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The Varangians of Byzantium
An aura of romance has clung about the Varangians for over six centuries. This book examines how the Norsemen came to be drawn into the Imperial service until the greatest of all the Emperors of the East, Basil II, formed them into the regiment of guards which was to give unique service to the Empire. It surveys the history of the regiment down to the collapse of High Byzantium in 1204 and traces the remnant of the Varangians to the very last day of the Empire in May 1453.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
260 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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August 31, 2018If you want to read a narrow academic history of an obscure military unit within a long decayed empire, you could do worse than this.
November 15, 2021
It's rare for me to give a history book only a three-star rating, but I found that VOB was just too full of information without any sort of engaging narrative to piece everything together. The book just became a blur of dates, places and personal names. I feel bad for giving the book such a low rating, especially when considering the amount of scholarship that went into it, but history is more than just dates, places and names. I would love to read what a historian like Anthony Beevor would be able to do with all the information.
September 19, 2013
A book that requires quite a lot of background knowledge, certainly a scholary book that some may find unenjoyable. As someone who already has knowledge of the subject and wanted to know more, this book is great for me. It goes into much greater detail and vastly expanded my knowlege on the subject.
March 23, 2025
This book wasn’t what I hoped for but unfortunately that’s due to the limited source materials on Varangians. There is a lot of “the Varangians were probably there”. I enjoyed the sections on the duties and day to day of the Varangians and of course the sections on Harald Sigurdsson are interesting if you haven’t read up on him before. Other than that, it was hard to keep my interest.
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January 24, 2017Don't let the four-star review dissuade you, as this is a very good book. It is a highly detailed and scholastic history of Russian, Norse and Anglo-Saxon mercenaries serving in the Byzantine Empire. It is a very scholarly book, and those who are looking for a good read about the famed Varangian guard will find what they are looking for in here, but they will also find a lot of technical information that may bore them.
The book's viewpoint is refreshing. Rather than adopting a typical Romanocentric viewpoint, Blondal looks at what the Norsemen were doing in the Empire, rather than what the Norsemen were doing for the Empire. The core of the book is an exquisitely detailed history of Harald Hardrada, the famous mercenary and king who was eventually killed at Stamford Bridge just before the Battle of Hastings.
Blondal uses a wide variety of source materials, including Arabic, Russian, Greek, western European and Scandinavian chronicles. While all of this adds to the authority of the work, it is where I find my one of my two faults with this book. Blondal spends almost half of the allotted page space discussing the linguistic difficulties associated with the use of such varied sources, and the difficulties in translating Old Norse, Old Icelandic and Old Slavonic. Thus, one moment the book is a military history, but in the next moment it is a philological discussion. These discussions break up the book, and would have been better suited to be in the footnotes.
My other fault is that this book is completely unforgiving to those who do not have a background in Norse mythology and literature. While this is a book for scholars, I would suspect that many Byzantine scholars would be using this work who simply don't have the required background. Blondal could have at least included some recommended works to bring those unfamiliar with the northern world up to speed.
This is an excellent history of the northern mercenaries in the Byzantine Empire. While it is unforgiving to those who lack a backing in Norse literature and often delves into obscure philological discussions that would be best left in the footnotes, it is the best work on the Eastern Roman Empire's most well-known mercenary contingents. More casual readers will be able to find interesting sections on the famed Varangian guard, while scholars will find the entire book valuable.
The book's viewpoint is refreshing. Rather than adopting a typical Romanocentric viewpoint, Blondal looks at what the Norsemen were doing in the Empire, rather than what the Norsemen were doing for the Empire. The core of the book is an exquisitely detailed history of Harald Hardrada, the famous mercenary and king who was eventually killed at Stamford Bridge just before the Battle of Hastings.
Blondal uses a wide variety of source materials, including Arabic, Russian, Greek, western European and Scandinavian chronicles. While all of this adds to the authority of the work, it is where I find my one of my two faults with this book. Blondal spends almost half of the allotted page space discussing the linguistic difficulties associated with the use of such varied sources, and the difficulties in translating Old Norse, Old Icelandic and Old Slavonic. Thus, one moment the book is a military history, but in the next moment it is a philological discussion. These discussions break up the book, and would have been better suited to be in the footnotes.
