The Vikings Who Made it to the Byzantine Empire
The Viking reputation for ferocity made them ideal mercenaries. Mercenary units tend to be ad hoc affairs of adventurers from all over, gathered together under a captain for a specific mission, campaign, or war. As such, mercenary units seldom last for more than a few years before they are disbanded, once the conflict that gave rise to their creation is concluded. The Varangian Guard were an exception. Their history as a mercenary unit lasted for hundreds of years, from the early tenth to the fourteenth centuries. As seen above, Viking adventurers from what is now Sweden had penetrated deep into what are now Russia and the Ukraine in the ninth century. By 850, they had formed their own principalities in Kiev and Novgorod.
From there, they dominated the region’s Slavs as a ruling caste of a new civilization that came to be known as Kievan Rus. The princes of Rus tended to hire new Viking fighters from Scandinavia, who were known as Varangians. The term means a stranger who had taken military service, or a member of a union of traders and warriors. By the early 900s, some of these Varangians had ventured further south, sailed across the Black Sea, and raided Constantinople and the Byzantine lands. Some, however, took service with the Byzantine emperors as mercenaries. As early as 902, contemporary records describe a Viking force of about 700 Varangians that took part in a Byzantine expedition against Crete.
