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It was an "extravaganza of brutality": how the Vikings menaced the Mediterranean
Killing, burning, pillaging, enslaving. Even when heading to sunnier climes, Viking raiders deployed the same tactics that they had used along the shores of northern and western Europe, reveals Thomas Williams
The poor citizens of Al-Jazira al-Khadra never knew what hit them. In 859, an unfamiliar fleet sailed into the bay separating this Muslim settlement – which later evolved into the city of Algeciras, now in southern Spain – from Gibraltar. Making landfall nearby, the alien ships disgorged their fearsome crews: Vikings. In a sequence of events terrifyingly familiar to victims in more northerly parts of Europe, these formidable marauders wreaked havoc. They occupied the city, burned the mosque, ravaged the countryside – and then moved on to the next target, and the next. The campaign later known as the ‘Great Raid’ was well and truly underway – part of a chapter in Norse history that’s less known today, but no less bloody. Stone cold killers The Vikings of our imagination are emphatically creatures of the north – avatars of cold climes and bleak weather, manifestations of ice and snow made flesh and steel. Dragon-prowed ships slice through the frigid waters of steep-sided fjords swathed in midnight-green pine forests. Fur-clad adventurers hunt walrus amid the crashing icebergs of the northernmost seas. Giants haunt the ice-capped mountains in an unreal world of midnight sun and northern lights. We are used to reading tales of Viking rampages through lands both near and far from home: around the Baltic coastline, in Britain and Ireland, in what’s now northern France, Russia, even Canada. But none of these places seem so different from Scandinavia, in climate at least; indeed, some boast similar extremes of latitude. Even in the most temperate of these places, a sharp north-easterly or a rare winter snowstorm may come and go without raising an eyebrow. Likewise Vikings in times past. But, like the ice, it can feel jarring to find Vikings in places where we feel instinctively they don’t quite belong. Like Mallorca, southern France, even Egypt. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/CreditCopyright--Museo-San-Isidoro-de-Leon-Derechos-reservadosFRT2114webready-75aa086-e1768832592182.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A cylindrical wooden box with ornate patterns carved into it" title="An elaborately carved box made from reindeer horn around the turn of the 11th century and discovered in Spain, hinting at Viking contact there (Image by Museo San Isidoro de León-Derechos reservados)" /> Of course, summer does come to the north. Vikings didn’t spend the whole year swaddled in bearskins. Still, like many of us, the inhabitants of those northerly climes might well have dreamed wistfully of a sun-soaked break in the Med – not least those hardy souls beyond the Arctic Circle who endured weeks of crushing midwinter darkness. We don’t know exactly what sparked the Great Raid of 859–60, but we have a fair idea of at least some of what transpired. The expedition was supposedly led by Björn Ironside, son of the larger-than-life Ragnar Loðbrok (‘Hairy pants’), and Hastein, who was later involved in campaigns in Brittany, the Loire Valley and King Alfred’s Britain. Having entered the Mediterranean and started as they meant to go in Al-Jazira al-Khadra, the Viking fleet next hit the kingdom of Nakur (or Nekor) on the north African coastline. There, in the words of one Asturian chronicler, they killed “a vast number of Muslims” and captured many others for ransom or for sale as slaves. The raiders headed back north via the Balearics, molesting Murcia, Mallorca, Menorca and, perhaps, Ibiza and Formentera. Touching down on what’s now the Côte d’Azur, they pillaged their way through Perpignan, Narbonne, Nîmes, Arles and Valence. After a winter spent in the Camargue, the Vikings moved on to Italy, where they sacked Pisa. Thereafter, things get a little muddled. One far-fetched narrative has them aiming for Rome but getting confused, instead plundering the small port of Luni (a surprising mistake, given that Rome was far inland and to the south, and still possibly the largest and most architecturally impressive city in western Europe). <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Greekfire-public-domain-CMYK-64ac2bc-e1768832114133.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An illustration showing two black boats filled with men facing each other, with the group on the left shooting fire towards the ones on the right" title="A 12th-century manuscript illustration shows the use of ‘Greek fire’, an incendiary weapon wielded by Andalusian forces against Viking attackers to devastating effect" /> Whatever the truth of that tale, from Italy the fleet seems to have moved on to the eastern Mediterranean, and regions under the sway of the Byzantine empire. One chronicler even places Viking ships at Alexandria, near the mouth of the Nile. We do know that the campaign nearly ended in disaster – for the Vikings. En route home through the Straits of Gibraltar (or, as it was known in Old Norse, Nǫrvasund, ‘Narrow Sound’), longships were intercepted by the formidable galley fleet of Muslim al-Andalus under the command of Qarqashish ibn Shakruh and the admiral Khashkhash. Andalusian forces decimated Viking crews with arrows and incinerated ships with bursts of ‘Greek fire’ – the nautical napalm of the early medieval world – belched across the water. The Andalusians sailed close enough to engage the Vikings hand-to-hand across the ships’ bows: Khashkhash himself “fought them from the prow of his ship until he met a martyr’s death, may God have mercy on him”. Only a handful of Viking ships escaped the maelstrom – but those men who survived had gathered tales enough to fill many a long Nordic night. Read more | Forget the longships: this is the overlooked story of how the Vikings dominated eastern Europe Capital ideas The Great Raid was one of the largest, most dramatic and best remembered of the Viking adventures in the south, but it was far from the only such excursion. The sources rarely explain what inspired individual expeditions but, broadly speaking, adventures to such distant lands were animated by the same impulses that drove the Vikings to sail waters closer to home. The main driver of raiding – and, indeed, military employment overseas – was the acquisition of capital. This was both economic, in the shape of plunder and extorted wealth, and social, in the form of fame and prestige. Both could be leveraged to gain political power back home. Stories of awe-inspiring deeds, and possession of the wherewithal to reward and retain a warband, provided the basis for power in early medieval Scandinavia. Viking exploits around the storied and wealthy Mediterranean rim had the potential to provide generous helpings of both. Sometimes they could provide a springboard to the pinnacle of power and fame. When Harald Hardrada (more on whom later) returned to Scandinavia via what’s now Russia after a brutal mid-career sojourn in the employment of the Byzantine emperor, the poet Valgard of Voll said that: Harald, you launched your vessel Laden with a cargo of riches Freighted with hard-won honour And gleaming gold […] Through storm and gale, great king, You sailed your plunging vessel; And as the sea-spray was thinning You sighted at least Sigtuna. Inside a year, Harald was king of Norway. First fleet It was some 15 years before the Great Raid, and half a century after the pioneering attack on Lindisfarne, that Vikings first sailed into the Atlantic and steered determinedly south. The first known sortie to the Iberian peninsula was made in 844. The 54 ships that undertook that journey blazed a trail that others – the Great Raid included – would follow and greatly extend over centuries to come. Setting out from Brittany, the Viking fleet harried the Atlantic coast of Iberia, landing at A Coruña and launching raids inland, but ultimately came to grief at the hands of Asturian stone-throwers and the stalwart resistance of the Christian king Ramiro I. Thwarted there, the remaining Vikings cut their losses and headed south towards the Muslim emirate of al-Andalus. Their first stop was Lisbon, where they tarried for a couple of weeks to resupply their ships and terrorise the locals. Sailing on, the fleet sailed up the Guadalquivir river to menace the great city of Seville. Many of the inhabitants fled at the approach of the Norsemen, the reputation of these exotic marauders having preceded them. What followed was an extravaganza of brutality that was grimly familiar in Britain, Ireland and France, but which was terrifyingly novel in southern Iberia. Viking raiders disembarked from their ships