From the Viking Sea to Jerusalem

1. Begin with the sea

Before considering Vikings or Crusaders, it is necessary to understand the geography.

Fishguard Bay is a natural maritime space. The River Gwaun reaches the sea at Fishguard, while the surrounding headlands and bays provide shelter from the exposed waters beyond. Goodwick lies on the northern side of the bay and possesses a particularly sheltered orientation.

The modern harbour is nineteenth-century, but the harbour's modernity should not obscure the much older usefulness of the location.

A medieval sailor did not require a nineteenth-century breakwater.

A ship needed somewhere where it could ride out bad weather.

A crew needed fresh water, food and the possibility of repairing equipment.

A trader needed access to a community or market.

A raider needed a coastline from which he could reach settlements inland.

The Irish Sea provided all of these possibilities.

From the perspective of a Viking navigator, Pembrokeshire was therefore not an isolated corner of Wales. It was a landfall.

The coast of Ireland lies relatively close across the Irish Sea. The Isle of Man and western Britain formed part of a network that could be navigated in stages. Norse settlements at Dublin, Waterford, Wexford and elsewhere created bases from which ships could operate along the western British coast.

This maritime geography is fundamental to understanding Fishguard and Goodwick.

If the coast had been inaccessible, the Norse place names would be difficult to explain.

If the bay had offered no shelter, Viking use would have been less likely.

But the geographical circumstances are exactly those one would expect to attract maritime activity.

That is not proof of a settlement.

It is, however, an excellent reason to investigate the possibility.

2. The Viking Age and western Wales

The Viking Age was not a single episode.

Scandinavian activity around Britain developed over several centuries and included raiding, trading, settlement, political alliances, mercenary service and intermarriage.

The popular image of Vikings descending upon a monastery with axes is therefore only part of the story.

A Viking ship could arrive as a warship.

It could also arrive as a merchant vessel.

The same sailor might participate in both activities at different moments.

This is particularly important in Pembrokeshire.

The area contained wealthy ecclesiastical centres, but it also possessed valuable agricultural land, horses, fish, coastal resources and access to maritime routes.

Haagdyve's research places intensified Norse activity in north Pembrokeshire from approximately the middle of the tenth century and records repeated attacks on St Davids and other religious centres. It specifically identifies attacks on St Davids, St Dogmaels and other Welsh ecclesiastical communities. Haagdyve Foundation

The broad picture is supported by the wider historical evidence.

The Vikings were active in the Irish Sea.

They attacked Wales.

They interacted with Welsh rulers.

They established communities in Ireland.

And they left linguistic traces across western Britain.

The story was therefore not simply one of invasion from Scandinavia.

It was a process of interaction.

3. St Davids under the Vikings

St Davids provides one of the most important links between the Viking and later crusading histories.

The medieval shrine of St David stood at the western extremity of Wales, but spiritually it was anything but peripheral.

It was a major ecclesiastical centre.

Its wealth made it attractive to raiders.

Haagdyve records repeated Norse attacks on St Davids between the tenth and eleventh centuries, including attacks in 982, 988, 992, 999, 1002, 1022 and 1080. Haagdyve Foundation

The exact chronology and interpretation of individual attacks should be checked against the medieval chronicles and modern scholarship, but there is no reason to doubt the broader reality of Viking pressure on the ecclesiastical communities of west Wales.

The irony is remarkable.

The Vikings attacked St Davids.

Yet St Davids would later become one of the places through which medieval Wales became deeply connected to the religious culture of the Crusades.

The place that Viking raiders viewed as a source of ecclesiastical wealth became a destination for pilgrims.

And pilgrims belonged to the same religious culture that produced crusaders.

Thus St Davids forms a bridge between the two histories.

4. Fishguard: the extraordinary name

The strongest individual piece of evidence for a Norse connection at Fishguard is linguistic.

The English name Fishguard is generally derived from Old Norse fiskigarðr, meaning approximately an enclosure associated with fish-catching or keeping.

The Royal Commission's Coflein database explicitly records Fishguard as having a Scandinavian name, fiskigarðr, and notes the relationship with the large stone fish traps in the bay. Coflein+1

The Fishguard and Goodwick Town Council likewise gives fiskigarðr as the origin of the English name. Fishguard and Goodwick Town Council

The linguistic evidence is therefore considerably stronger than a mere modern folklore claim.

But what does it actually tell us?

It tells us that the English name has a Scandinavian linguistic explanation.

It does not, by itself, prove that Vikings founded the town.

A place name can survive after the original population has disappeared.

It can be transferred from one geographical feature to another.

It can be adopted by another language.

And it can persist long after its original meaning has ceased to be understood.

Nevertheless, a Norse-derived place name in a sheltered bay on a coast repeatedly visited by Scandinavian seafarers is historically significant.

It deserves to be treated as evidence of contact.

5. The fish traps: tempting evidence, but not Viking proof

This is where caution is especially important.

The fish traps of Fishguard Bay are fascinating.

Two substantial V-shaped structures are recorded around Goodwick. One lies on the north-west side of Goodwick beach, while another is on the south-east side. Coflein has undertaken detailed archaeological recording, including photogrammetric survey work. Coflein+1

One of the traps has been assessed as potentially medieval or earlier because its current relationship with sea level would make regular maintenance difficult.

A Dyfed Archaeological Trust assessment has also identified a fish trap at Goodwick as potentially medieval. Coflein

That is important.

But it still does not allow us to say:

"This is a Viking fish trap."

The broader archaeological literature warns against that conclusion. Similar low-walled tidal fish traps occur in many regions and over very long periods. A recent discussion of the Fishguard traps notes that the surviving structures are unlikely to be as old as the Norse name itself, while emphasising that the form is ancient and widespread. People's Collection Wales

The correct historical position is therefore:

The Fishguard name is Norse; the bay contains ancient or medieval fish-trapping structures; but the surviving traps cannot presently be securely identified as Viking.

