Dimitar Ivanov’s Reviews > The Varangian Guard 988-1453 > Status Update

From the saga of Harald Sigurdson we know that he was to pay the emperor 100 marks for every pirate vessel he was able to capture, but could kept the rest for himself and his men. Varangians are also likely to have been part of the garrison of the naval base established at Paphos in Cyprus. In the time of Manuel I, imperial triremes carrying Varangians followed Venetian ships that escaped from Constantinople in 1171.

For the Scandinavians it became a family tradition to serve in the
Guard, which at times contained within its ranks Nordic princes and
chieftains’ sons (curiously, even Scandinavian sources seem to recognize
the emperors as having a superior status to their local rulers). Many
famous warriors from Denmark, Norway and Sweden were attracted
to Constantinople by the chance to make a fortune by serving in the
Guard.

After the fall of Constantinople there are indications that a unit
of Varangian guardsmen served the emperor-in-exile in Nicaea from
1205 to 1261, and also in the Despotate of Epirus. The fame of the
regiment was such that even the ‘Latin’ Emperor of Constantinople had
his personal regiment of Varangians.

In 1040 Harald was then employed
by the Emperor Michael the Paflagonian against
the rebel Delian in Bulgaria in 1041, and for
his deeds received at Mosynupolis the rank of
Spatharokandidatos. According to the sagas he took
the main role in the campaign, earning the title
of ‘Bolgara Brennir’, ‘Devastator of the Bulgarians’.

1014 the campaign culminated in the battle of Belasitsa, where
the Bulgarian army was crushed, and Basil blinded nine out of every ten
of some 15,000 Bulgar prisoners before sending them back to Samuel.
When he captured Samuel’s capital of Ohrid in 1018, he
divided the prisoners into three groups: one-third for himself, one-third
for the Byzantine soldiers, and one-third for the Varangians.

The incumbent ruler needed a guard who would be uncompromisingly loyal to their paymaster; he needed a regiment of exceptional
fighters whose foreign mercenary status insulated them from the regional intrigues of the Byzantine aristocracy and population. The Rus/Varangian regiment was involved in all the campaigns of Basil II, notably forming the hard core of the field armies employed in Bulgaria and Anatolia.

1265 AD: Varangian garrison defends Ainos against the Bulgarians

1001-1018: The Russ form the core of the army in Basil II's campaign against the Bulgarians

941 AD: Third Russian attack on Constantinople; Russian fleet destroyed by Greek fire.