to pillage and despoil the Andalusian countryside, slaughtering men, kidnapping women and children, and burning settlements. Seville itself was largely ransacked, only the walls of the inner citadel halting the attackers. Terrified citizens huddling for refuge within the great mosque of Ibn Abbas were massacred. Eventually, the emir, Abd al-Rahman II, got his act together. He mustered an army that confronted the Viking warband at an unidentified place recorded as Talyata where, according to the sources, 1,000 Viking warriors (or Majūs, ‘fire-worshippers’, as they are referred to in Arabic writing) were slain. Some 400 Norsemen were captured and executed in spectacular ways – decapitated or strung up on palm trees. According to the later source Ibn Idhari, Abd al-Rahman sent “the heads of the general, and of 200 of the noblest Viking warriors” to the tribes under Andalusian dominion in Africa. It was a warning and a reminder that his power, however much it had been tested by this novel threat, remained intact. Though they didn’t make it into the Mediterranean on that occasion, the Vikings had delivered a nasty shock to the Andalusians. As a result, city and coastal defences were strengthened and naval patrols were enhanced – as the returning ships of the Great Raid discovered to their cost on their way home 16 years later. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/WIKICredit-Didier-DescouensArsenaleVenice-FirstAncientGreeklionwebready-5971df2-e1768832842209.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph of a large stone lion, with a brick crenellated wall and black railings behind it" title="Runic inscriptions on the shoulders of this ancient Greek lion, now in Venice but originally in Piraeus, are believed to be 11th-century graffiti inscribed by Norse mercenaries serving in the Byzantine army" /> Suburban terrorists At around the same time that the Vikings of the Great Raid were pillaging their way around the western Med, another group were unleashing violence to the east. This was a sudden irruption of Rus – the adventurers of Scandinavian origin who settled between the eastern Baltic and Black Seas. Later establishing their epicentre in Kyiv, they sparked a long political and economic transformation of predominantly Slavic eastern Europe. In 860, these marauders launched an attack on the suburbs of Constantinople. The earliest account describes the Northmen burning and plundering their way to the walls of the mighty capital of the Byzantine empire, terrifying the inhabitants. Later sources describe the raiders spreading out around the Sea of Marmara south of the city, and pillaging and burning monasteries on the archipelago now known as Princes’ Islands. Capturing 22 of the exiled Patriarch Ignatius’ servants, the Rus took them “aboard their ships and cruelly dismembered them with axes, demonstrating their barbarity”. These attackers were the people whom Patriarch Photios of Constantinople – who lived contemporaneously with the events of 860, though didn’t record them directly – described as “a fierce and barbarous people, worshipping no gods and living in constant strife. Their coming brings destruction and sorrow to those lands they visit.” Sadly for the locals, it wouldn’t be the last time the Rus made their presence felt in the Bosphorus. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/PrinceOlegtheProphetridesonshipsputonwheelstoConstantinople2webready-ad9a5ea-e1768832311475.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="An illustration showing several groups of men in boats with wheels on the bottom. They are all dressed in red robes with blue hoods" title="Warships of the Kyivan Rus, the eastern European realm settled by Scandinavians, are fitted with wheels to attack Constantinople in 907, as imagined in a 16th-century Russian chronicle" /> In 907, for reasons unstated, the Rus again assaulted Constantinople. The events were recorded in detail by the compilers of the Russian Primary Chronicle; though open to sceptical assessment, their words certainly paint a vivid picture. The attack was led by the Rus warlord Oleg, whose name was recorded as a Slavic form of the Old Norse Helgi, and comprised “Varangians [ie Scandinavians], Slavs, Chuds, Krivichs, Meryans, Polianians, Severians, Derevlians, Radimichs, Croats, Dulebs and Tivercians” – various East Slavic tribes. According to this account, the Rus fleet comprised 2,000 ships, though Greek sources give the rather more credible figure of 350. Having landed outside the city, Oleg disembarked and led his army on another rampage through the suburbs, killing inhabitants, burning houses and razing churches. Prisoners were, so the chronicler recounts, “beheaded, tortured, shot or thrown into the sea”. Read more | "A Viking wedding involved a bed and eight people", plus four other facts about the Vikings you might not know... The most remarkable episode in this otherwise fairly typical account of Viking atrocities was the order that Oleg allegedly gave “to fit the ships with wheels. When a favourable wind rose up, they set sail and bore down upon the city by land.” The residents were, quite understandably, “frightened to see this”. It is difficult to understand how this would have worked in practice, attempted at short notice by a raiding army speaking disparate languages and who, we must assume, had never done such a thing before. The smouldering ruins of the suburbs would also have presented challenging terrain for Oleg’s marauding land-fleet. Whatever the true details of the assault, it’s recorded that the terrified city-dwellers “agreed to pay tribute, provide provisions and grant the Rus the right to trade in Constantinople tax-free”. A Rus-Byzantine treaty was indeed duly signed – and the Old Norse names of the Rus signatories leave no doubt as to their Viking origins. This treaty included provisions granting the Rus access to Constantinopolitan markets, provided they adhered to certain restrictions. They were to use only one designated gate; their numbers in the city were limited to 50 at any one time; they were to be accompanied by Byzantine guardsmen; and their weapons were to be left outside the walls. In return, they received food and an allowance for six months. If the attack had been a coordinated strategy to wring economic concessions for Rus traders in Europe’s greatest marketplace, then Oleg’s campaign – land-ships or no – had been a resounding success. Unruly contractors For all that the Vikings represented a menace, it was clearly preferable to have them working in the service of the Byzantine empire rather than camped belligerently outside the walls of its cities. So, for at least 200 years, Scandinavians were employed as mercenaries, hired to prosecute the empire’s wars in all quarters of the eastern Mediterranean. Northmen who served in this way, known as Varangoi by the Byzantines, were prized for their skills as sailors and fighters, and the empire’s far-flung interests took them all across the greater Byzantine world. From 902, when the first direct reference to Varangians appears in Greek sources, they could be found fighting the empire’s wars in Sicily, Italy, Crete, Croatia, Lebanon, Anatolia and Syria – not to mention Armenia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Georgia. And they left their mark in Constantinople: runic inscriptions in the stonework of the Hagia Sophia – the city’s great basilica, now a mosque – seem to be Varangian graffiti. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/dreamstimexl29748298webready-ab8436b-e1768832432639.