My other fault is that this book is completely unforgiving to those who do not have a background in Norse mythology and literature. While this is a book for scholars, I would suspect that many Byzantine scholars would be using this work who simply don't have the required background. Blondal could have at least included some recommended works to bring those unfamiliar with the northern world up to speed.
This is an excellent history of the northern mercenaries in the Byzantine Empire. While it is unforgiving to those who lack a backing in Norse literature and often delves into obscure philological discussions that would be best left in the footnotes, it is the best work on the Eastern Roman Empire's most well-known mercenary contingents. More casual readers will be able to find interesting sections on the famed Varangian guard, while scholars will find the entire book valuable.
January 20, 2014
This book is a challenge to read, but contains a multitude of interesting historical information if you are trying to understand the documentary evidence available concerning the Varangians, a troop of mercenary soldiers employed by Byzantine emperors who were recruited from medieval Scandinavia and Britain.
The primary challenge lies in the author's assumption that his reader has a working knowledge of all the relevant languages and alphabets involved in an extremely multilingual study. While I can make my way through Byzantine Greek, sound out Old Norse and guess at its overall meaning based on my knowledge of related languages like German and English, I don't know the Cyrillic alphabet so the quotations from medieval Slavic languages were lost on me. The author (and reviser) translate most longer passages, but they are not very careful about translating and transliterating individual words and short phrases. So, if you don't know the medieval languages of Iceland, Russia and Greece, you will miss a few things.
The book proceeds through the recorded history of the Varangians chronologically, tracing all evidences for their roles under Byzantine emperors across several centuries. There are a couple of useful maps, but it would be wise to attempt this book only with a thorough baseline understanding of Byzantine history so that you can keep track of all the regime changes. The genesis of the book, as a revision and translation of an Icelandic original a few decades after its initial publication, results in a few oddities. The reviser (Benedikz) clearly respects the opinions of the author (Blondal) and sometimes prints them even where he disagrees with them, so you can read several paragraphs only to be told that the reviewer has come to a different conclusion about the evidence. Also, Blondal's interest in presenting all available evidence about the Varangians means that for any given reader there will be a lot that is not particularly relevant. There are occasional typos, including an off-by-a-century date mishap, so read with care.
The primary challenge lies in the author's assumption that his reader has a working knowledge of all the relevant languages and alphabets involved in an extremely multilingual study. While I can make my way through Byzantine Greek, sound out Old Norse and guess at its overall meaning based on my knowledge of related languages like German and English, I don't know the Cyrillic alphabet so the quotations from medieval Slavic languages were lost on me. The author (and reviser) translate most longer passages, but they are not very careful about translating and transliterating individual words and short phrases. So, if you don't know the medieval languages of Iceland, Russia and Greece, you will miss a few things.
The book proceeds through the recorded history of the Varangians chronologically, tracing all evidences for their roles under Byzantine emperors across several centuries. There are a couple of useful maps, but it would be wise to attempt this book only with a thorough baseline understanding of Byzantine history so that you can keep track of all the regime changes. The genesis of the book, as a revision and translation of an Icelandic original a few decades after its initial publication, results in a few oddities. The reviser (Benedikz) clearly respects the opinions of the author (Blondal) and sometimes prints them even where he disagrees with them, so you can read several paragraphs only to be told that the reviewer has come to a different conclusion about the evidence. Also, Blondal's interest in presenting all available evidence about the Varangians means that for any given reader there will be a lot that is not particularly relevant. There are occasional typos, including an off-by-a-century date mishap, so read with care.
March 31, 2016
I'll use the Goodreads rating description for this one: it was okay. The Varangians of Byzantium is a masterpiece of research and a quite helpful addition to the scholarship on Byzantine military history.
Unfortunately it was very tedious to read and the writing was not particularly good; perhaps because of the translation.
Note: I was intrigued by the term 'High Byzantine' to describe the golden age of the Byzantine Empire. It's a term I've never seen used anywhere else.
Unfortunately it was very tedious to read and the writing was not particularly good; perhaps because of the translation.
Note: I was intrigued by the term 'High Byzantine' to describe the golden age of the Byzantine Empire. It's a term I've never seen used anywhere else.
April 15, 2012
A challenging scholarly read but very interesting.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews