VARANGIAN GUARD: How the Vikings Became the ELITE Bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperor!
For three hundred years, the life of the richest ruler in Christendom was in the hands of men who didn't speak Greek. They had no home, no land, no relatives in Constantinople. Byzantine emperors might distrust their own mothers, their own generals, their own palace guards—but they trusted northern strangers with a two-handed axe to sleep at their bedroom door.
Why were they chosen? What compelled strangers from the Baltic and from England, ravaged by Normandy, to swear allegiance to a throne they saw for the first time? How did a young Norwegian, at fifteen, come to the Great City as a mercenary and leave as the richest king in the north, carrying with him nearly half a ton of gold? And why, on the day the crusaders scaled the walls of Constantinople, were they the ones dying for the empty throne—for an emperor who was no longer in the city?
The story of a three-hundred-year-old oath that could not be bought, broken, or inherited. The oath was given to a position, not a person—and it changed the course of history.
#Varangians #Byzantium #history #Constantinople #Miklagard #HaraldSternberg #BasilII #MiddleAges #Scandinavia #Vikings #DarkAges #Crusades #FallofConstantinople #HistoryofEurope #AncientRus #VladimirtheBaptist #Axe #Guards #Oath #DocumentaryHistory
SOURCES:
John Skylitzes, "Review of Histories"
Anna Comnena, "The Alexiad"
Snorri Sturluson, "The Circle of the Earth" ("Heimskringla"), The Saga of Harald Hardrada
Michael Psellos, "Chronography"
John Kinnam, "A Brief Overview of the Reigns of John and Manuel Comnenus"
The Tale of Bygone Years
John Julius Norwich, "Byzantium: The Apogee
Sigfús Blöndal, "The Varangians of Byzantium"
Raffaele D'Amato, "The Varangian Guard 988–1453" (Osprey)
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction: Who Are the Varangians?
00:45 Night on the Bosphorus and Vasily II's Treaty with Vladimir
04:36 Origins of the Varangians and Early Contacts with Byzantium
07:42 The Murder of Nicephorus Phocas and the Birth of the Principle of Oath to the Throne
11:09 The Structure of the Guard: Weapons, Pay, and the Half-Tasvarf
16:12 Harald Hardrada: The Journey from Stiklastadir to the Crown of Norway
20:03 The Anglo-Saxon Turning Point and the Last Battle of 1204