That is actually a much more interesting research position than simply declaring them Viking.

6. Goodwick: a second Norse clue

Goodwick adds another layer.

The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park explicitly describes Goodwick as one of the Pembrokeshire communities with a Norse place name and says that the name preserves a reminder of Viking raiders and traders sailing in local waters. Pembrokeshire Coast National Park

The exact etymology requires more caution than is sometimes allowed in popular accounts.

A common interpretation derives the name from Old Norse elements associated with "good" and "bay" or "creek".

But there is also a Welsh linguistic tradition around Wdig, and the historical development of the name deserves specialist place-name analysis.

That does not weaken the case.

It strengthens it.

The important point is that Goodwick sits beside Fishguard in a landscape containing multiple layers of Welsh and Scandinavian naming.

This makes it entirely reasonable to ask whether the bay was known to Norse sailors.

The Haagdyve Foundation makes the stronger claim that the Fishguard–Goodwick area actually contained a Norse trading post and that Goodwick's sheltered aspect made it a refuge for Viking vessels travelling through the Irish Sea. Haagdyve Foundation

At present, that should be described as Haagdyve's historical interpretation, not as an archaeological consensus.

But it is a serious hypothesis.

7. Capt. Alan Price and the Haagdyve Foundation

The contribution of Capt. Alan Price deserves particular attention because it changes the scale at which the question is asked.

The Haagdyve Foundation states its mission as advancing public education in the history, culture and religion of the Viking Shetland–Pembrokeshire–Ireland connection. The Foundation identifies Captain Alan Price and specifically describes his work on the connections between Viking Shetland and Viking Pembrokeshire. Haagdyve Foundation

That is valuable because local Viking history can easily become trapped inside modern administrative boundaries.

Modern Pembrokeshire did not exist as a Viking administrative unit.

Neither did modern Shetland.

Neither did modern Ireland.

The Viking world was maritime.

Its geographical units were coasts, islands, bays, estuaries, sailing distances and political alliances.

Haagdyve's approach therefore asks a fundamentally useful question:

What happens if Pembrokeshire is studied as part of the Irish Sea and North Atlantic rather than simply as part of Wales?

That question deserves serious consideration.

Haagdyve's North Pembrokeshire material argues that the area around Fishguard and Goodwick formed a Norse trading location and a shelter for ships. It also describes a wider Norse presence extending through Haverfordwest and towards St Davids. Haagdyve Foundation

The strongest version of that claim remains unproven.

But the underlying maritime framework is sound.

And it provides a fruitful hypothesis for future archaeological investigation.

8. From Norse maritime network to Welsh landscape

One should also resist imagining a clean ethnic boundary.

"Vikings" and "Welsh" were not necessarily permanently separate communities.

The Norse settlers of Britain and Ireland became involved with local populations.

They married locally.

They traded with local communities.

They employed local people.

They became mercenaries.

They adopted Christianity.

And they were themselves sometimes employed by Welsh rulers.

Haagdyve notes that relations between Vikings and Welsh rulers were not always hostile and that alliances could form against common enemies. Haagdyve Foundation

This is a crucial point.

A Norse presence in Fishguard would not necessarily have meant a little Scandinavian colony standing apart from Wales.

It could have become integrated.

A Norse name could survive after the Norse speakers themselves had become culturally Welsh.

A trading station could become a local settlement.

A harbour used by Scandinavian sailors could continue to function after the Viking Age.

The landscape could therefore retain Viking evidence even when the people no longer identified themselves as Vikings.

9. The Battle of Goodwick Moor and the changing political world

In 1078, the landscape around Goodwick witnessed another kind of conflict.

The Battle of Pwllgwdig—associated with Goodwick Moor—was fought between Welsh political forces.

Trahaearn ap Caradog defeated Rhys ap Owain.

The battle belongs to Welsh dynastic history, not Viking history.

Yet its date is revealing.

The battle occurred only twelve years after the Norman conquest of England.

The old Viking world was fading.

The new Norman world was expanding.

Wales remained politically divided.

North Pembrokeshire was contested territory.

The significance of Goodwick Moor is therefore not that it was a Viking battlefield.

It is that Fishguard and Goodwick stood within a landscape undergoing extraordinary political transformation.

The Viking Age had left its linguistic and cultural traces.

Welsh princes continued to fight for control.

Norman lords were beginning to reshape the political geography.

And within little more than a century, the same landscape would be visited by men recruiting for Jerusalem.

10. Cemais: the crucial political landscape

To understand that transformation, we need to think in terms of Cemais.

Cemais was a medieval territorial unit of north Pembrokeshire.

Nevern was one of its principal political centres.

The FitzMartin family became associated with the lordship.

This is extraordinarily important for the Fishguard story because the modern town must not be viewed in isolation.

Fishguard and Goodwick were situated within the wider political landscape of Cemais.

When a major churchman such as Archbishop Baldwin travelled through Cemais in 1188, he was moving through the political world in which the communities around Fishguard existed.

The precise modern boundary between "Fishguard history" and "Nevern history" is therefore artificial.

Medieval people did not organise their lives according to modern town boundaries.

The castle, the lordship, the church, the roads, the markets and the coastline formed one connected landscape.

11. The Norman transformation

The Norman conquest of England initiated a process that transformed Wales.

Pembrokeshire was particularly affected.

Marcher lordships developed.

Castles were constructed.

Anglo-Norman and Flemish settlers became established.

Churches and monasteries were patronised.

And aristocratic families acquired land and political power.

The transformation was not peaceful.

The Welsh princes repeatedly resisted Norman expansion.

Cemais itself changed hands.

Nevern Castle became a focus of competing Welsh and Norman interests.

But this political transformation also brought Pembrokeshire more tightly into the wider European aristocratic world.

That matters enormously for the Crusades.

The people who controlled medieval Pembrokeshire were increasingly part of the same aristocratic culture as the men who went east to Jerusalem.

