In the eleven-hundred-year history of the Byzantine Empire (337-1453) arguably the most well-known and celebrated military unit in the Byzantine army was the Varangian Guard. Referred to by Greek sources as “axe-bearing barbarians” for wielding their signature long-hafted battle axes, this multinational imperial unit was comprised primarily of Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon warriors and was active from 988 until the mid-fourteenth century, serving Byzantine emperors both as an imperial bodyguard in the great capital of Constantinople and as formidable troops on campaign. Indeed, through their numerous exploits and long term of service, the Varangian Guard is remembered as one of the most famous corps of mercenaries in military history, with a well-deserved reputation in Christian Europe and the Islamic Near East as elite soldiers, faithful bodyguards, imperial enforcers, and sometimes “emperor-makers.” 

The Varangian Guard took its namesake from the Varangians, Swedo-Slavic adventurers from Eastern Europe. Beginning in the late eighth century, Swedish Vikings known first to the Finns and then to the Eastern Slavs as the Rus or Rhos, a term whose origin is still debated by historians, made their way down the rivers and estuaries of Eastern Europe in an attempt to establish trading links with the Byzantine Empire. The most famous of these passages, later called “the Varangian Way” traversed Russia by way of the Dnieper to the Black Sea and then south to Constantinople. Under the command of their first leader Rurik (c.830-c.880), these Rus soon became involved in the Slavic civil wars, eventually dominating the native Slavic peoples and setting up powerful regional trading centers, most notably in Novgorod and Kiev. Over the tenth century more Scandinavian adventurers, now known as Varangians (Varingjar in Old Norse, Varjazi in Eastern Slavonic, or Varangoi in Greek), joined the Rus and expanded the territory of Kiev until this principality encompassed the lands between the Danube and Volga rivers and the Baltic and Black seas and challenged the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans. Like the term Rus, the etymology of Varangian is debatable, although one widely accepted theory is that the word comes from var (plural varar) which means “faith” or alternately “vow of fidelity” in Old Norse, a group of warriors who had sworn oaths of allegiance to local prince, king, or emperor. The Byzantine princess and historian Anna Komnene (1083-1153) echoes this sentiment when she wrote that the Varangians “regard loyalty to the emperors and the protection of their persons as a family tradition, a kind of sacred trust."

After decades of warfare, including unsuccessful sieges of Constantinople itself, Byzantine relations with the Rus warmed in the late tenth century with both states developing strong religious, economic, and military ties, but not without a contentious start. In 987, the Rus Grand Prince of Kiev Vladimir I (r.980-1015) took the important Byzantine port city of Chersonesos (near modern Sevastopol, Ukraine) on the Crimean Peninsula and demanded to marry the Byzantine emperor, Basil II’s (r.976-1025) younger sister (a common ploy in Byzantine history as foreign dynasties often sought legitimacy by intermarrying into the Byzantine court). Basil saw this as an opportunity to strengthen political ties with the Rus while securing a much-needed ally in a dangerous civil war. Basil offered his younger sister Anna’s hand to Vladimir in exchange for the return of Chersonesos and a force of 6,000 Varangian soldiers to serve in his army. Vladimir recognized the alliance provided an opportunity to rid his land of thousands of unruly warriors living in the Kievan region, Scandinavian adventurers who were, according to the Russian Primary Chronicle, “furious at the Grand Prince’s unwillingness or incapacity to pay them their wages” and who were increasingly demanding “that he show them the way to the Greeks.”  These Varangians would get their wish in the winter of 987/988 when they arrived in Constantinople and soon put their military services to use. At the battle of Chrysopolis (modern Üsküdar, Türkiye) in 988 the newly employed Varangians surprised a rebel army while they were eating, killing many soldiers and putting the rest to flight. A year later the Varangians aided Basil in victories over the rebels at the battles of Scutari and Abydos. With the assistance of his new Viking guard, Basil crushed the rebellion in a three-year civil war while also shoring up his failing Balkan frontier. By 990, Basil was again in control of his empire.

