Battle of Leuven (891)

The Battle of Leuven, also called the Battle of the River Dyle, was fought in September 891 between East Francia and the Vikings. The existence of this battle is known through several different chronicles, including the Annales Fuldenses and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The Battle of the Dyle occurred near the present-day location of the city of Leuven in Belgium. In the 880s the Vikings established a camp there that they used as a base of operations from which to launch raids into the fractured Frankish kingdom. Efforts to verify the report of the battle from the Annales Fuldenses, specifically the huge loss of life on the Viking side, have been hindered by the lack of archaeological excavations in Belgium.