12. The Crusades come to Wales

The First Crusade began with Pope Urban II's appeal in 1095.

Jerusalem was captured in 1099.

The Crusader states were established.

Military-religious orders developed.

And crusading became a major part of western European aristocratic culture.

Wales was not outside this movement.

Kathryn Hurlock's Wales and the Crusades: c. 1095–1291 remains the major modern study of the subject. It examines Welsh and Marcher participation, recruitment, the military orders and the political use of crusading in Anglo-Welsh relations. JSTOR+1

This is important because it changes our understanding of the phrase "Pembrokeshire and the Crusades."

The question is not simply whether someone from Pembrokeshire fought in Jerusalem.

The Crusades affected Wales through:

• recruitment;
• aristocratic networks;
• religious institutions;
• pilgrimage;
• taxation and finance;
• military orders;
• political propaganda;
• literature;
• and personal participation.

All of these mechanisms could operate without Fishguard itself being an embarkation port.

13. St Davids and Jerusalem

St Davids provides the spiritual connection.

By the twelfth century, the shrine of St David was one of the major pilgrimage destinations in Britain.

The pilgrimage tradition surrounding St Davids became sufficiently important that journeys there were famously compared with pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem.

This comparison is crucial.

It means that medieval Pembrokeshire already possessed a local spiritual geography that pointed directly towards the Holy Land.

A pilgrim did not necessarily have to travel to Jerusalem to participate in the culture of pilgrimage.

St Davids itself represented a western sacred destination.

Jerusalem represented the ultimate destination.

The two therefore belonged to the same mental map.

This makes the later arrival of crusade preaching in Pembrokeshire almost inevitable in retrospect.

The religious infrastructure was already there.

The pilgrims were already there.

The churches were already there.

The roads and hospitality networks were already there.

What changed was the message.

Instead of:

"Travel to St Davids."

the message of 1188 became:

"Take the Cross and travel to Jerusalem."

14. 1188: the Holy Land arrives in north Pembrokeshire

This is the strongest part of the entire argument.

In 1188 Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury undertook a major tour of Wales to recruit men for the Third Crusade.

He was accompanied by Gerald of Wales.

Gerald was a native of Pembrokeshire, born at Manorbier into the Anglo-Norman and Welsh world of the March.

He was therefore exceptionally well placed to persuade Welsh and Marcher society to participate.

The journey was recorded in his Itinerarium Kambriae, the Journey through Wales.

The modern Nevern Castle project notes that Baldwin and Gerald reached St Davids in March 1188 and that Baldwin subsequently travelled through Cemais. Nevern Castle+1

This is the moment at which the Holy Land becomes physically present in north Pembrokeshire.

It is no longer a distant abstraction.

A major archbishop and one of medieval Wales's most famous writers are travelling through the local landscape asking people to go to war for Jerusalem.

15. Baldwin at Nevern

The date is remarkably precise.

On 28 March 1188, Baldwin is recorded as having stayed at Nevern Castle.

The Nevern Castle project reconstructs the journey in detail and explains the significance of the castle within the lordship of Cemais. Wikisource+1

Imagine the scene.

The castle stands above the settlement.

Its stone buildings are relatively new.

The political lord of the territory is William FitzMartin.

Into this environment arrives the Archbishop of Canterbury.

He is not travelling merely as a tourist.

He is recruiting men for the Third Crusade.

His destination is the eastern Mediterranean.

His objective is Jerusalem.

And the people listening to him are living only a few miles from the landscape that now contains Fishguard and Goodwick.

This is an extraordinarily direct connection.

We do not need to invent a crusader ship at Fishguard.

The evidence is better than that.

The crusading mission itself came into the political territory of Fishguard.

16. William FitzMartin and the Crusading world

William FitzMartin makes the connection even stronger.

The FitzMartins were the Norman lords of Cemais.

William was married to Angharad, daughter of the Lord Rhys.

His political life therefore crossed Welsh and Anglo-Norman society.

And his association with the Crusades was not merely ideological.

Nevern Castle's historical account records that after Henry II's death in 1189, William FitzMartin went on crusade with Richard I. Nevern Castle

This is extraordinarily significant.

The lord of the territory containing north Pembrokeshire was personally involved in the Crusading movement.

So when we ask whether Fishguard and Goodwick were connected to the Holy Land, we can now make a much more defensible argument:

the lordship within which the Fishguard area lay was governed by a family whose leading representative participated in the crusading enterprise.

That is much stronger than speculation about a local fisherman.

17. Baldwin's journey from St Davids through Cemais

The itinerary is itself revealing.

Baldwin and Gerald reached St Davids.

Baldwin then travelled through Cemais.

He reached Nevern.

He subsequently reunited with Gerald at St Dogmaels.

This is a journey across the geography of north-western Pembrokeshire.

The route demonstrates that the region was not peripheral to the crusading campaign.

It was part of the campaign.

The medieval road system, castles, monasteries and settlements became stages in a campaign whose ultimate destination was Jerusalem.

This is why north Pembrokeshire deserves to be given greater prominence in histories of the Welsh Crusades.

The region was not merely affected by crusading indirectly.

It was a location where crusading recruitment actually took place.

18. St Dogmaels: the other great connection

St Dogmaels is particularly important.

Gerald and Baldwin stayed at the abbey during their journey.

The abbey was an important religious centre at the mouth of the River Teifi.

From there, the crusading party continued its journey.

The physical geography is revealing.

St Dogmaels and Fishguard belong to the same broad maritime world.

Both are associated with river mouths and coastal movement.

Both lie within the wider historical geography of north Pembrokeshire.

Both had connections to ecclesiastical institutions.

And both were located within a landscape through which Baldwin and Gerald were travelling to promote the Third Crusade.

Thus, even if Fishguard itself cannot be identified as a preaching location, it would be misleading to say that the Crusades had no connection with Fishguard.

The Crusading movement was passing through its immediate political and geographical environment.

19. How many men from north Pembrokeshire went?

This is one of the areas where historians must be cautious.

Gerald claimed considerable success in recruiting men.

Modern scholarship, however, recognises that Gerald was an interested narrator.

He wanted to present the mission as successful.

His numbers should therefore not automatically be accepted as exact demographic statistics.

Kathryn Hurlock's study emphasises both the importance of the 1188 recruitment effort and the need to assess critically the actual level of Welsh participation. JSTOR+1

Nevertheless, there is no reason to doubt that people from Wales and the March responded.

The crucial point for Fishguard is that Cemais was one of the places where the recruiting campaign operated.

We do not possess a surviving list saying:

"John of Fishguard took the Cross."

That would be wonderful, but medieval records rarely cooperate so neatly.

Instead, we have a documented campaign through the lordship, documented participation by Marcher aristocrats, and documented later involvement by William FitzMartin.

This allows a cautious historical reconstruction.

20. Fishguard and the Holy Land: the argument at its strongest

The Fishguard–Holy Land connection should therefore be formulated as a chain of evidence.

First link: geography

Fishguard sits on a coast facing the Irish Sea.

Second link: Norse maritime activity

Viking ships demonstrably operated in the Irish Sea and reached Pembrokeshire.

Third link: place name

Fishguard's English name is Norse-derived.

Fourth link: Goodwick

Goodwick possesses a Norse-associated place-name tradition and forms part of the same bay.

Fifth link: Cemais

Fishguard belonged to the medieval political landscape of north Pembrokeshire and Cemais.

Sixth link: Nevern

Nevern was the principal castle of the lordship.

Seventh link: 1188

Baldwin and Gerald travelled through this territory recruiting men for the Third Crusade.

Eighth link: William FitzMartin

The lord of Cemais later participated in the crusade.

Ninth link: St Davids

St Davids was an internationally important pilgrimage centre with an explicit connection in medieval religious culture to Jerusalem.

Tenth link: military orders

Pembrokeshire possessed estates belonging to military-religious orders whose history was bound to the Holy Land.

This is a very substantial chain.

It does not prove that Fishguard itself sent a named knight to Jerusalem.

But it does demonstrate that Fishguard was situated inside a landscape whose political, religious and economic connections reached the Holy Land.

21. The military orders

The history of the military orders adds another dimension.

The Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller were not merely armies stationed in the Levant.

They were international institutions.

They needed land.

They needed income.

They needed churches, farms, mills, fisheries, rents and administrative centres.

Their western European possessions helped sustain their eastern operations.

Wales participated in this system.

Slebech became an important centre of the Hospitallers in Pembrokeshire.

This is vital because it demonstrates a different type of connection to the Holy Land.

A Pembrokeshire estate did not need to send a knight east in order to participate in crusading.

It could provide income to an institution whose international work was connected to Jerusalem and the defence and care of Christians in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Crusades were therefore not simply military expeditions.

They were economic systems.

And medieval Pembrokeshire was part of them.

22. The Viking and crusading systems were different—but connected by geography

It is important not to force a false continuity.

The Viking Age and the Crusading Age were different.

Vikings were not proto-crusaders.

A Viking raid on St Davids was not the beginning of a crusade.

A Norse fishery at Fishguard did not become a Templar commandery.

The historical processes were distinct.

But they operated in the same geography.

This distinction is central.

The Viking Age created maritime connections between Pembrokeshire, Ireland and the North Atlantic.

The Norman period brought Pembrokeshire into a new aristocratic and political network.

The Christian pilgrimage system connected St Davids to Rome and Jerusalem.

The Crusades mobilised that Christian society towards the eastern Mediterranean.

Thus the connection is structural rather than genealogical.

The Viking ship did not become the crusader ship.

But the maritime world that made Viking activity possible helped shape the outward-looking character of western Wales.

23. The transformation of the Viking world

There is another reason why the transition from Vikings to Crusaders is historically fascinating.

The Viking world itself became Christian.

Scandinavia was gradually incorporated into Latin Christendom.

Norse rulers became Christian kings.

Scandinavian aristocrats participated in European politics.

Norse merchants became part of Christian commercial networks.

And eventually Scandinavians themselves participated in crusading.

The cultural transformation was therefore not:

Vikings disappear → Crusaders appear.

It was:

Viking societies become Christian European societies → Christian European societies participate in crusading.

That broader transformation occurred across the North Atlantic.

Pembrokeshire was part of the western edge of the same process.

24. Shetland, Ireland and Pembrokeshire

This is where the work of Capt. Alan Price and Haagdyve is especially useful.

The Foundation's central concept is the Shetland–Pembrokeshire–Ireland connection. Haagdyve Foundation

This makes historical sense when the map is considered.

Shetland lies at the northern entrance to the North Atlantic and North Sea systems.

Ireland became one of the great centres of Norse settlement and commerce in the British Isles.

Pembrokeshire sits on the western edge of Wales, facing directly towards Ireland.

The three are therefore linked by maritime geography.

Haagdyve argues that Norse activity around Fishguard and Goodwick should be understood within this larger network rather than as an isolated local episode. Haagdyve Foundation

That is perhaps the most valuable conceptual contribution of the Haagdyve work.

It encourages us to stop asking:

"Were there Vikings in Fishguard?"

and instead ask:

"What role did Fishguard play within the Norse maritime landscape of the Irish Sea?"

That is a much better historical question.

25. The Haverfordwest connection

The wider Pembrokeshire picture reinforces the argument.

Haagdyve's research identifies Viking contact and settlement around Haverfordwest as well as Fishguard and other parts of Pembrokeshire. Haagdyve Foundation

Haverfordwest's own place-name history has long been associated with Norse influence, although the exact linguistic interpretation is more complicated than the popular explanation sometimes suggests.

