The Varangian Guard: Vikings in Byzantine Service

Military History: The Byzantine Empire

Chapter 8 · The Varangian Guard: Vikings in Byzantine Service

Chapter 7 closed with an emperor murdered by his own successor, with his own wife's help. In a court this dangerous, the empire's own real solution was a genuinely elegant one: an elite guard drawn from men with no stake whatsoever in Byzantine palace politics.

Real Origins (988 CE)

The Varangian Guard was formally established under Emperor Basil II in 988, growing out of a real military alliance with Vladimir I of Kiev, who supplied 6,000 warriors as part of the same real agreement that saw him convert to Christianity. Rus' warriors had already served Byzantium under earlier real treaties dating back to 874 — the formal Guard simply gave that existing relationship real institutional shape.

Why Foreigners Made the Best Bodyguards

A Direct, Practical Answer to Chapter 7 A native Byzantine noble guarding the emperor had real, obvious reasons to eventually want the throne for himself — exactly the dynamic that killed Nikephoros Phokas. A foreign mercenary, genuinely outside the empire's own political and family networks, had no comparable real path to the throne, and correspondingly little reason to plot for it.

From Norse to Anglo-Saxon

The Guard's own real composition shifted dramatically after 1066. The Norman Conquest of England displaced real numbers of Anglo-Saxon fighting men, many of whom found their way into Byzantine service. By the reign of Alexios I Komnenos in the late 11th century, Anglo-Saxons had genuinely come to dominate the unit's own ranks — sometimes nicknamed, in a real Byzantine source, the Englinbarrangoi, the "Anglo-Varangians."

Harald Hardrada: A Real Guardsman Who Became a King

Among the Guard's own real, documented members was a young Norwegian exile named Harald, who joined around 1035. He served in roughly eighteen real campaigns — including fighting Arab forces in Anatolia and Sicily under General George Maniakes — earning the real titles manglavites and spatharokandidatos. His own real service ended badly: imprisoned over misappropriated plunder, he escaped and returned home in 1043. He is remembered today as Harald III of Norway — Harald Hardrada.

The Dane Axe

Byzantine chroniclers repeatedly, and somewhat wryly, described the Varangians as "axe-bearing barbarians" — their real signature weapon was the broad-bladed Dane axe, though swords and bows saw genuine use as well.

The Polutasvarf Legend

A Popular Story Worth Doubting A colorful, often-repeated tradition holds that Varangians had a genuine right, upon an emperor's death, to run to the imperial treasury and claim whatever gold and gems they could carry — a custom later Norse sources call polutasvarf. The real problem: this claim comes only from Snorri Sturluson, a 13th-century Icelandic chronicler writing centuries after the fact. No real Byzantine source mentions it at all, and modern historians genuinely doubt it ever happened.

Reflect

Question 1 Why might an emperor genuinely trust a foreign mercenary with his own personal safety more than a native-born Byzantine noble?
Question 2 Harald Hardrada served the empire, was imprisoned by it, escaped, and became a king in his own right. What does one individual's own documented path suggest about how porous the boundary between "mercenary" and "future ruler" genuinely could be?
Question 3 The polutasvarf story survives in a much later, non-Byzantine source. Why might a colorful, specific detail like this spread and endure even when the real evidence for it is genuinely thin?

Chapter 8 Quick Reference

  • 988 CE — the Varangian Guard's real founding under Basil II, via alliance with Vladimir of Kiev
  • Composition — initially Norse/Rus'; increasingly Anglo-Saxon after 1066, the real "Englinbarrangoi"
  • Harald Hardrada — real Guard service c. 1035-1043, later King Harald III of Norway
  • Weapon — the real, signature Dane axe
  • Polutasvarf — a popular looting-rights legend, real only in a much later Icelandic source, doubted by modern historians