How did Vikings end up guarding the Byzantine emperor?
The emperor of Constantinople trusted foreign axe-men from Sweden more than his own soldiers.
βΆ Start the storyBecause an emperor surrounded by plotting local factions wanted guards with no local loyalties. The Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army, from the 10th to the 14th century, serving as the emperors' personal bodyguards. Hiring distant foreigners was a deliberate policy: they had no local political loyalties and could be counted on to crush revolts by disloyal Byzantine factions.
The Vikings were already nearby. The Varangians were Viking warriors, traders and settlers, mostly from present-day Sweden, who settled in what are now Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and founded Kievan Rus'. The name Rus' probably comes from an Old Norse phrase for "the men who row", since rowing was how people travelled the rivers of Eastern Europe. Those rivers led south to Constantinople.
Drawn by the city's riches, the Rus' raided and fought it, and some of the wars ended in advantageous trade . A treaty of 874 obliged the Rus' to provide men for Byzantine service. In 988 the emperor Basil II asked Prince Vladimir of Kiev for help to defend his throne. Vladimir sent 6,000 men, happy to be rid of unruly warriors he could not pay, and in exchange received Basil's sister Anna in marriage and agreed to convert to Christianity.
862
The Rus' settle in Novgorod under Rurik
874
A treaty obliges the Rus' to provide men for Byzantine service
988
Vladimir sends 6,000 men to Basil II
Late 11th century
make up most of the Guard
Mid-14th century
The Guard still exists, its men largely
Basil distrusted his native guards, whose loyalties had shifted with fatal consequences, and made the newcomers his personal guard. The Guard lasted for centuries, but by the late 13th century its Varangians had mostly into the Byzantine Greeks.
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Recap
Emperors hired Varangians because outsiders had no local loyalties, and the route from Rus' to Constantinople was already Viking.
π‘ A trick to remember it Β· Varangian means sworn companion: the emperor wanted guards whose only friend was the throne.
Surprising fact Β· A Swedish law once barred anyone staying in "Greece" from inheriting, to slow the flow of men leaving for the Guard.
Connects to
- β΅ How did a ship built from overlapping planks carry Vikings across oceans?
- πͺ Why did Vikings bury so much Arab silver?
- π° How did cannons and ships carried over a hill take Constantinople?
- α± Were runes magic letters, or just the Vikings' alphabet?
- π¨ Did a Byzantine emperor really start a war on icons, and how would we know?
- Viking raid on lindisfarne
Sources (4)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (24 claims) cites at least one of these.