The important point is that Fishguard was not an isolated Norse-looking name.

It belonged to a broader region in which Scandinavian influence was plausible.

The landscape from Fishguard through the Preseli country towards Haverfordwest and the western coast should therefore be investigated as a network.

That could reveal more than an isolated excavation ever could.

26. Could Fishguard have been a Norse trading post?

This is the central Haagdyve proposition.

Its North Pembrokeshire page explicitly says that the general area around modern Fishguard and Goodwick formed the site of a Norse trading post and suggests that Goodwick's sheltered position made it useful to Viking vessels. Haagdyve Foundation

There are reasons to find the hypothesis plausible:

• Fishguard has a Norse-derived name.
• Goodwick has a Norse-associated naming tradition.
• The bay offers shelter.
• Pembrokeshire was demonstrably visited by Norse seafarers.
• The Irish Sea was a major Norse maritime zone.
• Fish and maritime resources would have been economically useful.
• North Pembrokeshire lies on a natural route between Ireland and the western Welsh coast.

But there are also reasons for caution:

• No securely identified Viking-period trading settlement has yet been demonstrated at Fishguard.
• The fish traps cannot simply be labelled Viking.
• Place names can survive without proving settlement.
• Medieval documentary evidence does not explicitly identify a Viking trading station at Fishguard.

The correct conclusion is therefore:

A Norse trading post at Fishguard/Goodwick is a plausible archaeological hypothesis, prominently advanced by Haagdyve, but it remains to be conclusively demonstrated.

That is strong enough to justify further research.

27. What evidence would prove it?

This question is worth asking because it turns local history into an archaeological research programme.

A Viking trading settlement might be demonstrated through:

• ninth- to eleventh-century Scandinavian artefacts;
• weights and scales associated with Viking commerce;
• imported ceramics;
• metalwork;
• coins;
• worked bone;
• ship-related remains;
• Scandinavian-style structures;
• environmental evidence;
• animal bones showing changes in diet;
• evidence of ironworking or craft production;
• or a concentration of artefacts that could not plausibly be explained by occasional raiding.

Underwater archaeology could be particularly valuable.

Fishguard and Goodwick contain intertidal structures and known wreck remains.

Coflein records a wooden shipwreck near Goodwick Fish Trap 1, with further hull remains identified during archaeological work in 2025. The wreck is currently understood as post-medieval, so it is not Viking evidence, but its discovery demonstrates the archaeological potential of the bay. Coflein

This is significant.

The seabed and intertidal zone are part of the archaeological landscape.

The Viking story may not be found on land.

It might be offshore.

28. The importance of the Goodwick fish traps

The fish traps themselves deserve further investigation.

One Goodwick trap is currently classified by Coflein as post-medieval, while archaeological assessment has suggested that another could be medieval or earlier. Coflein+1

This variation is exactly why the subject deserves modern archaeological study.

The traps could be unrelated to Viking settlement.

They could represent medieval Welsh fishing technology.

They could preserve much older traditions.

Or they could be associated with a long-lived maritime economy whose origins pre-date the surviving documentation.

The name Fishguard, however, remains intriguing.

If fiskigarðr refers to a fish enclosure, the name could preserve an old description of a feature that was economically important to the settlement.

That does not prove the fish trap itself is Viking.

But it suggests that fishing was significant enough to become part of the place's identity.

29. The medieval economy

This brings us to an important point about the Crusades.

Medieval economies were local and international at the same time.

A fisherman might never travel farther than the next village.

Yet the fish he caught could enter a market.

A farmer might never leave Pembrokeshire.

Yet the rent paid on his land could support a monastery.

A lord might never personally fight in Jerusalem.

Yet his estate could be transferred to or patronise a military-religious order.

The Crusading movement depended upon precisely this kind of economic layering.

This makes the Fishguard fishery potentially relevant in a wider historical sense.

If Fishguard's maritime economy was already established during the Viking period, it became part of the economic base upon which later medieval society was constructed.

We should not claim that "Fishguard fish paid for the Crusades."

There is no evidence for such a specific statement.

But we can say that the maritime resources and settlements of north Pembrokeshire belonged to the economic world that supported medieval lordships, churches and religious institutions.

30. Pilgrimage and crusading

Pilgrimage provides another important connection.

The medieval Christian did not necessarily see pilgrimage and crusading as entirely separate activities.

Both involved travel.

Both could involve penance.

Both could be undertaken as religious obligations.

Both were associated with sacred places.

And both were supported by networks of churches, monasteries, roads and hospitality.

St Davids was a pilgrimage destination.

Jerusalem was the ultimate pilgrimage destination.

The Crusades transformed the meaning of Jerusalem from pilgrimage destination into contested sacred territory.

Thus a person living near Fishguard could participate in a culture in which St Davids and Jerusalem occupied positions within the same spiritual map.

That is an extraordinary thing to contemplate.

31. Gerald of Wales: the perfect connecting figure

No individual better embodies this story than Gerald of Wales.

He was born at Manorbier.

He belonged to both Welsh and Anglo-Norman society.

He became a churchman.

He knew Pembrokeshire.

He knew the Marcher aristocracy.

He knew the Welsh princes.

He wrote about Wales.

And he preached the Third Crusade.

His life therefore crosses almost every boundary in this essay.

He represents:

• Welshness;
• Norman influence;
• Pembrokeshire;
• Christianity;
• pilgrimage;
• aristocratic politics;
• and crusading.

His journey in 1188 makes the connection between Pembrokeshire and Jerusalem tangible.

The crusading message was not carried by an anonymous foreign army.

It was delivered by a man born in Pembrokeshire.

32. The astonishing journey of 1188

The route is worth imagining.

Gerald and Baldwin travelled through Wales preaching the Cross.

They reached Haverfordwest.

They proceeded to St Davids.

They entered the sacred landscape of west Wales.

Then Baldwin travelled through Cemais.

