THE ENGLISH AND BYZANTIUM:

A STUDY OF THEIR ROLE IN THE BYZANTINE ARMY IN THE LATER

ELEVENTH CENTURY

BY JONATHAN SHEPARD

The role of the English mercenaries in the Byzantine army has long been under
dispute. A.A. Vasiliev, writing in 1937, gave a very full summary of what was known
at that time and tended to stress their importance to Byzantium in the later eleventh
century. However, his article came under brief but formidable attack from the German
scholar F. Dölger, who published a review of Vasiliev’s work in 1938. A year later,
Dölger’s arguments were repeated and amplified by S. Blöndal. Since then, the
dispute has hung fire, and a recent historian of the Byzantine army, A. Hohlweg, was
justified when, in 1965, he wrote of the problem of the role of the English as
umstritten – disputed. What follows is an attempt to reassess the problem and my
conclusion is akin to Vasiliev’s: there was a significant migration of Anglo-Saxons to
the Byzantine Empire around 1080, and in the early years of Alexius Comnenus’s
reign. Further, there is evidence of diplomatic contact between the Empire and the
rulers of England, and groups of Anglo-Saxons may have continued to migrate
eastward later than has previously been thought. But the value of the English was
probably greatest in the early years of Alexius Comnenus’ reign, and may even be
compared with that of the Russians who had come to the rescue of the emperor Basil
II nearly a hundred years earlier, in about 988.

Orderic Vitalis’ Historia ecclesiastica is one of the basic sources of our knowledge
about the English exiles who took service under the emperor at Byzantium. The value
of Orderic Vitalis’ work is uneven in quality and his evidence cannot be accepted
uncritically. There are two main reasons for this: first, Orderic gathered the materials
for, and wrote his Book III and IV, Historia, between about 1114 and 1125. He
cannot, therefore, be regarded as a contemporary source for the period immediately
after the Norman Conquest. Second, Orderic’s organization of his material is
confused, and even chaotic. He does not offer a consecutive narrative of events:
passages about national affairs mingle with detailed pieces of Norman Church
History. This lack of sequence is in part the result of the order in which Orderic

53
composed his work: the parts which form Books III and IV were written first 1.
Orderic’s chronology also suffers the rhetorical style of his narrative and any dating
he supplies must be scrutinized closely. The inaccuracy of Orderic’s chronological
information is apparent in his reference to the flight of the English to Constantinople
and their reception there. He states, in the context of the late 1060s, that Englishmen
fled overseas to Byzantium where they were received by the Emperor Alexius 2. Later,
he implies that soon after Harold’s death, and the accession of William, Englishmen
found a friend in Alexius at Byzantium3. This is a chronological absurdity, for Alexius
Comnenus did not come to the throne until 1081, fifteen years after the death of
Harold Godwinson. As there are so few direct references to the migration of the
English to Byzantium, Orderic’s statements must be examined carefully to see
whether they throw any light on the date of the migration. His confusion over
chronology can be explained in either of two ways. First, he may have had in his own
sources two different references to the English who went to Constantinople, one
concerning a wave of exiles who left England just after the Conquest, the other to a
later wave that reached Byzantium after 1081, when Alexius was on the throne.
Orderic Vitalis may not have realized the gap in time between his two sources and he
may, in assuming that they both referred to the same migration, have compounded
them. The other explanation for this confusion is that Orderic had at hand only one
source for the English at Byzantium – about their reception by Alexius Comnenus –
and he mistakenly believed that this took place soon after the Norman Conquest. It
seems to me that this second explanation is the correct one. For it is possible to
examine the origin of his statements about the migration in such a way that no room is
left for a second basic source. Orderic’s first reference to the English who went
abroad is based on William of Poitier’s Gesta Guillelmi Ducis4. As Mrs. Chibnall
notes5, Orderic copies William’s statement almost word for word 6. There is nothing in
1
M. Chibnall, Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, vol 2, Books III & IV (Oxford 1969) XV.
2
Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. A Le Prevost, Societe de l’ Histoire de France (Paris 1840) 2. 172-173. Cf.
Chibnall, 2. 202-203. At present only vols. 2, 3 and 4 (Oxford 1969,1972, 1973) of Mrs. Chibnall’s fine
edition have appeared, comprising Books III-VIII of the Historia. References are given to these
volumes of her edition and to LE Prevost’s throughout.
3
Le Prevost, 2.169. Chibnall, 4.16-17.
4
Ed. R. Foreville, (Paris 1952) 264-265.
5
Chibnall, 2. 202, n. 2
6
Describing the English resistance just after 1066, William says, “Ad Danaos alio unde auxilium
aliquod speratur, legatos missitant. Ultro in exilium aliqui profugiunt, quo extorres vel a potestate
Normannorum sint liberi vel aucti opibus alienis contra cos revertantur” Gesta Guillelmi, 264-265 Cf.
Orderic’s Historia ecclesiastica, Le Prevost, 2. 172; Chibnall, 2. 202-203. Orderic expressly
acknowledges his debt to William, Le Prevost, 2.217; Chibnall, 2. 258-259.

54
William of Poitier’s account about Byzantium as a place of refuge; but Orderic goes
on to embellish what he has copied from William of Poitiers by describing the
welcome that some Englishmen received at the hands of the emperor Alexius. This
reference to Alexius and Byzantium is almost certainly based on the same source as
his other main reference. For they both contain descriptions of Alexius which begin
with virtually the same words7. It is probable that Orderic Vitalis based his reference
to the flight of the English on one source, which concerned a wave that arrived during
the reign of Alexius8. Orderic failed to realize the gap in time between the Norman
Conquest and the accession of Alexius, and implied that the exiles set off soon after
106. His error does not banish the possibility that some did set off then; but it must be
stressed that there is nothing in Orderic’s work that confirms this possibility.

If Orderic Vitalis’ Historia Ecclesiastica fails to supply evidence about a migration

from England to Byzantium soon after the Norman Conquest there is no firm
evidence from any other literary source. It must be admitted that this silence of the
sources is not positive evidence against there being such a migration at that time, for
our extant sources are few in number. Still, there are several reasons that make it
probable that the main migration took place some years after 1066.