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph showing a red stone building with several floors, a domed roof and a narrow, pointed tower at each corner" title="Istanbul’s sixth-century Hagia Sophia. Around the time of the Rus attack on the Byzantine capital, Scandinavians were hired as ‘Varangian’ soldiers, leaving runic graffiti in this basilica, now a mosque" /> The Varangian phenomenon was turbo-charged in 988 when Vladimir the Great of Kyiv despatched 6,000 men to Emperor Basil II Porphyrogenitus (the ‘Bulgar Slayer’). The Rus leader issued the revealing advice to “not keep them in the city, for then they will only give you trouble, as they have given me”, finishing with the weary plea to “not let one man come back here again”. Undesirable citizens they may have been, but these eastern Vikings quickly proved their military worth in Basil’s wars. Under pressure from within the imperial military hierarchy and from fractious neighbours in Bulgaria, Syria and Mesopotamia, the emperor was grateful for Vladimir’s assistance. He put his new recruits to immediate and effective employ, and Rus warriors were instrumental in crushing a revolt by the Byzantine general Bardas Phokas in 989. Thereafter, Varangians became increasingly commonplace in the Byzantine military, serving in the imperial bodyguard – though the significance of their contribution may have been exaggerated in some sources. This policy was an extension of a long tradition in the imperial army of employing foreign fighters of diverse origins, from within and without the boundaries of the empire. Read more | Reading the runes: what we can learn about everyday life in the Viking Age A legend in his lifetime No Varangian was more celebrated – particularly by himself – than the future Norwegian king Harald Hardrada (‘Hard Ruler’). British readers will remember Harald best for his part in the events of 1066, when he led a Viking force to defeat – and his own death – at Stamford Bridge at the hands of the English king Harold Godwinson. The demands of that clash exhausted and diverted English forces, easing the path to Norman victory at Hastings a few weeks later, and the subsequent conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy. A legend in his own lifetime, Harald travelled to the Byzantine imperial court via Kyivan Rus, and distinguished himself in campaigns fought on a number of fronts – most notably in Sicily, but also in the Greek islands and Bulgaria, and possibly north Africa, Syria and Anatolia. The most eye-catching of Harald’s postings was to the Middle East. In verses ascribed to Stuf Thordarson, who supposedly heard it from the lion’s mouth: With courage sharp as a sword-edge The all-triumphant warrior Left Greece to conquer Palestine – An easy task for Harald Tempting though it is to imagine Harald seizing control of the Holy Land with ease 60 years before the knights of the First Crusade achieved the same feat, in truth this is characteristic hyperbole. The future king seems rather to have been engaged in some sort of joint security operation designed to police the pilgrimage routes to Jerusalem under the terms of a deal between the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt and Emperor Michael IV. Nevertheless, while he was there Harald took opportunities hitherto open to very few Scandinavians: he bathed his weary bones in the river Jordan and paid his respects to Christ at the Tomb of the Holy Sepulchre. The Viking Age was coming to a close; the Age of the Crusades was near. But, as Harald’s tale shows, the boundary between these two epochs was not as clear-cut or impermeable as modern historiographical terminology implies. When the Norwegian king Sigurd Jórsalfari (‘Jerusalem-farer’) set sail in 1107 in search of adventure in the Holy Land, he followed in the slip-stream of his Viking forebears. He sailed down the coast of Iberia, through the straits of Gibraltar and on via the Balearics, pillaging as he went. The longships that arrived in 1110, and which blockaded the Fatimid controlled Levantine city of Sidon (now in Lebanon) as an ally of the Frankish king Baldwin of Jerusalem, bore all the hallmarks of the Viking fleets that had terrorised the Mediterranean in centuries past. On his return journey, during a pitstop at the old Varangian staging post of Constantinople, the Norwegian king made a gift to Emperor Alexios I Komnenos: “A very ornate dragon-head from the prow of his ship.” Thomas Williams is a historian of the early Middle Ages. His new book God’s Hammer: A History of the Viking Crusade is due out in October 2026 This article was first published in the January 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine
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Viking raiders, with Professor Ryan Lavelle
In the first mini-lecture of the HistoryExtra Academy Vikings course, Professor Ryan Lavelle introduces us to the Viking age, and explores the Vikings' reputation as fearsome raiders
In the first mini-lecture of the HistoryExtra Academy Vikings course, Professor Ryan Lavelle introduces us to the Viking Age, and explores the Vikings' reputation as fearsome raiders View Green Video on the source website More content from week one of the HistoryExtra Academy Vikings course: Fighting the Vikings – read time 13 mins History explorer: Alfred and the Vikings – read time 13 mins Your guide to the Viking raid of Lindisfarne – read time 3 mins The great Viking terror: how Norse warriors conquered the Anglo-Saxons – read time 12 mins Slaves in the Viking Age: how prevalent were enslaved people in Viking societies – read time 3 mins Why did the Vikings' violent raids begin? – read time 12 mins Viking ships: 5 lesser-known facts – read time 6 mins
The battle of Brunanburh: the forgotten fight that changed British history
King Æthelstan’s victory at Brunanburh in AD 937 may just be one of the most important battles ever fought on British soil, yet today it is virtually unknown. Julian Humphrys explores what happened over an entire day of hard and bloody fighting, and why the events on that long-lost battlefield echoed through the centuries
Half a century after Brunanburh – the victory of the men of Wessex and Mercia over an alliance of Scots, Strathclyde Britons and Norsemen from Ireland – it was still being called “the great battle”. Indeed, it has been described as one of the most defining battles in British history. It helped the Anglo-Saxon king Æthelstan consolidate his hold over his Wessex kingdom and create a more unified England, while it has also been argued that the strong resistance put up by his enemies prevented the whole of Britain from being forcefully united into one imperial power. Despite its significance, few today have heard of the battle of Brunanburh in AD 937, and even fewer think they know where it was fought. The battle of Brunanburh: quick facts When was it fought? AD 937 Where? Great Britain (precise location disputed) Why? Allied invasion of northern England Who was involved? Kingdom of England, led by Æthelstan Kingdom of Scotland, led by Constantine II Kingdom of Strathclyde, led by Owain I Viking kingdom of Dublin, led by Olaf Guthfrithson Who won? After a day of fighting, according to some accounts, it was an English victory What led to the battle of Brunanburh? Ever since he’d been crowned king of the Anglo-Saxons in AD 925, Æthelstan had been steadily extending his authority. After his grandfather, Alfred the Great, had halted the Danish conquest of England, his father, Edward the Elder, recaptured the East Midlands and East Anglia from the Danes in AD 917. Building on these solid foundations, Athelstan pushed north. Two years after becoming king, he took over the last remaining Viking kingdom at York, extending his rule up to the Scottish border. In AD 934, he invaded Scotland, possibly because its king, Constantine, had broken a peace treaty. Read more | Aelfweard and Aethelstan: were they rivals for the throne of Wessex? After gathering his forces at Winchester, he marched north, picking up reinforcements on the way and paying a visit to the shrine of St Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street, in modern-day County Durham. Supported by a fleet that sailed up the east coast, Athelstan led his Anglo-Saxon warriors deep into Scotland, burning and ravaging as far as the great fortress of Dunnottar, south of Aberdeen. View Green Video on the source website Nobody dared take on the powerful southern army in battle, and the northern rulers soon gave in. Constantine surrendered to Æthelstan and his neighbour Owain, King of Strathclyde, followed suit. Both were forced to accept the overlordship of Æthelstan, now at the peak of his powers. Realising that their only hope of countering the powerful English king was by setting aside their differences, Æthelstan’s enemies forged a coalition against him, with Constantine and Owen joining forces with Olaf, the Viking King of Dublin. In AD 937, they moved into Northumbria, where there were large numbers of Danish settlers and few of the aristocracy felt much loyalty to Æthelstan. It’s not clear how or where they combined their armies, but it is said that 615 ships carried the Dublin Vikings to England. The one source that does give any details says that the Vikings sailed their longships up the Humber. Read more | The Danelaw: is the ‘realm’ of the Vikings in Anglo-Saxon-era England a place or an idea? Who was Æthelstan? During his 14-year reign, Æthelstan pushed England’s boundaries to the furthest extent they had yet reached. He eliminated opposition in Cornwall, extracted a huge tribute from the kings of Wales, conquered Viking York, extended his control over Northumbria and fought off a major invasion in AD 937. But he was more than just a warrior feared by his neighbours. He issued law codes to strengthen royal control over his expanded kingdom, regulated the currency, and encouraged town life. He was a great collector of works of art and relics and a generous patron of religious houses. In his final years, Æthelstan was respected and influential throughout Europe, and four of his half-sisters married European rulers. He died in AD 939 and was buried in Malmesbury Abbey. Read more | If King Alfred was great, was Æthelstan even greater? By autumn, the invaders had established themselves in York and were ravaging Æthelstan’s kingdom to the south. How would Æthelstan respond? According to a contemporary chronicle (which is now lost, but was quoted in the 12th century by the writer William of Malmesbury), he did nothing, spending “idle hours” while the invaders laid waste his lands. In fact, Æthelstan was busy raising troops. A 10th-century army took time to assemble, and Æthelstan wasn’t going to make the same mistake that Harold Godwinson would in 1066 by hurrying into battle before he had gathered all his forces. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle emphasises the part played by the West Saxons and Mercians in the ensuing clash of arms, but it seems that Æthelstan’s army wasn’t exclusively English. The king had brought in some extra muscle in the form of a force of Viking warriors under the leadership of two hard-bitten Icelandic adventurers: Egill and Thorolf Skallagrímsson. Egill’s colourful (and violent) life was the subject of a long saga, probably written by Snorri Sturluson, the famous 13th-century Icelandic poet, chieftain and historian. It’s a thoroughly entertaining read, offering a valuable insight into the Viking mindset, but it’s so full of literary invention that its value as a history is thought to be limited. Dawn attack According to Egill’s saga, Æthelstan bought some of the time he needed to raise his army by challenging his enemies to fight him on a “hazelled field”, a specially chosen battlefield marked out by hazel branches, where the fighting would take place by mutual agreement at a set time. By tradition, once you had been challenged in this way, it was considered dishonourable to refuse or continue to ravage an enemy’s lands. Finally, towards the end of the year, Æthelstan moved north, and the two armies clashed at a place called Brunanburh. There’s a lot of debate over where this actually was, with Yorkshire, the Wirral, Galloway and Northamptonshire just some of the suggested sites. Egill’s saga describes the battlefield as an open heath bordered by dense woodland on one side and a river on the other, with Æthelstan and his brother Edmund’s forces drawn up where the gap between the two was narrowest. Read more | Brunanburh: Where did the battle that saved England take place? The main battle began with a dawn attack by the English, but the first casualties had already been suffered when an Anglo-Saxon bishop arrived with his men the night before, pitched his tents too near the enemy, and fell victim to a surprise attack. The initial fighting bore little relation to the confused free-for-all often depicted in today’s films. Both sides would have drawn up in closely packed ranks, presenting a solid wall of shields to their enemies. It’s sometimes suggested that the shields overlapped for extra protection, but this would have been impossible in the hurly-burly of battle as well as making it extremely difficult to use a weapon effectively. The lines of both armies would have bristled with spears, the commonest weapon of the period, leading at least one poet to describe an army as a “war-hedge”. Swords are frequently mentioned in contemporary poems and accounts, but they were expensive and usually only carried by the richer members of an army. Some warriors carried two-handed axes, which could shatter a wooden shield or cleave a man’s head in two. Unless one army attempted a surprise attack, a battle would normally begin with the two armies drawing up opposite each other, shooting bows and hurling insults – and spears – before one side (or both) felt confident enough to move forward. This might be a slow and steady advance, but an army could give up the security of a shield wall in favour of the impetus provided by a mad rush. Sometimes, warriors would deploy in a wedge formation, commonly called a ‘swine array’, and try to punch their way through an enemy shield wall. Axemen needed room to swing their deadly weapons, so it was almost impossible for them to fight in tightly packed ranks. They may have dashed forward to take on individual opponents, or used their axes to splinter the wooden shields of their enemies. If both lines held firm, the fighting would degenerate into a bitter battle of attrition. This was close-quarter combat at its most terrible, where you looked into the eyes of your enemy and could smell his breath and taste his blood. Accounts say the fighting at Brunanburh lasted all day. According to the Annals of Ulster, the battle was “immense, lamentable and horrible, desperately fought” while a contemporary poem concluded “never was there more slaughter on this island, never yet as many people killed before this… since from the east Angles and Saxons came up over the broad sea”. Eventually, the English gained the upper hand and the invaders broke and fled. Athelstan and his army pursued them until nightfall, “hew[ing] the fugitive grievously from behind with swords sharp from the grinding”. Olaf made for the safety of his ships and sailed back to Dublin with what was left of his army, Constantine escaped to Scotland and abdicated a few years later, while Owen was probably killed in the battle. Athelstan and Edmund headed south in triumph. But the English paid a heavy price for their victory: two of Athelstan’s cousins had been slain, along with two bishops, Thorolf Skallagrímsson, and “a multitude” of lesser men. The invaders’ losses were even higher. Five minor kings, seven Viking earls and one of Constantine’s sons were killed together with thousands of their followers. Read more | 10 ways the Anglo-Saxons changed the course of British history Locating the battlefield: where is Brunanburh? A wide variety of sites have been suggested. One is near Lockerbie in Scotland, not far from the hillfort at Burnswark, but it’s unlikely the battle was fought this far north, especially as Olaf and his allies had overrun Northumbria and occupied York. Another suggestion places the battle further south, in the hills on the Huntingdonshire-Northamptonshire border. Some accounts refer to Bruneswald rather than Brunanburh, and there was indeed a forest of that name between the rivers Nene and Ouse in that area. Some historians argue that the battle was actually fought on the Wirral. Dismissing the 12th-century account of the Vikings sailing up the Humber as a mistake, they base their conclusion on two place names that are mentioned in the contemporary account: Brunanburh and Dinges Mere. They believe that Brunanburh was the old name for the Wirral village of Bromborough, and that Dinges Mere meant ‘marshland of the Thing’, the old Norse word for the assembly which met at Thingwall on the Wirral. Others aren’t convinced. Historian Michael Wood believes that the account of the Viking landing on the Humber is probably correct, and points out that two sources, one Irish and one English, say the invaders were helped by Danes within England, who could only have been from Northumbria or the East Midlands. He argues that the battle was probably fought somewhere south of York, which was, after all, the main war zone between the 920s and 950s AD. Wood concludes by asking that if the Vikings’ aim was to re-establish their kingdom in York, what were they doing in the Wirral? It seems likely that unless some new written evidence is uncovered or there’s a stunning archaeological find, the debate will rumble on. Brunanburh is the final battle in Seven Kings Must Die, the finale film to The Last Kingdom. Check out more of our related content: Seven Kings Must Die: how close to real history is it? Seven Kings Must Die ending explained: who are the seven kings? Seven Kings Must Die spoiler-free preview The Last Kingdom: what's the real history and how historically accurate is it? The real Uhtred of Bebbanburg: the historical inspirations for The Last Kingdom’s hero Bernard Cornwell on The Last Kingdom’s finale If King Alfred was great, was Æthelstan even greater? Who was Edward the Elder? Brunanburh: the forgotten fight that changed British history Michael Wood on the astonishing Æthelstan This article was first published in the September 2017 issue of BBC History Revealed
Dr Caitlin Ellis reveals how a second wave of Viking attacks on Britain and Ireland caused havoc in the 11th century
Across the eighth and ninth centuries, Britain and Ireland were targeted by a series of brutal Vikings raids. But that wasn’t the end of the story. In the 11th century, they were in the firing line once again – as further Viking naval expeditions were launched from Scandinavia. Medieval historian Dr Caitlin Ellis speaks to David Musgrove about this second wave of attacks.
