wynalazki: Varangian Guard

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

The Varangian Guard (Greek: Τάγμα τῶν Βαράγγων, romanized: Tágma tōn Varángōn) was an elite unit of the Byzantine army from the 10th to the 14th century who served as personal bodyguards to the Byzantine emperors. The Varangian Guard was known for being primarily composed of recruits from Northern Europe, including mainly Norsemen from Scandinavia but also Anglo-Saxons from England. The recruitment of distant fighters from outside Byzantium to serve as the emperor's personal guard was pursued as a deliberate policy, as they lacked local political loyalties and could be counted upon to suppress revolts by disloyal Byzantine factions. The Rus' provided the earliest members of the Varangian Gu…

Evidence: 25 • authority: 72

The Viking Age (about 800–1050 CE) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their homeland of Scandinavia but also to any place significantly settled by Scandinavians during the period. Although few of the Scandinavians of the Viking Age were Vikings in the sense of being engaged in piracy, they are often referred to as Vikings as well as Norsemen. Voyaging by sea from their homelands in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the Norse people settled in the British Isles, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, a…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic settlers who became one of the most important cultural groups in Britain by the 5th century. The Anglo-Saxon period in Britain is considered to have started by about 450 and ended in 1066, with the Norman Conquest. Although the details of their early settlement and political development are not clear, by the 8th century an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity which was generally called Englisc had developed out of the interaction of these settlers with…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Norman Conquest of England (or the Conquest) was an 11th-century invasion by an army made up of thousands of Norman, French, Flemish, and Breton troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqueror. William's claim to the English throne derived from his familial relationship with the childless Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor, who may have encouraged William's hopes for the throne. Edward died in January 1066 and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson. Another claimant for the throne, the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada invaded northern England in September 1066 and was victorious at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September, but Godwinson's army def…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Anglo-Normans (Norman: Anglo-Normaunds, Old English: Engel-Norðmandisca) were the medieval ruling class in the Kingdom of England following the Norman Conquest. They were primarily a multiethnic combination of Normans, Bretons, Frenchmen, Flemings, Anglo-Saxons and Celtic Britons. After the conquest the victorious Normans formed a ruling class in England, distinct from (although intermarrying with) the native Anglo-Saxon and Celtic populations. Over time, their language evolved from the continental Old Norman to the distinct Anglo-Norman language. Anglo-Normans quickly established control over all of England, as well as parts of Wales (the Welsh-Normans). After 1130, parts of southern a…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Greece runestones (Swedish: Greklandsstenarna) are about 30 runestones containing information related to voyages made by Norsemen to the Byzantine Empire. They were made during the Viking Age until about 1100 and were engraved in the Old Norse language with Scandinavian runes. All the stones have been found in modern-day Sweden, the majority in Uppland (18 runestones) and Södermanland (7 runestones). Most were inscribed in memory of members of the Varangian Guard who never returned home, but a few inscriptions mention men who came back with wealth, and a boulder in Ed was engraved on the orders of a former officer of the Guard. On these runestones the word Grikkland ("Greece") appears i…

Evidence: — • authority: 88

The Later History of the Varangian Guard: Some Notes. The famous Varangian corps of mercenary soldiers in the service of the emperors of Byzantium is well known in its earlier days to have been recruited from the Scandinavian north. Forging their way from their own inhospitable lands the Northmen, first of all from Sweden, reached the Volga and the lands even to. the south of the Caspian; later by the ‘East Way’, called also the ‘Varangian Way’, they came down through Russia by way of the Dnieper and the Black Sea to Constantinople, first as pirates, then as traders, and finally as the most trusted guards of the imperial person. Later again they ventured on the all-sea route, the ‘West Way’…