In the Varangian Chronicles, a family of Varangian Guardsmen become entangled in some way with the secrets of the Brotherhood of Lampros.
The Varangian Guard were one of the most elite guard units of history comparable to the Praetorian Guard and the Janissaries. While Varangians as an ethnic group had long served as mercenaries in the Byzantine military, the Guard itself was established in 988 the year Vladimir of the Rus officially became Emperor Basil’s brother-in-law and sent 5,000 of his finest warriors to Constantinople. To join required at three pounds of gold. Ethnically, the composition was made up of Rus’ (Russians) and Scandinavians. As time went on, however, more and more men from England joined the Guard, as Anglo-Saxons became disenfranchised in their own country in the Norman Conquest of 1066. By the late eleventh century, Anglo-Saxon Guardsmen were common enough that a traveler to Constantinople might hear English spoken there.
In the beginning, a Guardsman’s weapons and equipment were supplied by himself. Often his weapons might include the broad “Dane axe” for which they were famous. They might also have brought a sword with them. Armor of any kind was likely to be ring mail, but they might also have adopted the lamelar armor common to the Byzantine infantry. The long mail shirt they were known for had a Scandinavian name – hauberk. The arms and equipment of the Varangian Guard is informational enough to be its own blog post and maybe I will address that at another time.
The Varangians as a regiment saw their first battle under Basil II at Chrysopolis against Kalyros Delphinas and again at Abydos in which the rebel Bardas Phokas was killed. The rebels could not have anticipated the fury of the Northmen that Basil had brought upon them, but the reputation of his northern mercenaries quickly became legendary and a force to be reckoned with. Combined with Basil’s use of Greek Fire, Phokas’ own troops were quickly defeated.
Phokas’ dromons could not come so far onto shore, as they had a much deeper draft.
The Serpentine Key by G.S. Brown
They sat in the water, as shallowly as they dared. Basil’s dromons were waiting for them. Sven
saw the great siphons on the prow of the lead imperial ship. Phokas’ helmsmen turned the prow on the dromon. Sven stood on the deck of the longship as his men pulled at the oars, directing
the vessel into the narrow alley of water. The Rus ships with their narrow draft, easily navigated
the shore and jumping out, the men pushed the ships onto the beach. The imperial dromon
continued to bear on Phokas’ warships, daring the shallows. The great brass lion set firmly on the deck had a mouth wide and gaping as if it roared. The siphon extended from its mouth. The naval officer aboard the lead ship called aloud to his men, commanding them to bring the great siphons about. The lion’s heads were lit up in the night from the flames spewing from their
mouths, and the dark of the night was made blindingly bright as the flames snaked over the
water, dancing on the surface in a demonic frenzy.
Wherever Basil went, his Varangians went with him and their presence was an indication of his presence on the battlefield. There were shouts of “The Emperor is on the field!” and even “The Emperor’s wineskins are here!” (One of the names for the Varangians was “wineskins” as they were given to prodigious drinking.) They also had a fondness for the capitol’s brothels and the chariot racing and were known to put down their substantial wages on both. Sven himself was known to frequent the brothels and he was certainly a frequent presence in the tavernas.
After leaving Ahmed, Sven stopped at a taverna. His thirst for wine had begun to consume
The Serpentine Key by G.S. Brown
him. Throwing a coin to the taverna keeper, he took his cup of wine to a darkened corner of the
taverna and sat in his usual careless manner, feet propped on a nearby bench. He needed to think. Sipping the wine, he thought about how all he had learned fit together.
The Varangians had their own churches as well (after all the Imperial Guardsmen had to show some piety towards the same God of the emperor whom they served). Likely many of them had been baptized prior to their arrival in Constantinople, yet there were still many who would have clung to their old ways.
The leader of the Varangians was the Akolouthos who was usually Greek. There was at least one who was Norse, Nambites, but it seems that the Byzantines preferred to leave matters of leadership in the hands of their own men.
As I mentioned before, there was a substantial fee for joining and a man newly arrived in the empire might serve for a while in the regular imperial army, working to earn the amount necessary for joining the Varangian Guard. In The Secret Testament Þórsteinn has the gold but not the physical constitution for it after an injury in an encounter with Penchenegs on the Dnieper disqualifies him from joining
Þórsteinn was in a foul mood. He had been in Constantinople for two months now. He
The Secret Testament by G.S. Brown
had been slightly overawed by the city. It was nothing like Kiev or Novgorod. Where the Rus’
cities were largely built of the timbers that were plentiful in the forests, Constantinople was
mostly stone. It had taken quite a lot of getting used to. He had recovered his strength since he
had been here, but he still walked with a limp. He had not been successful at concealing it when
he had reported to the Zeuxippos Barracks to announce that he wished to join the Guard. He was skilled at handling weaponry, and he had his three pounds of gold. But the commanding officer there had noticed the limp. It was no good to try to pretend otherwise. He was rejected. His disappointment was profound.
The Guard’s services were utilized for police duties within the capitol , as well as enforcing revenue collection. This made them quite unpopular with the citizens and the fact that whatever Greek was spoken was tinged with the accent of their northern homeland, that their culture and mannerisms were different, set them apart even in a city that was a cosmopolitan and diverse as Constantinople. To many people, no matter how many Varangian churches were built, the Rus had a tinge of the pagan and barbarian about them.
As time went on the Guard became distinctly less Scandinavian or even Germanic as less and less men from England joined and the reputation that Guard had earned as the Empire’s fiercest fighting forced waned. They were no longer held to the same standards, nor did they have Basil II to lead them, a man so respected by his men he was called “The Father of the Army”. By the time Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Guard was no longer a recognizable entity. Perhaps if the weak and ineffectual Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos had the advantage of Basil’s bold men sent from Rus and Scandinavia, Constantinople might never have fallen into the hands of Mehmed II.