First, it should be noted that William did not, after his victory, immediately set
about the systematic dismissal of Anglo-Saxons from offices held of the king, or the
systematic expropriation of large landowners. William’s retention of many Anglo-
Saxon officials was guided by several factors: reluctance to antagonize the English
upper classes en masse; lack of suitable Norman or other Continental followers to
take the place of all the English he might expel; and a desire to appear to be the
rightful successor of Edward the Confessor, governing by law, and therefore entitled
to the obedience and cooperation of all Englishmen9. To maintain existing institutions
of law and order, William needed men experienced in their working, that is, members
of the thegnly class. Furthermore, for those who were nonetheless discontented with
William’s regime there was the hope of aid from foreign rulers, particularly from

7
“Erat enim multum sapien, et misericors pauperibus”, Le Prevost, 3.168; Chibnall, 4.14-15. “Erat
idem multum sapiens, et mirae dapsilitatis”, Le Prevost, 2.172; Chibnall, 2.202-203. Alexius
“principale palatium cum regalibus theuasris tradidit”, Le Prevost, 2.172; Chibnall, 2.202-203. In Le
Prevost, 3.169, “pricipale paaltium, regiosque thesaurus palam commendavit”, cf. Chibnall, 4.16-17.
8
On this source, see also at nn. 116ff, infra.
9
See William of Poitiers, Gesta, ed. R. Foreville, 220-223, 236-239. Discussion D.C. Douglas, William
the Conqueror (London 1964) 248-259, 309-310.

55
King Swein of Denmark10. Their hope seemed likely to be fulfilled in 1069, when
Harold and Canute, the sons of King Swein, landed near York. Earl Waltheof took the
field, and with prince Edgar and many hundreds of men came and joined [the Danes]’,
according to the Peterborough Chronicle11. When King Swein himself came over to |
England the following year, “the people of the country met him and came to terms
with him, thinking that he was sure to conquer the whole country” 12. In the event,
Swein returned to Denmark after an inconclusive campaign. But another Danish
expedition must have seemed a real possibility to contemporaries. Late in 1075 such
an expedition must have seemed a real possibility to contemporaries. Late in 1075
such an expedition did take place, led by Canute. The Danes’ forces amounted to 200
ships, but they “durst not join battle with King William” and eventually withdrew13.

A considerable number of Anglo-Saxon magnates showed their sympathies for the

outbreak of 1069, and thereafter William I adopted a more systematic policy of
dismissing Anglo-Saxons from royal offices, and confiscating their lands. But as Sir
Frank Stenton conceded “few documents have survived to illustrate the Norman
settlement”14. The process of confiscation and dismissal may well have taken place
throughout the period between 1069 and 1086, when Domesday Book, our principal
source about the effects of the settlements, was compiled. And Anglo-Saxons were
not always replaced by Normans: after Earl Waltheof’s unsuccessful revolt in 1075,
his place in Northumberland was, in effect, taken over by a thegn named Ligulf 15. In
the early years after the Conquest, it was probably only those too firmly committed to
a claimant to the throne other than William that deliberately went into permanent
exile. Many made for Norway and Denmark. It was to Norway, in particular, that
prominent men who had supported Harold Hardraada fled. In 1067, Earl Paul of the
Orkneys sailed there, together with “Skuli…and Ketil Crook his brother…both noble
men and of high kin of England”16. They do not seem to have hoped return to the
British Isles. Skuli entered the service of Hardraada’s son and became “captain of
King Olaf’s bodyguards”, and married one of his cousins. Skuli’s origins and career
are known through the saga tradition preserved in the Heimskringla; his English
10
See note 5 supra.
11
In The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, transl. By G.N. Garmonsway (London 1954) s.a. 1069, 202-203.
12
Ibid. s.a. 1070, 205.
13
Peterborough Chronicle s.a. 1075, transl. Garmonsway, 211; Worcester Chron. s.a. 1076.
14
Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford 1947) 2nd ed., 618.
15
Stenton, Ibid. 604-605.
16
Heimskringla, transl. E. Magnusson and W. Morris (London 1895) 3.183.

56
origin would not be suspected if it had been known only from an incidental reference
in a chronicle or a charter. There is a similar problem in identifying men from the
British Isles who took refuge in Denmark. This is scarcely surprising when one
considers that many of them probably came from the Danelaw and may have borne
Danish personal names17. It was probably Denmark that received the largest number
of fugitives from England18; its ruler, of all those in northern Europe, was the most
able and willing to undertake an expedition against England, and many of those who
fled Swein’s court may well have taken part in the expeditions of 1069, 1070 and
1075.

The first recorded exiles in Denmark, as in Norway, belong to a family that had
been prominent in England before 1066. Two sons and a daughter of Harold
Godwinson were received by king Swein19. The two sons are not named: they may
have been among the three sons of Harold who raided South West England from
Ireland in 1068, and who disappear from English records after 1069 20. We have no
information whether they took part in any of the Danish expeditions against England.
But we do know that their sister, at least, had given up hope of ever returning to
England by 1074. For before his death in that year, Swein had arranged for her to
marry “Vladimir king of the Russians”21. This match is, incidentally, a remarkable
testimony to the Godwin family’s prestige in mid-eleventh century Europe: Gytha
herself had little royal blood in her veins, but her espouse was of Russian princely
stock and his mother, Anastasia, was the daughter of a Byzantine Emperor 22. So is the
fact that the eldest son of Vladimir and Gytha was known in the Scandinavian world
as Harold, after his famous grandfather23.