The Viking Great Army caused chaos amongst the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England between AD 865-878. But how much do we really know about its structure, motivation and impact? Professor Julian Richards of the University of York investigates why the Great Army was unlike any previously known Viking force
We know about the Vikings' Great Army from very brief references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It says that a ‘mycel hæþen’ – which is Old English for ‘great army’ – landed in East Anglia in AD 865. It then recounts a series of yearly records detailing where the Great Army moved and what battles it fought, and specifically where it spent its winters. From this, we know it carried on fighting with different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms around the country until the year AD 878, when it was famously defeated by Alfred the Great at the battle of Edington in the south-west of England. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Professor Julian Richards of the University of York explained what the Great Army really was and revealed what recent discoveries can tell us about this warring hoard. Listen | Julian Richards discusses the Viking Great Army, which wreaked havoc on the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England from 865-878 The Great Army was unlike any previous Viking force… What was special about it was that they didn’t follow the same strategy as prior Viking armies. Previous attacks had tended to be hit-and-run affairs, raiding quite isolated and undefended coastal monasteries, particularly on the eastern coast of the British Isles – grabbing slaves and treasure and then going away again. But the Great Army overwintered in England and clearly had strategic plans to stay for longer. Ultimately, it transformed its activities from raiding, and seizing slaves and silver, to seizing land, which led to permanent settlement. It was a point of marked change in Viking strategy, and subsequent armies generally came for political conquest rather than just arriving as temporary raiding forces. The Vikings seized upon chances in hope of finding success… I think what caused this change was that they saw opportunities. Parts of the army had been raiding in Ireland and in continental Europe during the AD 850s and 860s, and likely heard that there was a lot of infighting between the four main Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England (Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria and Wessex). During their coastal raids, which were almost reconnoitring raids, the Vikings had also seen the wealth that was available in England, particularly in their churches and monasteries. When things became difficult for them on the continent in the AD 860s, as the Carolingian empire became better organised at defeating their armies, they probably saw the chance of better pickings in England. Read more | Vikings didn't wear horned helmets – and 7 more myths debunked The Great Army was not a cohesive army in the way that we might expect… It was a loose association of different warrior groups that were probably related to individual ship’s companies. They probably originated in parts of Scandinavia, but as they had been raiding in Ireland and on the continent as well, they likely gathered more warriors as they went. It’s important to note that, though we call it a Viking army, there were likely other mercenaries amongst the force. Each company probably owed their loyalty to the individual leaders who were rewarding them for their service in battle. There was probably a lot of competition between the different leaders of these different war bands. The Great Army seems to have been joined by other groups during the AD 860s and 870s… At one stage, there's a summer army that joins the Great Army to make it even larger, which provides them with strength in numbers so that they are able to stay over the winter period. But we're also told of an incident, after the army had overwintered at Repton in AD 873–74, when the army splits, and one group heads north and another group heads into East Anglia and then back to Wessex. The army wasn’t always one force. Amongst the growing Great Army, there were some colourful characters who all seem to have had different strategies to assimilate into (or takeover) Anglo-Saxon lands… There’s one name that comes up in the sources, Ubba, but unfortunately, we don’t know a lot about him. We know much more about characters such as Guthrum, one of the original leaders of the Great Army, who comes up consistently through the records. Read more | Ragnar Lothbrok – the legend of the immortal Viking and his sons When the army splits in AD 873–74, Guthrum goes to East Anglia and is famously defeated by Alfred the Great at the battle of Edington. When Alfred demands Guthrum convert to Christianity, Guthrum ends up being baptised with thirty of his fellow warriors and later becomes a king himself. There is also Halfdan, who is another leader of the Great Army and was also present at the overwintering of AD 873–74. But he moved to Northumbria when the army splits, where he seizes the land of the Northumbrians, and they proceed to plough the earth to support themselves. Ivar the Boneless also features in this story. We think he was another one of the initial leaders that landed in AD 865 and is possibly at this overwintering in AD 873–74. He tends to be associated with forming a stronghold in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, though he may have gone off to Ireland at some stage. There are some confusions when looking at the sources, as these names keep turning up in different parts of the British Isles in slightly different forms. The Great Army didn’t always have the upper hand… The Great Army’s control over the landscape ebbed and flowed. Going back to the earliest stages, they seized York, which was initially the capital of Northumbria, but after being thrown out of York, they had to go back and seize it again. However, the overall picture that we get certainly from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is that they're winning most of their battles. That's partly because England was divided into several kingdoms, and they’re picking on these different kingdoms in turn. According to King Alfred’s biographer, it's not until AD 878 when he manages to get a lot of the Anglo-Saxon lords on his side and build up an army strong enough so that he can take on this this Viking force. That is really the first major defeat they suffer. Read more | Beyond Edington: 5 forgotten Viking battles that shaped Britain’s destiny Until recently we didn’t know a lot about the Great Army archaeologically, but that has changed… There had been one excavation at Repton, which was not initially looking for the Viking Great Army, but a Mercian church and the Shrine of St Wystan. But that dig encountered some Viking burials and evidence that the excavators thought was part of a Viking camp. It was the only one of these camps that had ever been discovered, so it set the agenda for what archaeologists were looking for. It’s not only archaeology that is developing our knowledge of the Great Army… We’ve started to learn about the Viking Great Army from items lost, left behind and then found by metal detectorists who have reported them to a scheme run by the British museum. There's one particular site that we became interested in at a place called Torksey, in Lincolnshire, which was part of Mercia and, like Repton, is on a river. It’s situated on the River Trent, which is navigable. Torksey is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as somewhere that the Viking Great Army overwintered in the year before they were at Repton in AD 872–73. Read more | What can science tell us about Viking life? Today Torksey is just a small village. There is nothing that would indicate there was a Viking camp there in the late ninth century. But over the years, metal detectorists started to make some incredible finds just north of the village. They were largely silver items, including coins, ingots and fragments of silver jewellery that had been cut up. These finds are familiar to Viking archaeologists. We call them “hack silver” because they're cut up and weighed out as part of the bullion economy. It seems the Vikings spent their time overwintering, processing loot from their raids. But, quite unusually, we’re finding Anglo-Saxon coins from Northumbria that don't usually occur in Mercia and bits of Irish jewellery and book mounts as well. The finds suggest that the Great Army was much bigger than we first thought… We worked with the detectorists to plot where the finds were coming from and they were from an area that was much larger than the camp that had been identified at Repton. It covered an area of some 55 hectares, which in modern terms would be around the same size as 75 football pitches! This really changed our impression of the scale of the army, as the army camped at Repton could only have numbered in the few hundreds. Whereas what we found from Torksey and other newly found camps suggest a much larger scale. Read more | The truth about Viking berserkers – did they really exist? They've started to give us a signature, which we can now see other sites in England. We're now starting to be able to trace the Viking Great Army as it moves around the country. This is all really coming from metal-detected evidence in the last ten years. It's revealing sites to us that we never knew about before, which are not mentioned in the historical sources. It's a case of when archaeology and metal detecting is really adding to what we know about history. Although the Vikings spent their time plundering, this didn’t mean they didn’t have fun… One of the most interesting finds for us is not necessarily the silver and ingots, but tiny lead gaming pieces. It seems that, when they were overwintering, these Viking warriors were playing some sort of game. In later Scandinavian sources it’s known as hnefatafl, but it was probably a bit like chess, in that one side has a king piece that the other side is trying to capture. We have over 300 of these tiny lead gaming pieces from Torksey. Julian Richards is Professor of Archaeology at the University of York, and the co-author, along with Dawn Hadley, of The Viking Great Army and the Making of England (Thames & Hudson 2021). Buy it now on<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Viking-Great-Army-Making-England/dp/0500022011/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Viking+Great+Army+and+the+Making+of+England&qid=1625644246&sr=8-1&tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-182693" target="_blank" rel="noopener sponsored" data-geniuslink="https://buy.geni.us/Proxy.ashx?TSID=114623&GR_URL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FViking-Great-Army-Making-England%2Fdp%2F0500022011%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fdchild%3D1%26keywords%3DThe%2BViking%2BGreat%2BArmy%2Band%2Bthe%2BMaking%2Bof%2BEngland%26qid%3D1625644246%26sr%3D8-1%26tag%3Dbbchistory045-21%26ascsubtag%3Dhistoryextra-182693&dtb=1"> Amazon |Waterstones | Bookshop.org Julian was discussing the Great Viking Army with Dr David Musgrove on this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast.
