Varangian Guard: Norse and English Warriors of Byzantium

The Varangian Guard was the elite bodyguard of the Byzantine emperors, formed around 988 from Scandinavian and Rus warriors sent to Constantinople by Prince Vladimir of Kyiv. For more than two centuries these foreign soldiers, famous for their axes and their loyalty to the reigning emperor, guarded the palace and fought on campaigns from Sicily to Syria. After 1066 the guard increasingly drew on English exiles, making it a meeting point of the northern and Byzantine worlds.

Background: Northmen on the road to Constantinople

In the 9th and 10th centuries Scandinavian traders and warriors travelled down the great rivers of Eastern Europe, the Dnieper and the Volga, towards the Black Sea and the Caspian. The Byzantines and the Rus called these men Varangians, a word probably derived from an Old Norse term for men bound together by a pledge.

Contact with Byzantium was not always peaceful. The Rus attacked Constantinople in 860 and again in the 10th century. Yet trade treaties of 911 and 944 also allowed Rus men to serve in the imperial army, and Scandinavian mercenaries took part in Byzantine expeditions, including attempts to recapture Crete in the 10th century.

Constantinople, known in Old Norse as Miklagard (“the great city”), had an enormous reputation in the north. Service there offered pay, prestige and the chance to see the richest city in Christendom.

Formation under Basil II

The guard as a permanent unit is usually traced to 988. Emperor Basil II faced a dangerous rebellion led by the general Bardas Phokas, who controlled much of Asia Minor. Basil turned to Vladimir, Prince of Kyiv, for help.

According to Byzantine and Rus sources, Vladimir sent around 6,000 warriors. In return he received the hand of Basil’s sister Anna, an extraordinary honour for a foreign ruler, on condition that he accepted Christianity. This bargain is closely linked to the Christianization of Kievan Rus.

The northern troops helped Basil defeat the rebels at Chrysopolis in 988 and at Abydos in 989. Impressed by their effectiveness, and wary of the loyalty of his own aristocratic generals, Basil kept them as a personal guard. Being foreigners with no family ties in the empire, they depended entirely on the emperor who paid them.

Organisation, duties and reputation

The Varangians guarded the emperor in the Great Palace, accompanied him in processions and protected him on campaign. They were commanded by an officer called the akolouthos. Recruits reportedly paid a fee to join, which shows how attractive the post was.

Byzantine writers describe the Varangians as tall, fair and armed with heavy axes carried on the shoulder. Anna Komnene, writing in the 12th century, refers to them as axe-bearing barbarians and stresses their loyalty, which they treated as an inherited obligation. They usually fought on foot as heavy infantry.

The guard served far beyond the capital. Varangians fought in southern Italy and Sicily, in the Balkans, in Armenia and against the Pechenegs and Seljuk Turks. Their pay was generous, and Norse sagas claim that on an emperor’s death guardsmen were allowed to take treasure from the palace, a custom called polutasvarf, though this is known only from Norse writings.

Key people

• Basil II (ruled 976–1025) created the guard and used it in his long wars, including those against Bulgaria.
• Vladimir I of Kyiv supplied the original contingent in 988.
• Harald Sigurdsson (Harald Hardrada) served from about 1034 to about 1042 and became the most famous Varangian.
• Bolli Bollason, an Icelander described in Laxdæla saga, is one of several saga figures said to have served in Constantinople in the early 11th century.
• Anna Komnene, daughter of Alexios I, left one of the fullest Byzantine descriptions of the guard in her history, the Alexiad.

Harald Hardrada in Byzantium

Harald Sigurdsson fled Norway after the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, spent some years in Kyiv and arrived in Constantinople around 1034. According to Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, written about two centuries later, he fought in the Aegean, in Asia Minor and in Sicily under the general George Maniakes between 1038 and 1041.

He also took part in suppressing the Bulgarian revolt of Peter Delyan in 1041. Byzantine sources confirm that he held court titles such as manglabites and later spatharokandidatos. The sagas add that he was involved in the overthrow of Emperor Michael V in 1042, a detail historians treat with some caution.

Harald left Constantinople around 1042 with great wealth, married Elisiv (Elizabeth), daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, and became King of Norway in 1046. He died invading England at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.

Runes, runestones and graffiti

The Varangians left traces in stone. In the upper gallery of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, runic inscriptions are scratched into the marble parapets; one is usually read as containing the name Halfdan. They cannot be dated precisely and may be the work of guardsmen or other Scandinavian visitors.

The marble lion that once stood at Piraeus, the port of Athens, carries long runic inscriptions, probably from the 11th century. It was taken to Venice in 1687 and still stands outside the Arsenal.

In Sweden, around 30 runestones commemorate men who went to Greece, meaning the Byzantine world. One at Ed in Uppland was raised by a man named Ragnvald, who states that he had been a commander of the troop in Greece. Medieval Swedish law even stated that a man could not inherit property while he stayed in Greece, a sign of how many went east.

The English Varangians

After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, which followed the Battle of Hastings, numbers of English warriors went into exile. Some reached Constantinople, where the emperors welcomed men who hated the Normans, now Byzantium’s enemies in southern Italy and the Balkans.

At the Battle of Dyrrhachium in 1081, the Varangians, many of them probably English, charged the Norman army of Robert Guiscard. They advanced too far, were cut off and suffered heavy losses; Anna Komnene records that survivors who sheltered in a church died when it was set on fire. Despite this defeat, English recruits kept arriving, and by the 12th century they appear to have formed the largest part of the guard, while Scandinavians continued to serve alongside them.

Decline and end

The guard defended Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, fighting on the sea walls in 1203 and 1204. After the city fell in the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the unit lost its central place. Varangians still appear in the Byzantine successor state of Nicaea and, after 1261, in Constantinople, but by then mainly in ceremonial roles. References fade during the 14th century.

Timeline

• 988: Vladimir of Kyiv sends about 6,000 warriors to Basil II.
• 989: The northern troops help defeat Bardas Phokas at Abydos.
• c. 1034: Harald Sigurdsson arrives in Constantinople.
• 1038–1041: Varangians serve in the Sicilian campaign under George Maniakes.
• c. 1042: Harald leaves Byzantine service.
• 1066: The Norman Conquest begins an emigration of English warriors.
• 1081: Varangians suffer heavy losses at the Battle of Dyrrhachium.
• 1204: Constantinople falls to the Fourth Crusade; the guard declines.

Why it matters

The Varangian Guard shows how connected medieval Europe was. Men from Scandinavia, Rus and England crossed thousands of kilometres to serve a Greek-speaking emperor, carried home wealth, titles and stories, and left runes in Istanbul and runestones in Sweden. Its history links the Viking Age, the birth of Rus and the Norman Conquest to the life of Byzantium.