Our information about the fortunes of families less famous than the Godwins is
scanty. There are a considerable number of references in Domesday Book to former
holders of property that were now in exile. But these references tell us nothing of
17
F. M. Stenton, “English families and the Norman Conquest”, Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society, Fourth Series 26 (1944) 3-4.
18
Ibid.
19
Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum, 11.6.3, ed. J.Olrik and H. Raeder (Copenhagen 1931) 1.308.
20
See Worcester Chron, s.a. 1067, 1068, in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, transl. G.N. Garmonsway, 203
21
Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta, 1.308.
22
See V.G. Bryusova, K voprosu o proizkhozhdenii Vladimira Monomakha: Vizantiiskiy Vremenik, 28
(1968), 129-132. It seems to me possible that the seal of Maria Monomakha may in fact be that of
Gytha who may well have received a Russo-Byzantine Christian name upon her marriage. See A.V.
Soloviev: ‘Marie fille de Constantin IX Monomache’ Byzantion 33 (1963) 241-244.
23
Heimskringla, transl. E. Magnusson and W. Morris (London 1895) 3.270-271.

57
where the exiles went, or when. It must be stressed that evidence of a man’s going
into exile is, by itself, of limited value. For example, Alsin, abbot of St. Augustine’s
monastery at Canterbury, fled to Denmark in 107124.

But by 1086 he was back in England25. Lack of evidence makes one hesitate to
pronounce upon the probable route of those who, instead returning home, made their
way to Byzantium. Some may have gone over the Alps,, along routes to Italy long
used by Anglo-Saxon pilgrims and traders26. It may have been as early as the 1070s
that the miracle took place which the 11 th century writer Joscelin describes: a shipload
of people of different sorts, Greeks and English laymen and clerics, many of them
very learned, on their way from Byzantium to Venice were saved from wreck in a
storm by the prayers addressed by the English to St. Augustine on his feast-day (May
26th)27. Others may have gone down the Danube along a route used by western
European pilgrims from at least the mid-eleventh century 28. Others, again, probably
reached Byzantium through Scandinavia and Russia. They may well have formed the
majority of those Englishmen who reached Byzantium, but the fragmentary state of
our evidence permits us only to point to the considerable movement of men from
Scandinavia to Russia, and to suggest that some of the English exiles in Norway and
Denmark were drawn by the same forces that attracted large numbers of
Scandinavians eastwards. There is no space here to examine closely the journeys of
Scandinavians to Russia, Byzantium, and the Holy Land, the three magnets of the east
in the eleventh century. The travels of some of them, such as the Norwegian Harold
Hardraada, are well enough known, but they must not obscure the fact that there was a
steady eastwards movement of men from most parts pf Scandinavia for most of the
eleventh century. Evidence is most abundant for Iceland and Norway with their rich

24
Regestum Regum Anglo-Normannorum, I, ed. H.W.C. Davis (Oxford 1913) No. 98, p. 26; Thomas of
Elmham, Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis, Rolls series, ed. C. Hardwick, (London 1858)
101.
25
E. Bishop, Liturgica Historica, (Oxford 1918) 238-239; E. Freeman, The Norman Conquest of
England, vol. 4, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1876), 135-138, appendix K, 747-750. For the former reference I am
grateful to Mr. R.W. Southern.
26
Discussion & bibliography, R. S. Lopez, “Le Probleme des relations ango-byzantines du septieme au
dixieme siècle” Byzantion 18 (1948) 151-152 and n. 2.
27
Acta Sanctorum, Mall 6. 403-404.
28
Bishop Ealdred of Worcester seems to have gone that way, on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1058:
Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ed. B. Thorpe (London 1848) 1. 217. Cf. S. Runciman, History of
the Crusades I (Harmondsworth 1965) 48.

58
saga tradition29, and from Sweden with its rune-stones 30. Denmark lacks both written
evidence and rune-stones, so that we are less well informed about the number of
Danes who journeyed east. This problem is not central to our theme, for even if
relatively few Danes went31, Anglo-Saxons whose first port of call was Denmark may
still have been drawn east by tales of the opportunities to be had there. That Denmark
was at least in communication with Russia is indicated by Swein’s arrangement of a
match between Gytha and Vladimir Monomach. Furthermore, coins struck in
Byzantium have been found in Denmark, and perhaps most significantly, the pattern
of silver coins of Swein Estrithson (1047-1074) are copied from Byzantine designs 32.
Besides this circumstantial evidence we may possess a direct reference to Danes at
Byzantium in the Byzantine exemption-charters 33. These charters, which exempted
properties from such military charges as having mercenaries billeted upon them, list
the names of the different peoples who served as mercenaries. A people named
Κουλπιγγοι are listed; some have identified them with the “Kolbyagy” mentioned in
eleventh-century Russian sources34. It is possible that “Kolbyag” is derived from the
name ‘Kylfingar’, which was originally borne by a North Germanic people and may
have been used by the Russians to designate Germanic inhabitants of the South Baltic
coastline, including Danes. But this is hypothetical and the dispute over the term’s
meaning has not yet been resolved35.

There is, at any rate, sufficient evidence of ties between Scandinavia, Russia and
Constantinople in the mid-eleventh century for it to be likely that the ‘Eastway’ was

29
See Heimskringla: Haraldsaga, transl E.Magnusson and W. Morris (London 1895) 357-77; P. Riant,
Expeditions et Pelerinages des Scandinaves en terre sainte (Paris 1865) 102-152.
30
See A. Ruprecht, Die Ausgehende Wikingherzeit im Lichte der Runeninschriften (Gottingen 1958) p.
131, n.34; p. 135 n. 51; p. 137 n. 60, 61; p. 139 n. 70; p. 140 n. 74; p. 141, n. 81; p. 143 n. 90; p. 145 n.
99; p. 147 n. 111; p. 148 n. 115,116,118, p. 150, n. 126; p. 151 n. 130 etc.
31
Adam of Bremen’s wording seems to imply that Danish visits to Russia were unsual: ‘affirmant
autem Dani….aliquos a Danis pervenisse in Ostrogard (i.e. Novgorod) Ruzziae’. IV ch. II MGH. Gesta
Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificium, 3rd ed. 1917, 240.
32
See P. Grierson, ‘Harald Hardraada and Byzantine Coin-types in Denkmark’ Byzantinische
Forschungen (Amsterdam 1966) 1. 124-138, passim. Grierson suggests that these patterns were copied
from gold nomismata brought to the Scandinavian world by Harald Hardraada. But not many of the
Byzantine Protottypes for Swein’s coins which he proposes are positively identified with designs
dating from before 1042-43, the probable date of Harold’s return to Scandinavia; see ibid. 131-137.
33
See at n. 52, infra.
34
G. Verdensky (transl.) Medieval Russian Laws (Cambridge Mass. 1947) 27-28; A. Stender-Petersen
discusses this identification, ‘Väringer und Kylfinger’ in Varangica (Aarhus 1953) 99-111.
35
For a bibliography of the dispute see. G. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica (Berlin 1958) 2nd ed. 2.166-
167. The earliest published charter that mentions Κουλπίγγοι is one of Michael VII Ducas of 1073. For
references and literature see. F Dölger, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des Oströmischen Reiches
(Munich 1925) Abt. I, teil 2, No. 993.