He reached Nevern.

He stayed in the castle of William FitzMartin.

He continued towards St Dogmaels.

And then the crusading mission continued.

Every stage was part of a campaign whose ultimate objective was Jerusalem.

The modern traveller can reproduce much of this journey.

The roads are different.

The landscape has changed.

But the place names remain.

St Davids. Nevern. St Dogmaels. Fishguard. Goodwick.

The medieval landscape is still visible beneath the modern one.

33. William FitzMartin leaves for the East

The story becomes almost cinematic when William FitzMartin is considered.

He was not simply the lord whose castle hosted Baldwin.

He subsequently went on crusade with Richard I.

His absence had political consequences.

In 1191, the Lord Rhys took advantage of William's absence and seized Nevern Castle. Nevern Castle+1

That event is enormously revealing.

The Crusades were not something that happened without affecting Wales.

When a Marcher lord left for Jerusalem, his Welsh estates became politically vulnerable.

The consequences were felt locally.

A man could leave Wales to fight in the Holy Land and thereby alter the balance of power in Cemais.

This is the true meaning of an international medieval society.

Jerusalem could affect Nevern.

Nevern could affect north Pembrokeshire.

And events at Nevern affected the political landscape surrounding Fishguard and Goodwick.

34. A direct chain: Fishguard → Cemais → Nevern → Crusade

We can now state the connection in its simplest form.

This is not conjecture.

The exact relationship between Fishguard and each stage needs qualification, but the historical chain itself is exceptionally strong.

35. The Holy Land connection without a Fishguard crusader

This is perhaps the most important methodological point.

We do not need to discover a medieval document saying:

"A man of Fishguard sailed to Acre."

That would be wonderful.

But local history should not depend on finding one spectacular individual.

The stronger historical question is:

How was Fishguard embedded in the institutions and political geography of the society that produced crusaders?

The answer is:

Very deeply.

Fishguard belonged to a Marcher landscape.

The Marcher aristocracy participated in crusading.

Gerald preached the Third Crusade in the region.

Nevern hosted Baldwin.

William FitzMartin went east.

St Davids was a major pilgrimage centre.

Military-religious institutions possessed Welsh estates.

The Holy Land was therefore woven into the political and religious environment of north Pembrokeshire.

36. The Templars, Hospitallers and Pembrokeshire

The military orders add the institutional dimension.

The Templars were founded to protect pilgrims and support Christian control of the Holy Land.

The Hospitallers began as a charitable institution caring for pilgrims before developing into a major military order.

Both became international organisations.

Their western properties were essential to their survival.

Pembrokeshire became part of this network.

Slebech is especially important.

The commandery there demonstrates that Pembrokeshire could directly support an international military-religious organisation.

This is a different connection from the crusading expedition of William FitzMartin.

It is an economic connection.

A piece of Pembrokeshire could become part of the financial infrastructure of the Holy Land.

37. The Viking economy and the crusading economy

There is therefore a fascinating economic comparison.

The Viking world operated through:

• maritime trade;
• fishing;
• raiding;
• tribute;
• slavery;
• livestock;
• silver;
• and long-distance exchange.

The crusading world operated through:

• land rents;
• tithes;
• aristocratic patronage;
• donations;
• church estates;
• trade;
• taxation;
• and military-religious administration.

They were different systems.

But both depended upon connectivity.

Both moved resources over long distances.

Both linked local economies to international networks.

Both were dependent upon transport.

And both made the sea enormously important.

38. Fishguard as a place of continuity

This may explain why Fishguard feels so appropriate as the centre of the story.

The town's history is repeatedly shaped by outside connections.

Its name may preserve Scandinavian memory.

Its harbour looks towards Ireland.

Its modern ferry service continues the ancient maritime orientation.

Its medieval landscape belonged to Cemais.

Its region contained Nevern and St Davids.

Its political society was affected by crusading.

Its coastline preserved ancient fishing technology.

Its modern identity is therefore not a break with the past.

It is a continuation.

The ships have changed.

The people have changed.

The political systems have changed.

But Fishguard remains a place whose significance is derived partly from its relationship with the sea.

39. Goodwick as the maritime counterpart to Nevern

There is a useful conceptual contrast here.

Nevern represents the inland political centre.

Goodwick represents the maritime gateway.

Nevern Castle controlled territory.

Goodwick Bay opened onto the sea.

One connected Cemais with the political world of the Welsh March.

The other connected north Pembrokeshire with Ireland and the maritime world.

In 1188, Baldwin moved through the political landscape represented by Nevern.

Centuries earlier, Norse ships could plausibly have moved through the maritime landscape represented by Goodwick.

These two worlds eventually intersected.

The maritime and political landscapes became part of the same medieval society.

That is the deeper story.

40. Could the Vikings have known the route to St Davids?

Almost certainly the coastline was known.

Whether individual Viking crews had detailed knowledge of the interior is another question.

But the repeated attacks on St Davids demonstrate that Scandinavian raiders could locate the ecclesiastical centre.

That means the western coastline was not an unknown wilderness.

Viking navigators knew the major landmarks.

They understood bays and headlands.

They could identify settlements.

They could move between Ireland and Wales.

This makes Fishguard's potential role more plausible.

A vessel did not have to establish a permanent colony to use a bay.

A seasonal anchorage can leave surprisingly little archaeological evidence.

41. Trading post or anchorage?

This distinction deserves emphasis.

A trading post implies regular commercial activity.

An anchorage may simply mean a place where ships stopped.

A seasonal camp falls somewhere between the two.

A permanent settlement is something more substantial.

Haagdyve uses the language of a Norse trading post at Fishguard/Goodwick. Haagdyve Foundation

Archaeology has not yet demonstrated that level of permanence.

A more conservative hypothesis would therefore be:

Fishguard Bay may have functioned as a Norse anchorage and maritime resource zone, possibly developing into more regular trading activity.

