page_title: Tromsø
section_title: Middle Ages: a fortress on the frontier
hierarchical_section_title: Tromsø / History / Middle Ages: a fortress on the frontier
caption_attribution_description: English: Tromso Burial in the British Museum
context_page_description: Tromsø is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø.
  Tromsø lies in Northern Norway. The 2,521-square-kilometre municipality is the 21st largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Tromsø is the 12th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 76,974. The municipality's population density is 31.1 inhabitants per square kilometre and its population has increased by 14.4% over the previous 10-year period. It is the largest urban area in Northern Norway and the third largest north of the Arctic Circle anywhere in the world. Most of Tromsø, including the city centre, is located on the island of Tromsøya, 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. In 2017, the city of Tromsø had a population of about 65,000 people spread out over Tromsøya and parts of Kvaløya and the mainland. Tromsøya is connected to the mainland by the Tromsø Bridge and the Tromsøysund Tunnel, and to the island of Kvaløya by the Sandnessund Bridge.
context_section_description: The area's rich Norse and Sámi heritage is well documented. The Norse chieftain Ohthere, who lived during the 890s, is assumed to have inhabited the southernmost reaches of today's Tromsø municipality. He described himself as living "furthest to the North of all Norwegians" with areas north of this being populated by Sámi. An Icelandic source (Rimbegla) from the 12th century also describes the fjord Malangen in the south of today's Tromsø municipality as a border between Norse and Sámi coastal settlements during that part of the Middle Ages. There has also been extensive Sámi settlement on the coast south of this 'border' as well as scattered Norse settlements north of Malangen—for example, both Sámi and Norse Iron Age (0–1050 AD) remains have been found on southern Kvaløya.
  The first church on the island of Tromsøya was erected in 1252. Ecclesia Sanctae Mariae de Trums juxta paganos ("The Church of Saint Mary in Troms near the Heathens"—the nominal "heathens" being the Sámi), was built during the reign of King Hákon Hákonarson. At the time, it was the northernmost church in the world. Around the same time a turf rampart was built to protect the area against raids from Karelia and Russia.
  Tromsø was not just a Norwegian outpost in an area mainly populated by the Sámi, but also a frontier city towards Russia; the Novgorod state had the right to tax the Sámi along the coast to Lyngstuva and inland to the Skibotn River or possibly the Målselv River, whereas Norway was allowed to tax areas east to - and including - the Kola Peninsula. During the next five hundred years Norway's border with Russia and the limits of Norwegian settlement would be pushed eastwards to Sør-Varanger, making Tromsø lose its character as a "frontier town".
caption: Hoard of Viking jewellery found in Tromsø dating from 7–8th Centuries AD now in the British Museum.[9]
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