59
taken by many of the English who ended up at Byzantium. It is tempting but
dangerous to attach significance to Orderic Vitalis’ statement that the English “a facie
Willelmi per Pontum in Thraciam navigavernat” 36. For although the Black Sea may be
designated by ‘Pontus’, it is no less possible that Orderic ‘used the more ornamental
word Pontus, instead of writing simply “per mare” 37. It is, however, worth noting that
Orderic does not use ‘Pontus’ elsewhere as a placename, designating, roughly, the
north coast of the Black Sea 38, and that he may be using it thus to describe the English
exile’s route.

If our evidence about the route of the English to Constantinople is mainly

circumstantial, we have positive evidence of their presence there from Byzantine
sources. Prominent among these are the references in Byzantine exemption – charters
to Ιγγλίνοι, i.e. the English. These references are among the least ambiguous pieces of
Byzantine evidence that have survived, but their interpretation requires great caution.
A. Vasiliev drew attention to them 39, and regarded the earliest Charters that he found
mentioning the English as evidence that by that time (1088) there was a considerable
number of Englishmen serving as mercenaries at Byzantium. He was inclined to think
that the English began serving there in significant numbers some time before that.
Vasiliev’s conclusions soon came under brief but powerful criticism from Fr.
Dölger40. Dölger was able to point out a charter of 1080 that mentioned the Ιγγλίνοι
eight years earlier than the first such charter known to Vasiliev 41. However, Dölger’s
main purpose was to demonstrate that the English did not play a significant part in
Byzantium’s mercenary force in the later eleventh century. He was helped in his task
by the dearth unambiguous references to the English at Byzantium in the later
eleventh century. We hear far more about Byzantium’s ‘Varangian’ mercenaries a
term which, according to scholars like Vasiliev, sometimes designates the English. It
is this identification which Dölger challenged. He pointed out that in the exemption-
charters the English are listed side by side with the Varangians, and concluded that
they were distinct from one another. From this, he argued that it was not permissible

36
Historia ecclesiastica, ed. A. Le Prevost (Paris 1845 3.169. Chinball, 4.16-17
37
A.A. Vasiliev, ‘Opening stages of the Anglo-Saxon immigration to Byzantium’ Seminarium
Kondakovianum 9 (Prague 1937) 53.
38
Historia ecclesiastica (Paris 1838) 1.386.
39
A. Vasiliev, ‘Opening stages’…p. 59.
40
In Byzantinische Zeitschrift 38 (1938) 235-236.
41
For the details of the charter, see M. Gouda ‘Βυζαντιακά έγγραφα της ιεράς Μονής Βατοπεδίου’
Επετηρίς Εταιρείας Βυζαντινών σπουδών 3 (1926) 122.

60
to regard any of the numerous references to Varangians in the later eleventh century
as designating English mercenaries. He suggested that, if the English ever played a
significant part in Byzantium’s mercenary force, it was in the twelfth century rather
than the eleventh century, when there are more express references to them by name in
surviving sources, which make it clear that the English were also known as
Varangians. Dölger concedes that in the twelfth century – but not before – the English
‘aus einem uns unbekkanten Grunde in das Warangenregiment eingegliedert worden
sein’. This begs the question why, if the English could be known as Varangians in the
twelfth, they could not also be in the eleventh. The answer is quite simply, that they
were. This will be demonstrated by an examination of the events of 1081. But before
that, some light may be cast on the problem by looking at the nature of the exemption-
charters, and then at the usage of the term ‘Varangian’.

‘Exemption-charters’ is not really a good name for the documents that mention the
Ιγγλίνοι as they are a variety of imperial charters. Some are basically acts of donation
by the emperor to favored subjects; others exempt the beneficiary from al but a few
carefully specified taxes and services. Others, again, exempt property from all taxes
whatever, and for good measure, add a list of all known charges, past or present. It is
this last, ‘comprehensive’, sort that most often mentions mercenaries by nationality:
apparently one onerous form of imposition on property owners was the billeting of
and, less often, financing of mercenaries 42. For greater precision, charters from the
mid-eleventh century onwards list some of the names by which these mercenaries
were known, and on the whole, these lists get longer and longer. One name is listed
on a charter of 1044,43 ten on a charter of Alexius Comnenus of 1088 44. Lengthening
lists of mercenaries’ nationalities are only one aspect of the progressive complication
of exemption-charters. Comparison between them is not easy, because there are large
and random gaps in our sources. But a rough comparison can be made between
successive chrysobulls granting fiscal privileges issued to the monastery of the Laura
on Mount Athos. Constantine IX’s of 1052 takes up one and a half pages of Rouillard
and Colomp’s edition45. Constantine X’s chrysobull issued eight years later takes up
42
E.g. for the financing of mercenaries, ‘ λογαρικής εισπράξεως’ , Chrysobull of Constantine X, 1060.
F. Dölger, Regesten, no. 946 C.E. Zachariae, ‘Einige ungedruckte Chrysobullen,’ Memoires de l’
academie des sciences de St. Petersburg, 7e serie, 41, no. 4, 1893, p. 13.
43
Dölger, Regesten, no. 862; K. Kanellakes, Χιακά ανάλεκτα (Athens 1890) 548. Cf. a charter for 1049,
Dölger, Regesten, no. 892, K. Kanellakes, op. cit. 551.
44
Dölger, Regesten, no. 1147; Acta et Diplomata, ed. F. Micklosich and I. Müller (Vienna 1890) 6.47.
45
Actes de Lavra, (Paris 1937) 67-69.