That formulation is currently easier to defend.

It also provides a clear archaeological research question.

42. The importance of place names

Place names are therefore crucial.

A place name is not an archaeological artefact in the ordinary sense.

But it is a fossil of human language.

The fact that Fishguard became known through a Norse term suggests that Scandinavian speakers were important enough in the area's linguistic environment for the name to survive.

The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park explicitly recognises the Norse significance of Goodwick and the wider Scandinavian character of the coast. Pembrokeshire Coast National Park

The wider scholarly literature also recognises fiskigarðr as a Norse element occurring in place names beyond Wales, strengthening the linguistic interpretation of Fishguard rather than making it an isolated curiosity. OpenEdition Journals

This is one reason the Fishguard name deserves to be taken seriously.

43. What the name cannot tell us

But a place name cannot tell us everything.

It cannot tell us:

• how many Vikings lived there;
• whether they were permanent residents;
• whether they traded or raided;
• whether they were Danish or Norwegian;
• whether they were pagan or Christian;
• whether Welsh people adopted the name;
• or whether a settlement stood exactly where modern Fishguard stands.

Those questions require archaeology and documentary evidence.

The responsible historical position is therefore not to reject the name but to use it appropriately.

It is evidence of Scandinavian linguistic influence.

The interpretation of that influence remains open.

44. Fishguard, Goodwick and the Viking-Christian transition

Another possibility is especially interesting.

The Viking activity around Pembrokeshire probably occurred during a period in which Scandinavia itself was changing religiously.

By the eleventh century, Christianity was becoming increasingly established throughout Scandinavia.

The Norse world that interacted with Wales was therefore not permanently pagan.

Some Scandinavian sailors who reached Pembrokeshire may already have been Christian.

Others may have been pagan.

Some may have converted locally.

Some may have intermarried.

This matters because it means that the cultural transition from Viking to Christian medieval society could have occurred partly through the same communities.

The people who came to Fishguard in the Viking Age were not necessarily culturally disconnected from the Christian Europe that followed.

45. The Crusade as a continuation of travel

At a very broad level, there is also an intriguing continuity in the act of travel.

The Viking sailor travelled because the sea was an opportunity.

The pilgrim travelled because a sacred destination called him.

The crusader travelled because Jerusalem demanded military action.

The merchant travelled because goods could be exchanged.

These motives were different.

But medieval society was remarkably mobile.

Fishguard's geographical position made it part of that mobility.

46. The modern ferry and the medieval sea

Goodwick's modern ferry terminal offers a particularly powerful image.

Today a traveller can board a vessel at Goodwick and arrive in Ireland.

That journey takes place within hours.

A medieval Norse sailor would have recognised the basic geography immediately.

Ireland is across the water.

The coast provides a route.

The wind matters.

The bay provides shelter.

The sea connects rather than separates.

In that sense, the modern ferry is the latest expression of a maritime relationship thousands of years old.

47. What the Crusaders would have seen

If Baldwin travelled through north Pembrokeshire in 1188, the landscape would have looked very different from today.

No railway.

No Fishguard Harbour.

No modern Goodwick.

No industrial port.

Instead there were fields, woods, marshes, tracks, rivers, churches and castles.

The coastline was still the great constant.

Baldwin's party would have moved through a world in which travel was slow and weather mattered enormously.

The Holy Land was unimaginably distant.

Yet the men he recruited were expected to travel there.

That is one of the most extraordinary aspects of the Crusading movement.

A man from Cemais could hear a sermon in north Pembrokeshire and contemplate crossing Europe to Jerusalem.

48. Jerusalem and the local imagination

The word "Jerusalem" must have possessed extraordinary power.

It was the city of Christ's Passion and Resurrection.

It was the destination of pilgrimage.

It was the centre of the biblical world.

And by the twelfth century it had become the object of military struggle.

When Baldwin preached the Third Crusade, he was therefore invoking an entire universe of religious meaning.

That message was delivered in places such as St Davids and Nevern.

The landscape of north Pembrokeshire became temporarily connected, through preaching, with Jerusalem.

49. Saladin and the Third Crusade

The immediate cause of the 1188 campaign was the crisis produced by Saladin's victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 and the subsequent loss of Jerusalem to Muslim forces.

News of Jerusalem's fall travelled rapidly through western Europe.

The response was the Third Crusade.

Richard I of England would eventually become one of its most famous leaders.

Baldwin of Canterbury became one of its recruiters.

Gerald of Wales became one of its most energetic propagandists in Wales.

And Pembrokeshire became one of the places where the campaign was promoted.

Thus an event in the eastern Mediterranean had consequences in the Gwaun and Teifi landscapes.

50. The local consequences of an international war

The consequences were not abstract.

If a lord took the Cross, he might have to finance a journey.

He might mortgage property.

He might leave his estates vulnerable.

His absence could alter local politics.

William FitzMartin's departure created precisely this kind of vulnerability.

The Lord Rhys exploited it.

Nevern was captured.

The political balance changed.

Therefore the Crusades were not simply "international history."

They were also local history.

Jerusalem could affect the lordship of Cemais.

The absence of a crusader could affect Nevern.

And events at Nevern affected the political landscape surrounding north Pembrokeshire.

51. A Viking town becoming a crusading landscape?

This is where the argument can be pushed furthest—but carefully.

Suppose future archaeology demonstrated a Norse trading settlement at Fishguard.

What would that mean?

It would show that Fishguard had been integrated into the Irish Sea trading system centuries before the Norman transformation.

The same landscape would subsequently become part of Cemais.

Its lord would participate in the Crusades.

Its territory would host Baldwin.

Its nearby religious centres would connect to pilgrimage.

Its economy would eventually intersect with the military orders.

The historical continuity would be remarkable.

It would not mean that the Viking settlement "caused" the Crusades.

But it would demonstrate that the same maritime gateway remained significant through successive European systems.

That is the hypothesis worth testing.