Basil was impressed by the military prowess of the Varangian mercenaries, and access to more of these fierce Scandinavian and Rus soldiers was secured with Vladimir’s marriage and his conversion to Greek Orthodoxy in 988. The Varangians who survived the civil war became the nucleus of what would become known as the Varangian Guard. Basil understood the value of employing a regiment of foreign elite soldiers fiercely loyal to their paymaster and insulated from regional and court intrigues that plagued previous imperial guards whose loyalties often shifted during dynastic struggles within the Eastern Roman court. These Varangians, lacking professional opportunity and military lands of their own in the rapidly centralizing Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, would prove very loyal to Byzantine emperors (and sometimes imperial pretenders) over the next few centuries. In fact, for many Scandinavians, serving as Varangians would become a family tradition, attracting multiple generations of warriors.

Contemporary accounts describe or illustrate the Scandinavian Varangians as large in physical stature, with light complexions, blue eyes, full beards, bushy moustaches, and long hair. Early guardsmen were also known for their elaborate tattoos, inking themselves from hands to shoulders, and sometimes even decorating their faces in a fashion popular in Eastern Europe, but likely originally adopted from contacts with Central Asian steppe warriors. Descriptions of Varangian martial skills often reference a passion for war without regard for personal safety.  The eleventh century Greek historian Michael Psellos (1018-c.1082) described the Varangians as “terrible of aspect and huge of body” who fought “like madmen, as if ablaze with wrath” and who “did not care about their wounds….” These depictions often included a reference to Varangians wielding their signature long-hafted battle axe with devastating effect.

The Varangian battle-axe was a long-hafted, two-handed weapon originally of Danish design and used by Vikings in their numerous campaigns across Europe during the Viking Age (c.800-c.1070).  A fearsome weapon, the Varangian axe’s head was crescent or trapezoidal shaped with a wide edge ideal for cutting attacks. Byzantine sources describe this weapon as a pelekys (axe) and axe wielding Varangians sometimes as Pelekyphoroi. Varangians were also known to have used swords as side-arms, and iconography and archaeological evidence points to the continued use of the native Scandinavian double-edged sword by guardsmen. As imperial soldiers, Varangians would have access to Byzantine single-edged swords, with swords of both types hung at the left hip, usually from a baldric. The Varangian Guard also employed spears and polearms (the rhomphaiai and drepana) in their ceremonial and military duties. Varangian armor differed depending on the circumstances. On campaign, the guardsmen wore heavy armor consisting of their native chain mail hauberk, or Byzantine-styled ring-mail, lamellar, or scale armor. While on guard duty at home, lighter armor was used. Helmet designs and shield shapes and sized also changed during the Varangians’ tenure, with the first Scandinavian guardsmen wearing Scandinavian spangen-form helmets and carrying large round, convex shields. However, contacts with the Islamic world and Central Asia changed helmet designs, while the Normans may have influenced the adoption of a Byzantine kite-shield by both Byzantine infantry and cavalry in the eleventh century. The Varangian Guard would have also worn distinctive Byzantine military dress, subject to contemporary trends and fashions throughout its three-hundred year-plus history. The Byzantines were famous for brilliantly colored garments made from various kinds of materials, including cotton, linen, wool, and silk. Imperial red or purple may have been used as a symbol of their status as imperial bodyguards (similar to imperial Rome’s Praetorian Guard), although historians are not certain of the color or make-up of this uniform.

The Varangian Guard was commanded by the Akolouthos, a term in Greek which means “the Follower” or the man closest to the emperor on formal occasions. Originally, this title went to the officer who commanded all of the foreigners in the army (as Byzantine emperors had always employed foreigners in their ranks dating back to before Justinian the Great in the sixth century). Later, the Akolouthos was recognized as the commander of the Varangian Guard, an exalted position within the Byzantine court, one where executive control of the city was passed when the emperor was absent from Constantinople. Because of communication issues between the Scandinavian and later English guard and their Greek employers the Akolouthos was assisted in his command duties by imperial interpreters under the command of the Grand Interpreter or Megalodihermeneutes. Performing a role similar to that of the ancient lictors of republican Rome was the Manghlavitai, a smaller bodyguard-within-the-bodyguard who performed crowd control and personal protection for the emperor when he traveled within his capital. This smaller guard was led by the Protospatharios, a title that meant “First of the Imperial Sword-Bearers,” a prestigious position due to his proximity to the emperor on a day-to-day basis. Assisting the Protospatharios was a second-in-command lieutenant called the Spatharokandidatos, a rank held by Harald Hardrada (the future Norse king Harald III Sigurdsson, r.1046-1066) when he served in the Varangian Guard in the mid-eleventh century. There is also evidence that one Varangian commander named Michael held the rank of commander-in-chief (Protostrategos) of an imperial army on multiple campaigns in the 1050s, illustrating the emperor’s trust in Varangian military skills.    