61
two and three-quarters pages of the same edition, and so does a chrysobull of Alexius
I’s for the Laura, issued in 1089 46. Five lines of the 1052 charter are taken up with a
list of the charges and officials covered by the exemptions; twenty-six lines of the
1060 charter are filled by a list of charges and officials. In part this is the result of a
general growth in legal studies and expertise, which is connected with the re-opening
of the Law School in the Constantinople in 1045 47. Both public and private documents
became more precise and yet more elaborate. See for example, a novel of Constantine
X, which defines a dowry as what is expressly mentioned in marriage contract and no
more, ‘as wives often scheme against their own husbands and claim their own dowry
has been squandered by them’ 48. To guard against this sort of loophole, private and
public contracts became more explicit. But his was not the only reason for the
growing elaboration of the exemption-charters: another reason was the emptiness of
the coffers of local and central authorities, which forced them to introduce new taxes
or revive old ones, in an attempt to get round clauses in the exemption-charters 49. A
charter of Michael VII Ducas of 1073 explains that it lists the exemptions in great
detail in order to prevent officials ‘whoever they may be, from quibbling at this
chrysobull, and saying “this has been covered by the charter, but this has not” 50. To
guard against this, chrysobulls refer to the same charge or service by different names,
or refers to a general category and then list some examples of the type. This is true of
things great and small. In a charter of Nicephorus Botaneiates not only mules but half-
mules, not only horses in general, but outriders (παρίπποι) in particular, not only male
but female donkeys as well feature in a long list that ends with the words ‘and any
other quadruped’51. Another chrysobull of the same emperor is minutely precise in
exempting the beneficiary from the supply of food-stuffs: in line 47, it exempts from
‘the lending of produce, wine, meat, cheese, or any other commodity’. As if this is not
enough, there is exemption in lines 54-56 from ‘giving dog-food, or providing the
food of hawks and partridges’52. Titles of officials covered by the exemptions are
equally comprehensively listed so that none could claim to be acting in a capacity
unspecified by the exemption-charters. In the same way, all sorts of names by which
46
Ibid., 73-75; 113-116.
47
G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, 2nd ed. Transl. J. Hussey (Oxford 1968) 328.
48
C.E.Z. von Lingenthal, Ius Graeco-Romanum (Leipzig 1857) 3.325-326.
49
For the Byzantine treasury’s lack of funds in the mid- and later- eleventh century, see G.
Ostrogorsky, Byzantine State, 329-332.
50
Dölger, Regesten, no. 994: Acta et Diplomata, ed. F. Micklosich and I. Müller (Vienna 1890) 6.1-2.
51
Dölger, Regesten, no. 1042: Acta et Diplomata, ed. F. Micklosich and I. Müller (Vienna 1890) 5.143.
52
M. Gouda, op. cit. 3 (1926) 123.

62
mercenaries were known are listed, and one people might be covered by more than
one name. It would not therefore be surprising if those who came from England were
designated by both the terms ‘Ιγγλίνοι’ and ‘Βάραγγοι’ (Varangians).

This possibility is confirmed by an examination of the term ‘Varangian’.

Discussion is confined here to Byzantine usage of it 53. ‘Varangian’ was the general
term for Nordic peoples, and especially those who came to Byzantium through
Russia. It as convenient for the Byzantines to have a general term for the Nordic
mercenaries; for example, the band that Harold Hardraada led from Kiev to
Byzantium is said to have included at least two Icelanders 54. Hardraada’s band
apparently served with the Byzantine army as a separate unit 55. Members of such units
were probably known by the general name of ‘Varangians’ 56. The Byzantines
preferred to use general terms, such as ‘Varangians’, which designates those from
Northern and North-Western Europe, and ‘Frank’, which designates those Western
Europeans. Dölger himself recognized that such terms as these are not mutually
exclusive in his commentary on an early chrysobull of Alexius Comnenus which lists,
among others ‘Φράγγοι’, ‘Ιγγλίνοι’ and ‘Νεμίτζοι’57. Dölger remarks58 ‘ “Φράγγοι” ist
die gemeinsame Bezeichnung für alles “Westliche”, immerhin sind Z.28 die
“Ιγγλίνοι” (Englischen), “Νεμίτζοι” (Deutschen) neben den “Franken”…besonders
gennant’. It is possible that the English were designated as both ‘Franks’ and
‘Varangians’ by the Byzantines, who may have applied the former designation to
those approaching from the West, and the latter to those who came from the north, by
way of Russia.

Considerations of the nature of the exemption-charters and of the term

‘Varangians’, indicates that the terms Ιγγλίνοι and Βάραγγοι are not mutually
exclusive, and therefore that Englishmen may be designated by the term ‘ Varangian’

53
For a discussion of the problem of the origins of the term, and its usage, see A.D. Stender-Petersen,
Väringer und Kylfinger in Varangica, (Aarhus 1953) 89-99, 111-113; a number of the basic points of
the problem were outlined by V. Thomsen, The relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia, and
the origin of the Russian state (Oxford 1877) 109-123.
54
Heimskringla, Haraldsaga, transl. E, Magnusson and W. Morris, 3.67.
55
Heimskringla, ibid. 59-60.
56
This term was probably borrowed by the Byzantines from the Russians, who used it, in about 1100,
as a general term for the peoples of northwestern Europe. See Russian Primary Chronicle, transl. S.
Cross and O.P. Sherbowitz-Wetzov (Cambridge, Mass. 1953) 52, 59. Cf. ed. D. Likhachev, Povest’
Vremmenykh Let’ (Moscow-Leningrand 1950) 1. pp. 10, 18, s.a. 1024 ibid.
57
F. Dölger, Aus den Schatzkammern des heiliges Berges (Munich 1948) 1. 29.
58
Ibid. 31.