52. A more cautious version

Even if no Viking settlement is ever found, the broader argument survives.

Fishguard has a Norse-derived name.

Goodwick preserves a Norse-associated maritime tradition.

Vikings demonstrably reached Pembrokeshire.

St Davids was attacked.

Cemais became a major medieval lordship.

Nevern hosted the Archbishop of Canterbury during the 1188 crusade recruitment campaign.

William FitzMartin went on crusade.

St Davids was a major pilgrimage centre.

Military orders possessed Pembrokeshire estates.

These facts alone are enough to establish a powerful historical relationship.

The hypothetical Viking trading post would strengthen the argument.

It is not essential to it.

53. The Haagdyve contribution in perspective

The work of Capt. Alan Price and Haagdyve should therefore be positioned neither as something to be dismissed nor as established fact.

It belongs in the productive middle ground of historical investigation.

Haagdyve asks larger questions about the maritime connections between Shetland, Ireland and Pembrokeshire.

It places Fishguard and Goodwick within that maritime framework.

It argues for a stronger Norse presence than is sometimes reflected in conventional local histories. Haagdyve Foundation+1

Those arguments can be tested.

Some may eventually be supported.

Some may be modified.

Some may prove incorrect.

But they stimulate precisely the sort of interdisciplinary research that the subject requires.

54. A research agenda for Fishguard and Goodwick

The next stage should involve collaboration between:

• place-name historians;
• medieval historians;
• underwater archaeologists;
• coastal geomorphologists;
• environmental archaeologists;
• historians of Viking Ireland;
• Welsh historians;
• and specialists in crusading history.

The key questions would include:

1. What is the earliest securely documented form of the Fishguard name?
2. When does the Norse interpretation become linguistically probable?
3. What is the earliest documentary evidence for Goodwick?
4. Can the Fishguard Bay fish traps be dated more precisely?
5. Is there evidence of Viking-period activity in the intertidal zone?
6. Are there Scandinavian artefacts in north Pembrokeshire?
7. Can the coastline be reconstructed as it existed around 900–1100?
8. What routes would a Norse sailor most likely have followed?
9. Can Irish Viking settlements be connected archaeologically to Pembrokeshire?
10. Can individuals from Cemais be identified among Welsh or Marcher crusaders?
11. How did military-order estates operate economically in Pembrokeshire?
12. How did pilgrimage to St Davids interact with crusading culture?

The answers could significantly change the historical understanding of Fishguard and Goodwick.

55. The case for an integrated history

The greatest weakness of conventional local history is sometimes fragmentation.

The Viking story is put in one chapter.

The Norman castle story in another.

St Davids becomes a religious subject.

The Crusades become European history.

And Fishguard becomes a modern maritime town.

But medieval people did not experience history in those categories.

They experienced:

• the coast;
• the lord;
• the church;
• the market;
• the road;
• the castle;
• the sea;
• and the news of distant events.

A man living near Fishguard could therefore be simultaneously part of:

• a Welsh community;
• a Norman lordship;
• a Christian parish;
• a maritime economy;
• an Irish Sea network;
• and a society being asked to participate in a war in Jerusalem.

That is the history we should try to recover.

56. Fishguard and Goodwick as a "gateway"

The word gateway is particularly appropriate.

Fishguard and Goodwick form a gateway between land and sea.

Historically, the gateway opened towards Ireland.

During the Viking Age, that meant opening into the Norse world of Dublin and the Irish Sea.

During the Norman period, it opened into the maritime world of western Britain and Ireland.

During the medieval Christian period, it connected the region to pilgrimage and trade.

Today it connects Wales and Ireland by ferry.

The gateway has remained.

Only the traffic has changed.

57. North Pembrokeshire and the Atlantic imagination

There is also something distinctive about north Pembrokeshire.

The landscape is visually dramatic.

The Preseli Mountains rise inland.

The coast is exposed.

The sea is ever-present.

St Davids stands at the western extremity.

Such geography has encouraged legends and historical memory.

But the archaeological and documentary evidence is actually sufficient to support a more sober version of the story.

The Vikings really did reach Pembrokeshire.

The Norse name of Fishguard is real.

Goodwick has a Norse-associated place-name tradition.

The Third Crusade really was preached in the region.

Baldwin really did stay at Nevern.

William FitzMartin really did go on crusade.

St Davids really was a major pilgrimage destination.

The military orders really did possess Welsh estates.

The romance is therefore not dependent upon invention.

The documented history is already extraordinary.

58. The final synthesis

We can now bring the argument together.

The first great international network was the Viking maritime network.

It linked Scandinavia, Shetland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, western Britain and Wales.

North Pembrokeshire sat on its western edge.

Fishguard and Goodwick were geographically well placed within it.

The Norse name Fishguard is powerful linguistic evidence of Scandinavian influence.

Goodwick's name provides another suggestive clue.

The bay's fish traps and maritime resources demonstrate a long-standing exploitation of the coast.

Haagdyve's hypothesis of a Norse trading post deserves further investigation.

The second network was the Norman-Marcher political system.

Cemais became a major lordship.

Nevern became a castle centre.

The FitzMartins became its lords.

North Pembrokeshire was incorporated into the political world of Norman and Welsh aristocracy.

The third network was the pilgrimage and Christian world.

St Davids became one of the great sacred centres of Britain.

Its spiritual importance was understood in relation to Rome and Jerusalem.

The fourth network was the Crusading movement.

In 1188 Baldwin and Gerald came through Pembrokeshire.

They preached at St Davids.

They travelled through Cemais.

Baldwin stayed at Nevern.

They reached St Dogmaels.

Men were recruited for the Third Crusade.

William FitzMartin later went east with Richard I.

The fifth network was the military-religious economy.

Pembrokeshire estates supported institutions whose international histories were bound to the Holy Land.

The result is a historical chain extending from the North Atlantic to Jerusalem.