Viking warrior women & the ethics of excavating the dead
Howard Williams delivers a lecture on some of the most intriguing and contentious debates in archaeology today
In a lecture he delivered at BBC History Magazine’s 2019 Chester History Weekend, archaeologist Howard Williams discusses some of the most intriguing and contentious debates in archaeology today. How should we treat ancient human remains? And has evidence of a Viking warrior woman really been discovered in Sweden?
In 1016, after more than two centuries of Viking raids and expulsions, a Norseman was crowned king of all England. Eleanor Parker explains how Cnut succeeded where his forebears failed, securing his place on the throne and in history
Only two kings in English history are known as ‘the Great’ – and one of them was Danish. When the young Viking Cnut seized the throne of England in 1016, few could have predicted that he would become one of the most successful kings of the early medieval period, ruling a Scandinavian empire that stretched across the North Sea world. “There was no justice in his succession to the throne,” the 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury wrote of Cnut, “but he arranged his life with great statesmanship and courage.” Later historians have agreed, judging King Cnut to be a remarkably effective king, though his reign in England began with a violent conquest. Born probably in the 990s, Cnut was the son of Swein Forkbeard, king of Denmark, and a Polish princess whose name is not recorded. Throughout Cnut’s childhood Swein carried out devastating raids on England that increasingly undermined the rule of the English king Æthelred. In 1013, when Cnut was in his teens, Swein launched a full-scale invasion, landing a fleet of ships and forcing Æthelred to flee to Normandy. Cnut accompanied his father to England, and was left in charge of the fleet as Swein campaigned in the south. Around this time Swein, who had forged alliances with Æthelred’s enemies among the English nobility, married his teenage son to an Englishwoman. Ælfgifu of Northampton belonged to a powerful family in the Midlands, and her relatives were important allies for Swein and Cnut. From the raid on Lindisfarne to Harald Hardrada's defeat: 8 Viking dates you need to know By Christmas 1013 Swein was king of England, but his reign was short-lived. He died suddenly on 3 February 1014, after just a few weeks as king. Cnut was chosen to lead the Danish army in England, but he was young and inexperienced, and unable to hold on to his father’s conquered lands. The English nobles invited Æthelred to return from Normandy – on condition that he promised to be a better ruler than before – and Cnut was forced to flee back to Denmark. In the summer of 1015, he returned to England with a huge fleet. One source describes the splendour of his ships: “So magnificent was their ornamentation that the eyes of those who beheld them were dazzled, and they seemed to be made of fire rather than of wood... The ships alone would have terrified the enemy, before the warriors they carried joined battle at all.” Even so, it took more than a year of war before Cnut seized control of England. After Æthelred died in April 1016, the English king’s son Edmund Ironside stoutly led the defence against the Danes, and over the summer of that year Cnut and Edmund fought a series of battles across the south of England. The Danes fiercely besieged London, but failed to capture it. The final battle was fought on 18 October 1016 at a place in Essex named as ‘Assandun’. The location is disputed, but it was probably Ashingdon or Ashdon. The Danes were victorious, and many were killed on the English side; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle laments that “all the best of the English nation” were slain. Danish tradition said that Cnut’s troops carried into battle a magical banner embroidered with a raven that beat its wings to prophesy their triumph. After Assandun, Cnut and Edmund agreed to make peace, dividing the kingdom between them. When Edmund died just six weeks later, on 30 November, Cnut was left as sole king of England. Cementing kingship In the first months of his reign Cnut ruthlessly eliminated anyone who might challenge him. The remaining members of the English royal family were killed or driven into exile, and Edmund Ironside’s wife and young children fled to Hungary. Æthelred’s widow, Emma, had taken refuge in Normandy during these dangerous years, but in 1017 Cnut sent for her, and she agreed to marry him – her husband’s enemy. By marrying Emma, sister of the Duke of Normandy, Cnut gained an alliance with a powerful neighbour and neutralised any challenge from the children of Æthelred and Emma, who remained in Normandy throughout Cnut’s reign. Norman women: the power behind the thrones Cnut already had two sons with Ælfgifu of Northampton, and he did not repudiate her or their children after his marriage to Emma. However, Emma was acknowledged as his queen, and he seems to have made an assurance to her that any son she might have by him would succeed him as king. Cnut and Emma went on to have two children, Harthacnut and Gunnhild. The first year of Cnut’s reign saw political executions and heavy taxation imposed on England, but by the end of 1017 his power seems to have been secure, and from then on he adopted a conciliatory approach to the country he had conquered. He divided England into four earldoms, appointing his loyal supporters – both English and Danish – as earls of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex and East Anglia. In 1018, at a meeting in Oxford, an agreement was reached that declared Cnut had “established peace and friendship between the Danes and the English, and put an end to all their former enmity”. Both English and Danes agreed to follow the law-code of Edgar, Æthelred’s father, and “to love King Cnut with justice and loyalty”. This peaceful state of affairs seems largely to have endured for the rest of Cnut’s reign. Surprisingly, there is little evidence of rebellion in England against the Danish conquerors – certainly nothing compared to the turmoil that followed the Norman conquest, when revolts continued for more than a decade after 1066. Perhaps this was because Cnut so quickly showed his intention to become almost more English than the English. He ruled through existing English laws, and promoted Englishmen as well as Danes to be his advisers and earls. Lands were given to only a handful of high-ranking Danes, who married into English families and forged a mixed Anglo-Scandinavian society. Wooing the church Crucially, Cnut also won the support of the English church and, under the guidance of Wulfstan, archbishop of York, the young Viking began to present himself as a Christian king. He made overtures of reconciliation towards the church, becoming a generous patron of monasteries and a devotee of English saints. He performed public gestures of atonement for the worst atrocities of his conquest, founding a church at the site of the battle of Assandun to commemorate the dead, and paying honour to Saint Ælfheah, archbishop of Canterbury, who had been brutally killed by a Danish army in 1012. A famous image of Cnut and Emma, made in their lifetime (shown left), depicts them presenting a precious golden cross to the New Minster in Winchester. They are crowned by angels, with Christ, the Virgin Mary and Saint Peter above them and monks below. The picture shows an ideal royal couple, devout and generous towards the church. By presenting himself in this way, Cnut made himself very popular with English monastic writers. By the 12th century there were many stories about his piety, telling how he presented his own crown to a figure of Christ, or walked five miles barefoot to the shrine of Saint Cuthbert at Durham. At Ely, it was said that Cnut so loved to visit the monastery that he composed a song in English expressing his delight at the singing of the monks: Merry sang the monks in ElyWhen Cnut the king rowed by. Row, men, near the land Alet us hear these monks sing. All of this burnished Cnut’s reputation in later medieval sources, in which he was presented as an exemplary Christian king. But though he may have ruled England peacefully, Cnut could be severe in his other dominions. In the second half of his reign he expanded his empire into Norway, in part by bribing the supporters of his chief rival, Olaf Haraldsson. Olaf, in alliance with the king of Sweden, attempted to resist Cnut’s growing power in the north, and fought a battle against Cnut at the Helgeå river in Sweden in 1026. But those attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, and by about 1028 Norway was under Cnut’s control. He sent his first wife, Ælfgifu, and their son Swein to rule on his behalf in Norway, where they proved to be very unpopular. At the height of his power Cnut was king of England, Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden, and may also have had some authority over Scotland and Ireland – a North Sea empire matched by few rulers before or since. In 1027 he travelled to Rome, where he was welcomed with honour by the pope and Conrad II, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. He was treated as a northern emperor, and arranged for his daughter Gunnhild to marry Conrad’s son. While in Rome Cnut sent back a letter to the people of England declaring that he would never cease to devote himself to “the needs of all my people”. The global millennium: how the year AD 1000 was more globalised than we might think Because of his extensive empire, Cnut’s court was multilingual to an extent unparalleled in pre-Conquest England. The king’s laws and official pronouncements continued to be issued in English, but Cnut was a patron of Old Norse poetry, too; his poets praised him as “the greatest prince under the heavens”. Emma was also a patron of literature; she commissioned a Latin history of Cnut’s conquest and reign known as the Encomium Emmae Reginae (‘In Praise of Queen Emma’). Cnut’s court in England was a meeting place for people from across his empire and beyond, including Danes, Norwegians and Icelanders as well as Emma and her Norman followers. End of Viking rule Cnut died at Shaftesbury on 12 November 1035, aged probably not much more than 40, and was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester, the traditional capital of the kings of Wessex. His remains, together with those of other pre-Conquest monarchs, were removed from their resting-place in 1642 by parliamentarian soldiers, and are now among a jumble of bones kept in mortuary chests in Winchester Cathedral. After Cnut’s death, the succession was contested by sons of his two wives. Harold Harefoot, one of Cnut’s children with Ælfgifu, gained enough support to become king, but died less than five years later without an heir. Harold was succeeded by Emma’s son Harthacnut but he, too, died young and childless in 1042. During Harthacnut’s reign his half-brother Edward – Emma’s son by Æthelred – returned to England from a long exile in Normandy and on Harthacnut’s death became king. The line of the kings of Wessex had returned to the English throne, and Edward (later known as the Confessor) went on to reign for more than 20 years. His mother, Emma, died in 1052; she had been the wife of two kings and mother of two more, and had long outlived both her husbands. Are women at the heart of the action in the Norman Conquest? Though Cnut’s dynasty quickly died out in England, the Danish men and women he had promoted continued to influence English politics throughout Edward’s reign. Earl Godwin and his Danish wife Gytha, a close relative of Cnut, headed a powerful Anglo-Danish family who clashed with Edward and his Norman supporters at court. In 1066, when Edward died without a direct heir, the earl’s son Harold briefly occupied the English throne, while his cousin, Cnut’s nephew Swein, ruled in Denmark. Cnut is remembered as one of the most successful kings in English history. In part this is because of the extent of his empire, but also because he managed to rule through the strong and effective systems of government and law already established in England. There was one unexpected consequence of Cnut’s conquest: by destabilising the English monarchy and strengthening Edward’s ties with Normandy, his reign set the stage for the Norman conquest. The invasion that made England part of a Scandinavian empire in 1016 led to another, exactly 50 years later, that turned England’s political focus from Scandinavia to continental Europe. England would never again be as closely united to the northern world as it was in Cnut’s reign. Eleanor Parker teaches Old and Middle English literature at Brasenose College, Oxford. This article was first published in the October 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine Explore more learning from week four of the HistoryExtra Academy Vikings course Viking kingdoms, with Professor Ryan Lavelle – watching time 19 mins The Danelaw: a Viking kingdom in England? – listening time 50 mins Vikings: A land without kings – reading time 7 mins Global Vikings: how the impact of the raiders and traders went far beyond Britain – reading time 7 mins Vikings in Britain: how did raiders and marauders become lords and kings – reading time 15 mins How Sweyn Forkbeard became the first Viking king of England – reading time 10 mins Harald Hardrada: why there's more to the last great Viking than his death in 1066 – reading time 8 mins
What was the Varangian Guard? A brief history of the Viking warriors of the Byzantine empire
Bodyguards to the Byzantine emperors, the Varangian Guard was a military corps in which Norsemen and later Anglo-Saxons made unlikely comrades. But how did the regiment begin, and why was it considered so formidable? Noah Tetzner investigates…
During the Viking Age there existed, within the army of the Byzantine empire, an elite company of mercenaries mostly from Scandinavia. This group was known as the Varangian Guard, a regiment of warriors renowned for their ruthless loyalty and military prowess. Lured by wealth and glory, these were Vikings who had travelled the long road to Constantinople (or Miklagarðr, in Old Norse). These men sought only to serve, and for this they were handsomely rewarded. Adorned in Byzantine silk, expensive and brilliantly coloured, Old Norse sagas emphasise the lavish appearance of Varangian homecomings. Members of the guard were the highest-paid mercenaries in Byzantine service, and received frequent gifts from the emperor himself. Illustrious figures such as Harald Sigurðarson (later Harald Hardrada) and the far-travelled Icelander Bolli Bollason followed a long tradition of Scandinavian service in Byzantium. Indeed, Harald’s eventual (and successful) bid for the Norwegian crown was financed by the riches he acquired as a Varangian. From c989–1070, scores of Scandinavians joined the regiment, and by the end of the 11th century the guard had caught the interest of Anglo-Saxons, who fought alongside their unlikely Viking comrades. Vikings Season 6 arrives on Amazon Prime on 30 December: catch up on what’s happened so far How did the Vikings reach Constantinople? Although some Swedes followed Danish and Norwegian voyages to England and beyond, countless others set their sails eastward in search of Arabic silver. The allure of the dirham, a silver coin minted in the Abbasid Caliphate and other Muslim states, enticed the Scandinavians to try to discover its source. By the late eighth century, these coins had been appearing in trading places along Lake Ladoga (in today’s northwestern Russia) and the Baltic, where they came into the hands of Swedish merchants. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/02/GettyImages-599906857-69c9a94.jpg" width="5669" height="4003" alt="The legendary Varangian (Viking mercenary) Rurik and his brothers arrive in Staraya Ladoga. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" title="The legendary Varangian (Viking mercenary) Rurik and his brothers arrive in Staraya Ladoga. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" /> Expeditions were organised, and the ‘Volga Vikings’ began exploring the rivers of eastern Europe. The Swedes may have been driven by trade, but their legacy in the east was no more peaceful than the Danish and Norwegian expansion west. Through slave-raiding and tribute-gathering, these Vikings extorted trade goods. They founded settlements or captured existing ones on widely travelled trade routes. Along the way, these Swedes who settled in Eastern Europe, acquired a new name: the ‘Rus’. The origins of this word, from which Russia gets its name, are ambiguous. Among scholars, it is widely accepted that ‘Rus’ is derived from the word Ruotsi, the Finnish name for the Swedes. Ruotsi, in turn, probably derives from the Old Norse word róðr, meaning ‘a crew of oarsmen’. Global Vikings: how the impact of the raiders and traders went far beyond Britain Vladimir, overlord of Holmgard (Novgorod), would become the eventual ruler of the Kievan Rus. In c978-80, the Rus prince placed his bid for pre-eminence in a power-struggle against his brothers. Holmgard’s northerly position placed Vladimir closest to Sweden, where he mustered 6,000 recruits, and with this newly formed army he returned east, killed his brothers, and conquered the realm. Some nine years later, these 6,000 warriors would become the founding members of the Varangian Guard. The formation of the Varangian Guard In distant Constantinople, c989, the Byzantine emperor badly needed help. Basil II was up against no less than three challengers and appealed to the Rus ruler for military aid. In exchange for marriage to the emperor’s sister, Vladimir obliged, pledging his army of Swedes. These men turned the tide of Basil’s war, and it was Basil who named them the Varangian Guard. Why Varangian? Like many Viking Age terms, the etymology of the word is debatable. A widely accepted notion is that it derives from the Old Norse word vár (plural várar) meaning ‘confidence (in)’, ‘faith (in)’ or ‘vow of fidelity’ – therefore, a company of men who had sworn oaths of allegiance and loyalty. Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets, plus 7 more Viking myths busted Basil II gained a national treasure in these valorous men of the north. No sword was drawn against him within the empire, nor could any foreigner withstand his might. Revelling in his new-found protection, the emperor founded an imperial bodyguard, thoroughly disciplined and ruthlessly loyal. The Varangian regiment came to replace his disloyal Greek lifeguards. Keepers of Constantinople As imperial bodyguards, the Varangians kept close to the emperor, forming the ‘Varangians of the City’, who guarded Constantinople. They stood sentry at the bronze doors of the Great Palace and protected the emperor’s other properties. The guardsmen also performed police duties and were able to carry out delicate tasks (arresting people of high status, for example) because of their imperial loyalty and external origin. For the same reasons, Varangians also acted as jailers, frequently operating at the dreaded prison of Nóumera that was attached to the Great Palace. These guardsmen never left the capital unless the emperor himself required it. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/10/GettyImages-142083336-e9b660e.jpg" width="600" height="413" alt="Byzantine emperor Basil II, who created the Varangian Guard, stands dominant over the prostrate figures of conquered Bulgarians in this psalter frontispiece" title="Byzantine emperor Basil II, who created the Varangian Guard, stands dominant over the prostrate figures of conquered Bulgarians in this psalter frontispiece (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)" /> Varangians accompanied their monarch wherever he went, serving him while he attended church and standing near his throne during receptions. The presence of Varangians in Byzantine churches is illuminated by the graffiti they left in Hagia Sophia during the 11th century. On the marble balustrade in the southern gallery of the cathedral, one suspected Varangian used his axe to carve a mostly illegible inscription including the name ‘Halfdan’. Another inscription in the south gallery denotes a man called ‘Are’, a common name in medieval Iceland. The global millennium: how the year AD 1000 was more globalised than we might think The Varangian Guard at war When a Byzantine emperor rode out to battle, a detachment of Varangians accompanied him. Contingents were often deployed as shock troops with field armies, as fort garrisons, and on naval duties. In distinction from the Varangians who guarded Constantinople, these units were known as ‘Varangians outside the city’. On the battlefield, they fought as elite infantry, usually in a defensive function. The Varangians were often kept to the rear of the main battle line, held in reserve until the conflict reached a critical point. The fact that they used Scandinavian equipment along with Byzantine issue is evident in 10th- to 12th-century Norse swords, axe and spearheads found in Bulgaria and Romania. The two-handed broadaxe was a favoured weapon of the Varangians. Along with the contemporary Rus, these weapons gave rise to the epithets by which they were commonly known: the ‘axe-bearers’ or ‘axe-bearing barbarians’. The truth about Viking berserkers Byzantine sources provide various examples of Varangians being sent to battlefields across the empire. Some 300-500 guardsmen were commanded by Emperor Alexios Komnenos in northwestern Macedonia, against the Norman attack of 1081. During the Byzantine-Venetian War of 1171, imperial ships carrying ‘men who bear on their shoulders single-edged axes’ followed Venetian ships escaping Constantinople. Besides these land battles, Varangians were employed for suppressing piracy and other naval matters, because of their seafaring backgrounds. The Heimskringla (the chronicle of the Kings of Norway), written in the 13th century, relays that the Varangian guardsman Harald Sigurðarson, later Harald Hardrada of Norway, was to pay the emperor 100 marks for every pirate vessel he captured. Famous Varangian Guards Harald Hardrada is without question the best-known Viking to have joined the ranks of the Varangian Guard. Following the dethronement and death of his half-brother Olaf II of Norway during the battle of Stiklestad in 1030, Harald fled to Kiev, where he held some kind of military post. From Kiev, he went on to the Byzantine empire and joined the Varangian Guard. Ivar the Boneless, Ragnvald of Ed and 6 more Vikings you should know about Harald served as an officer from 1034 to 1043, campaigning far and wide. From Sicily and Bulgaria to Anatolia and the Holy Land, Harald’s time as a Varangian has been considered the climax of his military career. While the Heimskringla probably exaggerates the favours shown to Harald, it is clear that he made enough money as a Varangian to finance his successful bid for the Norwegian throne. Fortunate members of the guard were not limited to Norwegian royalty. Ordinary Varangians such as the Icelander Bolli Bollason (who died c1067) returned to their northern homelands bearing the splendours of Byzantium. The Laxdæla Saga, an Icelandic saga written during the 13th century, recounts that Bolli returned to Iceland carrying a gilded sword and wearing the gold-embroidered silk given to him by the emperor. According to the saga, Bolli’s 11 companions were all wearing scarlet and rode in gilded saddles. Wherever the men took shelter, the saga recounts, womenfolk gazed at Bolli and his companions, for they had been Varangians, still covered in the glory of the Byzantine empire. READ MORE: The real Amazons: how the legendary warrior women inspired fighters, feminists and Wonder Woman What happened to the Varangian Guard? While Scandinavians dominated the ranks during the initial stage of the regiment from c989–1070, the Varangians were destined to become as diverse as the empire that employed them. Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, Anglo-Saxons flocked to the Byzantine empire, eager to join the Varangian Guard. 1066: eight days that rocked England In 1071, the Byzantine army suffered a disastrous defeat against the Seljuq Turks at the battle of Manzikert. Emperor Romanos IV was captured, and many Varangians were killed while defending the emperor after most of the army had fled. The depleted ranks of the guard were filled, in part, by Anglo-Saxons, though Scandinavians continued to join the regiment. The Fourth Crusade saw Constantinople besieged in July–August of 1203. During the battle, some 6,000 Varangians manned the city walls, achieving several victories against the invaders. On 17 July, when crusaders destroyed a portion of the seawall with their battering ram, it was a contingent of axe-wielding Varangians who did well to repulse them. In March–April of 1204, crusaders and Venetians attacked Constantinople once more. The Varangians fought bravely, but after a gate was forced open on 11 April, crusaders rushed in and the Byzantine defenders panicked. On 12 April, the emperor fled, and the Byzantines laid down their arms. Lacking a legitimate ruler to defend, the Varangians followed suit, submitting to the invading army. Crusaders: did they fight for God or gold? The crusaders subjected Constantinople to a brutal three-day sacking, after which the city became part of a crusader state, the Latin empire. The remaining Byzantine leaders created their own successor states, such as the empire of Nicaea, which would recapture Constantinople in 1261 and reinstate the Byzantine empire. There are indications that a company of Varangians served the ‘exiled Byzantine empire’ in Nicaea. The Latin ruler of Constantinople managed to have a personal regiment of Varangians as well. The primary references to Varangians in the 14th century are linked to ceremonial court and guard duties. Early in the 15th century, English Varangians were denoted in a letter from Byzantine emperor John VII to King Henry IV of England, but aside from this letter and a few obscure references, the Varangian Guard was virtually extinct (and barely Scandinavian). In 1453, the Byzantine Empire would perish at the hands of the Ottoman Sultanate, sealing the fate of this famous mercenary corps. Noah Tetzner is the host of The History of Vikings podcast, which features scholarly discussions about the history of medieval Scandinavia. His book Viking Warrior vs Frankish Warrior: Francia 799-950 is due to be published by Osprey in 2021 This content was first published by HistoryExtra in 2020