Despite their long service in Byzantium, modern historians have few examples of how the Varangian Guard fought on campaign. Like other bodyguards in history, the Varangians were usually arrayed around the emperor as heavily armored infantry, but we are unsure about their precise tactical deployment. Typical to Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon warfare of the time, Varangian guardsmen probably formed a defensive shield wall five or more men deep, standing close enough to lock shields and presenting a frontage of only one-and-a-half feet per man. However, their defensive deployment may have also been informed by Byzantine tactical doctrine.  We do know they took heavy casualties protecting Romanos IV Diogenes (r.1068-1071) at Manzikert in 1071 and Manuel I Komnenos (r.1143-1180) at Myriokephalon in 1176. At Durazzo in 1081, the Varangian Guard was placed in van of Alexios I Komnenos’ (r.1081-118) army, drawn up into two columns with explicit directions to use a combined-arm approach when engaging the Normans, specifically the utilization of light cavalry archers. The Varangians ignored this command with devastating consequences. A few years later at the Byzantine defeat at Silistria (1087), guardsmen were held in reserve behind Catholic heavy infantry, possibly to protect the imperial tent and baggage train. Here, these Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon mercenaries were killed in large numbers, creating a rich archaeological site for modern scholars to better understand Varangian material culture.

It is likely that the early Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon Varangians would have fought offensively utilizing the traditional “boar’s head” wedge array common to Indo-European armies in the classical and early medieval periods, essentially an attack by column concentrating the shock impact of the attack on a small frontage and hopefully breaking through the opponent’s formation. Once the enemy’s line was breached, Varangian warriors broke into individual combat, swinging their two-handed axes or cutting and slashing with their swords. Again, Byzantine battle doctrine was utilized in later offensive engagements between Varangians and the enemies of Byzantium, with Varangians treated as elite heavy infantry in war planning and execution. Whether using native tactics or integrated into Byzantine combined-arms warfare, the Varangian Guard’s elite status gave them the privilege of first plunder over a conquered city, a testimony to their prowess on the battlefield.

The Varangian Guard’s role as a military unit continued its decline in the fourteenth century, with this once elite unit restricted to performing ceremonial and guard duties in Constantinople. As guardians of the emperor, Varangians charged elicit bribes from those wishing to enter the palace, restricting access to only those who would pay the fee. This “gate keeper” position enhanced the Varangians’ power within the palace walls and made enemies of powerful nobles and other household staff. However, not all of the emperors used Varangians in this period. According to the Greek historian Gregoras (1295-1360) the very devout emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos (r.1328-1341) “spent his time unguarded…without the imperial axe-bearers” throughout most of his reign. By this time, the Byzantine Empire was facing a new and mortal enemy in the rise of the Ottoman Turks, who whittled away Byzantine possessions over the course of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Historians are not sure whether a true Varangian Guard was defending the city’s walls the time of the successful siege and storm of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmet II in 1453, although there is evidence that a regiment of mixed-blood descendants of the English Varangians or Varangoppouli served the emperors as late as 1404. Still, the Varangian Guard faithfully served the Byzantine Empire for over three hundred years, and throughout most of this period would rank among the empire's elite shock troops renown across Christendom for their passion for war, women and wine, fierce fighters who wielded their large battle axes at their paymaster’s whim.

Suggested Readings:

Primary sources

Anna Comnena. The Alexiad. Translated by E.R.A. Sewter. Penguin, 2009.

Anonymous. Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi. Edited by W. Stubbs. Rolls Series, 1864.

Cross, Samuel Hazzard, and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, eds. The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text. Vol. 60. Mediaeval academy of America, 1953.

Secondary sources

Bartusis, Mark C. The Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204-1453. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.

Blondal, Sigfus. The Varangians of Byzantium. Translated and revised by Benedikt S. Benedikz. Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Carey, Brian Todd et al. Road to Manzikert: Byzantine and Islamic Warfare, 527-1071. Pen and Sword Military, 2012.

D’Amato, Raffaele. The Varangian Guard, 988-1453. Osprey, 2010.