The Varangian Guard: Axemen From the North, Sources and Corrections

From 988 until at least 1203, the Byzantine emperors kept a guard of men from the North. It began with Rus troops sent from Kyiv, took in Scandinavians like Harald Hardrada, and after 1066 took in Englishmen too. This page gives the source for every slide, and says which details are Byzantine record and which are saga.

Every claim in our Varangian Guard carousel, slide by slide, with its source. Slides are marked by year rather than by number, and the sections below follow the same order.

Slide by slide

988: caught at the table, drinking

In 987 Basil II's general Bardas Phokas rebelled and proclaimed himself emperor. Basil asked Vladimir of Kyiv for troops, and the price was Basil's sister Anna as Vladimir's bride and Vladimir's baptism. Michael Psellos writes that "a picked band of Scythians had come to help him from the Taurus", his classical name for the Rus, that they caught the rebels "seated at table and drinking", and that Basil "had these men trained in a separate corps". The rebellion ended when Phokas fell dead from his horse at Abydos on 13 April 989.

Sources: Michael Psellos, Chronographia I.13 (trans. Sewter); Yahya of Antioch; John Skylitzes; Leo the Deacon, History X.9 (trans. Talbot and Sullivan, 2005).

1081: the axe-bearing barbarians

Anna Komnene calls them "the Varangians from Thule (by these I mean the axe-bearing barbarians)". She writes that they "carried their axes on their shoulders" and regarded loyalty to the emperors "as a pledge and ancestral tradition, handed down from father to son". In April 1081, when her father Alexios and his brothers were about to seize the city, they did not try to win over the Varangians; they bribed the German guard instead.

The axe belongs to this later period. The earliest account of the Rus contingent, set in the year 1000, gives them spear and shield.

Sources: Anna Komnene, Alexiad II.9 (trans. Dawes, 1928); Step'anos Taronéci, Universal History III.43 (trans. Greenwood).

1034: Harald, in the ranks

A Byzantine general, Kekaumenos, writing around 1075 to 1078, records "Araltes", son of the king of Varangia and brother of Olaf, who came with 500 men under Michael IV, served in Sicily and was made manglabites, fought in the Bulgarian war of 1041 and was made spatharokandidatos. Refused leave to go home, he "escaped in secret and became king in his own country". These are mid-level court ranks. The saga claim that he commanded the Varangians is not in the Byzantine record.

Sources: Kekaumenos, Strategikon, the "Advice to the emperor"; Sigfús Blöndal and Benedikt Benedikz, The Varangians of Byzantium (1978). More on Harald in our Harald Hardrada article.

Uppland: he died in Greece

Swedish runestones name men who went to "Greece", the Byzantine Empire. U 112 at Ed: "Ragnvaldr had the runes carved; he was in Greece, was commander of the retinue." U 73 at Hansta: "They died in Greece." U 104, now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and U 136 at Broby name Greece too. None of them says "Varangian Guard"; linking them to the guard is the usual scholarly reading, not the stones' words.

In the upper gallery of Hagia Sophia someone scratched runes into the marble parapet. Only the name, (-)alftan, Halfdan, can be read; the rest is worn away.

Sources: Samnordisk runtextdatabas, U 112, U 73, U 104, U 136; James E. Knirk, "Runer i Hagia Sofia i Istanbul", Nytt om runer 14 (1999).

1203: English and Danes, with their axes

After 1066, Orderic Vitalis writes, "the very flower of the English youth" served in the armies of the emperor Alexios. In 1122 John Kinnamos calls the emperor's axemen "a British nation, serving the emperors of the Romans from of old", as they hacked apart a Pecheneg wagon fort. And in July 1203 the crusader Geoffrey of Villehardouin found that "the Greeks had set Englishmen and Danes, with their axes, at the gate and right up to the palace of Blachernae."

Sources: Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History IV.3; John Kinnamos, Epitome I; Geoffrey of Villehardouin, The Conquest of Constantinople (trans. Marzials).

What we do not claim

• That the Byzantines called the guard "the emperor's wine-bags". We found no primary source for it.
• That 6,000 axemen arrived in 988. The only figure, from an Armenian writer, is 6,000 infantry with spear and shield, in a story set in the year 1000.
• That Harald commanded the guard or blinded an emperor himself. An emperor, Michael V, was blinded in 1042; Harald's part in it is claimed only by his own poets and the saga.
• That English Varangians founded a "New England" in the Crimea. The sources for it are late and legendary.

Corrections

None yet. If you find an error, tell us, with a citation.

Keep exploring

• Harald Hardrada: the last great Viking king
• Write your name in Younger Futhark
• Bearded axes and Dane axes

Frequently asked questions

What was the Varangian Guard?

The personal guard of the Byzantine emperors, recruited from men of the North. It grew out of Rus troops sent from Kyiv to Basil II in 988, took in Scandinavians in the 11th century and Englishmen after 1066, and was still guarding the palace with axes in 1203.

Was Harald Hardrada in the Varangian Guard?

Yes. The Byzantine general Kekaumenos records him as Araltes, who came with 500 men, served in Sicily and in the Bulgarian war of 1041, and held the court ranks manglabites and spatharokandidatos before he left and became king of Norway.

Why were they called axe-bearers?

Anna Komnene, writing about 1081, calls them the axe-bearing barbarians who carried their axes on their shoulders. The axe is the weapon of the 11th and 12th century guard; the earliest account of the Rus troops gives them spear and shield.