63
in the exemption-charters of the 1060s and 1070s, and to that extent, Vasiliev was
justified in favoring an earlier rather than a later date for the arrival of the English.
Not too much weight should be placed on the fact that the earliest charter mentioning
Ιγγλίνοι dates from 1080: few charters of the 1060s and 1070s have been published;
further, exemption-charters that have survived are mainly for properties on Mount
Athos, or looking onto the Aegean. It was only after the Byzantines’ defeat at
Manzikert in 1071 and the subsequent advance of the Turks, that these came in the
front line, and the properties’ owners consequently became more careful to have listed
in detail the military charges they were exempt from, such as the billeting of
mercenaries. The earliest mention of the English in the charters may indicate this
growing precision of the charters, rather than the earliest date of their arrival at
Byzantium.

Nonetheless, it was probably only then, about 1080, that they arrived at Byzantium
in significant numbers. For there are a number of references to them as being in the
imperial service at about that time. A contemporary source complains of the titles
showered on ‘the foreigner coming from England’ (τον εξ Αγγέλης εθνικόν ελθόντα)59.
Scepticims has been shown towards this reference, notably by P. Lemerle 60. However,
Lemerle’s proposed emendation to εξ αγέλης, ‘from the common herd’ is not
convincing: for such an expression might be expected to have had a definite article, εκ
της αγέλης, a form which unlikely to have been corrupted int the MS reading
εξαγγέλοισ as it has been. Z.V. Udal’tsova, A.P.Kazhdan & R.M. Bartikyan suggest
that εξ Αγγέλης is a reference to the area of Angel or Agel on the Empire’s eastern
frontier61. But they present no evidence that the inhabitants of the district of Angel
ever served in the Empire’s forces. The evidence of the Νουθετικός προς τον βασιλέα
seems, then, to indicate that by the later 1070s, when it was written 62, there were
Englishmen in the emperor’s service.

It will be argued below that the usurpations of the throne at Constantinople in 1078
and 1081 created tensions between the English and their new masters; a number of

59
Νουθετικός προς τον βασιλέα in Cecaumeni Strategicon et incerti scriptoris de officiis regiis libelli,
ed. V. Vasilievsky and V. Jernstedt (St. Petersburg 1896) 95.
60
P. Lemerle, ‘Prolegomenes a une edition critique et commentee des ‘Conseils et Recits’ de
Kecaumene’, Academie royale de Belgique, Classe de lettres, 54 (1960) 5-6.
61
Sotsial’naya struktura vostochnykh granits vizantiyskoy imperii v IX-XII vv’, XIV Congres
International des Etudes Byzantines Rapports (Bucharest 1971) 2.24.
62
For the date, see P. Lemerle, ‘Prolegomenes…’ 5-8, 19-20.

64
English exiles may have left the imperial service, but most stayed to play a very
significant part in the campaigns of Alexius I Comnenus’ first year in power. They
suffered heavy losses in battles such as Dyrrachium, but their numbers were made up,
and perhaps increased by the arrival of more Englishmen at Byzantium in the early
1080s. There is evidence that another wave arrived by sea in about 1091, but the
‘peak-period’ seems to have been at the beginning of Alexius’ reign. At that time, the
English played a part which is in some ways comparable to that of the Russians came
to help of Basil II in about 988.

It seems to me that their arrival can be traced with reasonable confidence from a
number of primary sources. But before attempting to do this, let us examine a set of
references to Englishmen helping the emperor Nicephorus Botaneiates defend
Constantinople against Alexius Comnenus’ forces in April 1081. These references are
to be found in only one source – Anna Comnena’s Alexiad. They do not refer to the
English, Ιγγλίνοι, as such, which has led many scholars to doubt whether it is
Englishmen that are meant by her references. For a clearer evaluation of the evidence
and its interpretation, let us consider Anna Comnena’s narrative.

In March 1081, Alexius Comnenus, revolting against the emperor Nicephorus,

marched on the capital63. On reaching the capital’s walls, Alexius ascertained that the
city’s guard was mainly in the hands of three detachments: the ‘Νεμίτζοι’, who seem
to have been mostly Germans or Flemings, the ‘Immortals’ who were a regiment of
citizens of the Empire and the Varangians from Thule, by which I mean the axe-
bearing barbarians64. Alexius was advised to try and suborn the Νεμίτζοι rather than
the Immortals and the Varangians because it was said of the latter that, ‘they pass on
loyalty to the Emperors and the protection of their bodies from one to another like an
ancestral inheritance, a trust, or a sort of guardianship; these stay unshakably loyal,
and will not brook the slightest hint of disloyalty 65. It was therefore, the Νεμίτζοι,
whom Alexius approached and, as they cooperated with him, it was though their
betrayal that his forces entered the city 66. Even then, victory was not assured for
Alexius, as his ragged forces concentrated on looting, and one of the emperor
Nicephorus’ advisers asked him to be given ‘the Varangians from the isle of Thule’ to
63
Alexiad II, ch. 8, ed. B. Leib (Paris 1937) 1.90.
64
Alexiad II, ch. 9 (Leib) 1.92
65
Ibid.
66
Alexiad II, ch. 10 (ibid., p. 94).

65
drive the Comneni out of the city67. The old emperor refused, saying he did not want a
civil war. But another of his advisers took the initiative – ‘he concentrated all those
who wiel swords on their shoulders, and the troops who had arrived from Chome’ 68.
These might well have worsted the Comneni’s forces had not the Patriarch persuaded
Nicephorus to abdicate. The Varangians presumably allowed themselves to be
dispersed. Unfortunately, Anna does not give a detailed account of how Alexius
completed his seizure of the capital.

Nowhere in Anna’s account is there an unambiguous reference to the English; yet

it seems to me that it really was the English who helped defend Constantinople in
March 1081. Such a view is open to criticism from two flanks: first it may be objected
that Anna Comnena’s reference to the ‘Varangians’ is too vague for it to be possible
to identify them with the English; second, it may be argued that even if Anna did
mean the English in her reference to Varangians she herself was in error, and ascribed
to the situation in 1081 the conditions of her own time – the 1140s, when she
probably composed the Alexiad69. These arguments are most effectively deployed in
the works of Vasilievsky, Dölger and Blöndal70.

