High Middle Ages · Europe · Exploration

1101

Sigurd Jerusalemfarer leaves Norway

1101

The teenage Norwegian co-king Sigurd Magnusson sailed with sixty longships for the Mediterranean, hunting pirates and fighting Muslim Spain along the way. It was the first Scandinavian royal crusade, and the voyage would last three years before reaching the Holy Land. Sigurd returned home laden with relics and a splinter of the True Cross, which he deposited in a golden shrine at Konungahella.