Norwegian Crusade

The Norwegian Crusade was a crusade that lasted from 1107 to 1110, in the aftermath of the First Crusade, led by Norwegian king Sigurd I. Sigurd was the first Scandinavian king to go on crusade to the Holy Land. Not one battle during the Norwegian Crusade was lost by the crusaders.

The journey to Jerusalem

From Norway to England (1107-08)

Sigurd and his men sailed from Norway in the autumn of 1107 with sixty ships and perhaps around 5,000 men. In the autumn he arrived in England, where Henry I was king. Sigurd and his men stayed there the entire winter, until the spring of 1108, when they again set sail westwards.

In mainland Iberia (1108-09)

After several months they came to the town of Santiago de Compostela (Jakobsland) in Galicia (Galizuland) where they were allowed by a local lord to stay for the winter. However, when the winter came there was a shortage of food, which caused the lord to refuse to sell food and goods to the Norwegians. Sigurd then gathered his army, attacked the lord's castle and looted what they could there.