The first of these objections was developed most vigorously by S. Blöndal who
argued that Anna, with her sound classical background would have used ‘Brettania’ or
some other classical name for Britain. He maintained that she used ‘Thule’ as a
‘general term for the Scandinavian countries’ 71. Three points may be made in reply:
first, Anna seems to have distinguished ‘the famous (περιθρύλλητος) Thule’ from the
other ‘peoples who live in the region of the North over whom is the pole-star’ 72. This
suggests that she had a particular region or country in mind. Second, Thule was
sometimes used by Byzantines to designate Britain. In particular, Michael Psellus,
that paragon of Attic Greek alluded to “των Βρεταννίων η Θούλη”, in a letter written
about the middle of the eleventh century73. Finally, Anna refers to men from ‘the

67
Alexiad II, ch. 11 (ibid., p. 98).
68
Alexiad II, ch. 12 (ibid., p. 100).
69
G. Buckler, Anna Comnena (Oxford 1929) 21, 43, 232.
70
V.G. Vasilievsky, Varyago-russkaya i varyago-angliiskaya druzhina Trudy I, (St. Petersburg 1908)
pp. 356-358; F. Dölger, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 38 (1938) 235-236; S. Blöndal, ‘Nabites the
Varangian’, Classical et Mediaevalia 2 (1939 Copenhagen) 145-146, pp. 152-153.
71
Blöndal, op. cit., 146.
72
Alexiad VI, ch. 2, 2.73
73
ed. K. N. Sathas, ‘Μιχαήλ Ψελλού ιστορικοί λόγοι, επιστολαί’, Mesaionike Bibliotheke, Venice-Paris
5 (1876) 402.

66
island of Thule’ as taking part in Bohemund’s expedition in 1109, and she
distinguished them from the ‘Kelts’, ‘Franks’ and ‘Germans’ who also took part 74. No
Scandinavian contingent is known to have served Bohemund; but men from the
British isles are mentioned by Orderic Vitalis as taking part 75. Anna may, then, have
had a clear idea that the British Isles constituted ‘Thule’.

But does that mean that there really were Englishmen manning the walls of the
capital in March 1081? Critics such as Vasilievsky 76 have argued that, even if Anna
meant to designate the English by the ‘Varangians from Thule’ she may have been
inaccurate. At first sight there are indeed curious features in her account, particularly
where she described the Varangians’ loyalty which ‘like an ancestral inheritance’ they
‘pass on…from one to another’77. Vasilievsky argues that as there had been an
uprising among the Varangians in the imperial palace two year earlier against the
emperor Nicephorus they could hardly be called loyal, unless the Varangians serving
in March 1081 were different from those who were in his service in 1079. If,
however, that were so, then they could hardly be said to be passing on their loyalty
‘from one to another’78. Vasilievsky concluded that the evidence of Anna Comnena is
not trustworthy for the events of 1081.

Two main objections may be made to Vasilievsky’s argument, which remain the
most powerful that have been made against the reliability of Anna Comnena. First of
all, the episode of the Varangians’ uprising against Nicephorus Botaneiates is
somewhat more ambiguous than Vasilievsky makes out. For he assumes that the
Varangians’ action is a clear mark of the Varangians’ disloyalty and concludes from
this that their loyalty was less steadfast than Anna makes out. A closer examination of
the evidence suggests that one is not entitled to draw so firm a conclusion from the
affair79. There seem, in fact, to have been two separate incidents, both of them
occurring in 1079. In one of them, a Varangian of the imperial guard murdered the

74
Alexiad, XII, ch, 9, 3.82.
75
Robert de Montfort with ‘quisbusdam commilitionibus suis’ obtained permission to leave England
from Henry I, Historia Ecclesiastica (Paris 1852) 4.239.
76
Vasilievsky, op. cit. 357.
77
Alexiad II, ch. 9, (1.92).
78
Vasilievsky, op. cit. 351-354, pp. 357-358.
79
Michael Attaleiates, Historia, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn 1853) 294-296; Skylitzes Continuatus’ Historia in
Cedrenus Compendium Historiarum ed. I. Bekker (Bonn 1839) 2.737-738; John Zonaras, Epitome
Historiarum, ed. T. Büttner-Wobst (Bonn 1897) 3.722.

67
Caesar John Bryennius as he was leaving the emperor’s palace at Byzantium 80. The
Varangian’s act was one of vengeance. For when John Bryennius had, with his
brother Nicephorus, the duke of Dyrrachium, led their troops against the emperor
Michael VII Ducas (1071-1078), the Varangians in Michael’s service had sent a
messenger to the Varangians in Bryennius’ army ‘asking them to give up the rebel
[i.e. Bryennius] and to support the emperor’s side’81. The messenger was caught and
tortured and divulged his message to his captors. He then had his nose cut off by John
Bryennius82. It was this same messenger who was the Varangian that murdered John
outside the palace. He took his revenge after the overthrow of Michael VII by
Nicephorus Botaneiates (1078-1081) and after Nicephorus Bryennius has been
defeated and blinded by Nicephorus Botaneiates’ forces 83. After crushing Bryennius’
revolt, Botaneiates seems to have behaved in a conciliatory fashion towards the
blinded Nicephorus Bryennius, and towards his family,84 which would account for the
presence of John Bryennius at the imperial palace in 1079. This episode may appear a
rather personal one, without broader overtones: but in fact, it does appear to reflect a
more general sentiment of the Varangians in favor of the emperor Michael VII, and
against both the unsuccessful rebel, Nicephorus Bryennius, and the successful rebel,
Nicephorus Botaneiates. That is, their behavior in 1079 should be regarded as a mark
of their loyalty to the deposed emperor, Michael VII (who was still alive in 1079, as a
monk in the monastery of Studion in Constantinople) 85. It may well be that the
sentiments inspiring the Varangians to try to win ovet their fellow-Varangians in
Bryennius’ army, and to resist the seizure of the palace by the supporters of
Botaneiates, were also responsible for their mutiny in 1079 86. This seems to have been
a planned and organized uprising: late one evening the guards were drawn up on
parade in palace. The emperor was looking down at them from an open-air gallery on

