
The Medieval Committee, Department of Historical studies

Titel: A Viking in the Sun: Harald Hardrada as the best documented “ Viking” visitor to the Mediterranean

Harald Hardrada is especially well known, both within and outside academia, for his exploits as king of Norway, as testified by his popular epithets ‘hardrada’ and ‘the last Viking’. 

They refer to his severe style of rulership and his death at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066, which marked the end of the Viking Age in England and was a prelude to its Norman conquest. 

Instead, ‘A Viking in the Sun’ is an international, collaborative, and interdisciplinary project that wishes to highlight Harald’s surprisingly unsung status as best documented “Viking” visitor to the Mediterranean. Moreover, the project also aims to use that status as a common thread to explore themes related to Mediterranean societies and their connections with the Nordic world in the liminal period between the late Viking age and the eve of the crusades. 

This paper illustrates the project and discusses the great variety of sources available on Harald’s Mediterranean encounters (including Old Norse, Latin, and Greek texts from across a geographical span that went from Iceland to Byzantium) as well as some of the challenges that they present.

More about the researcher

Gianluca Raccagni is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History and Director of the History and Games Lab at the University of Edinburgh. He is the principal investigator of the collaborative international project A Viking in the Sun: Harald Hardrada, the Mediterranean, and the Nordic World between the Late Viking Age and the Eve of the Crusades. He graduated in medieval history at the University of Bologna and pursued his postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, where he was also British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, joining the University of Edinburgh after a brief spell as Canon Foundation Research Fellow at the Department of Occidental History of the University of Tokyo.

Welcome!

Last modified