80
Skylitzes Continuatus, Historia, 737-738.
81
Skylitzes Continuatus, Historia, 737
82
Ibid. 737
83
They were commanded by Alexius Comnenus, at that time Grand Domestic of the West and serving
under Botaneiates. See Alexiad, I, ch, 6, 4-28.
84
Nicephorus Bryennius, Comentarii, ed. A. Meineke (Bonn 1836) 145, 148. For Botaneiates’ policy
of conciliating the families of his former enemies, see B. Leib, ‘Nicephore Botaneiates et Marie d’
Alanie’, Actes du VI Congres International d’ etudes Byzantines (Paris 1950) 1.129-132.
85
Attaleiates claimed that οι της πολιτείας επώνυμοι και πάντες οι της Ρωμαίων φυλής were divinely
inspired to storm the palace and ‘to overcome the mercenary-guard in battle’, when Michael VII was
overthrown by Nicephorys Botaneiates, in 1078. Historia, 270.
86
Michael had also commanded the vociferous support of the foreign mercenary-guard in 1071, when
Michael ousted his co-emperor Romanus Diogenes. Psellus, Chronographia, ed. E. Renauld (Paris
1928) vol II, p. 165

68
an upstairs story, when ‘with great and murderous passion’ some of them began firing
arrows at him and others tried to force their way up the steps to kill him 87. Nicephorus
was able to hold them off till help arrived and the mercenaries were overpowered.
This is the episode to which Vasilievsky points as evidence of the Varangians’
disloyalty88. Yet their attempt on Nicephorus’ life may well have been a mark of their
resentment towards the usurper; it is possible that they hoped to reinstate Michael
Dukas on the throne, though there is no direct evidence of this in the sources 89. The
behavior of the Varangians is therefore compatible with Anna’s emphasis upon their
loyalty.

Were the Varangians who were involved in the uprising of 1079 still in the
emperor’s service in March 1081? In other words, have we any reason to think that
those Varangians were not identical with those who defended Constantinople on
behalf of Nicephorus against a new rebel, Alexius Comnenus, in March/April 1081? 90
Vasilievsky believed so, and he suggest that the uprising of 1079 led to a change in
the composition of the palace guard from Russians to Englishmen 91. But in fact, the
evidence points to the contrary: once they had been overpowered, the mutineers were
treated as mischievous children. The emperor reprimanded them, and inspired in them
such a sense of shame that they angrily turned on those of their comrades who were
reluctant to repent. Even to the latter, the emperor meted out no worse a fate than
guard duty in out-of-the-way fortresses, ‘punishing the fools with this egregious
exile’92. It is reasonable to think that some, at least, of the Varangians remained in
Nicephorus’ service93. Nicephorus’ marriage to Mary of Alania, wife of the former
emperor Michael VII Ducas, may have harnessed their loyalty to his cause94.

87
Attaleiates, Historia, 294-295.
88
Vasilievsky, op. cit. 357-358.
89
Atalleiates attributed the guards’ uprising to their having drunk too much wine, ‘for they take it neat’.
Historia, 295. But the Varangians did not try to murder the emperor every time they got drunk; there
must have been an ulterior motive, or sentiment, to produce this out break. The seriousness of the affair
is indicated by Skylitzes Continuatus’ use of the verb επανίστημι ‘to revolt’ to describe their action;
Historia, p. 738. The same verb is chosen or borrowed by Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum, III, p. 722.
90
It was these to whom Anna ascribed the quality of great loyalty, see above at n. 65.
91
We believe that if, soon after the Varangian mutiny of 1079-80 [sic] Russians cease to be
Varangians, then the reason was partly the bad reputation remaining with them after their insurrection.
op. cit. (supra n. 70) 354. Vasilievsky’s main concern in this book was to demonstrate the identity of
the Varangians with the Russians for the first three-quarters of the eleventh century.
92
Attaleiates, Historia, p. 296.
93
Nicephorus’ treatment of them is an example of the successful application of the Byzantine
principles of οικονομία and φιλανθρωπία. See E. Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium
(Oxford 1957) 84, 133,148, 220-221.

69
 It is, then, possible to make out a case for the truth of Anna’s description of the
loyalty of the Varangians who manned the walls of Byzantium against her father in
1081. Furthermore, it can be demonstrated that she had access to trustworthy sources
about the events of 1081. Alexius’ seizure of power in that year is a cardinal occasion
about which one would expect his daughter to inform herself, and to be in a position
to gather reliable information95. Her narrative displays detailed knowledge about it
and individual features enhance her trustworthiness. In particular, she says that the
‘Immortals’ helped in the defense of the capital against Alexius. The ‘Immortals’
disappear from Byzantine sources almost completely after 1081, 96 so that Anna
probably only knew of their role in 1081 from a contemporary or near-contemporary
source. The ‘Nemitzoi’ too, seem to have been disbanded soon after Alexius’
accession97. Her reference to the English may well, therefore, be from an equally
reliable source: and her implication that they already enjoyed a reputation for loyalty
in 1081 may be well founded. It is, indeed, likely that she exaggerates in implying that
they had already served the emperor for generations: but it is only in this detail that
she anachronistically ascribes to them the characteristics of her own time. In other
words, her reference to the English at Byzantium in 1081 appears to be accurate, and
there is no reason to suppose that they had not been there for some years before 1081.

Anna’s knowledge of the details of her father’s assumption of power also emerges
from her description of the last hours of Nicephorus Botaneiates’ reign. Alexius
Comnenus’ forces were, as she admits, of low quality, and it seemed to Nicephorus’
supporters that they might be driven out of Constantinople by a counter-attack.
Anna’s account of this gives us a very rare opportunity of estimating the Varangians
numbers. We are told that ‘all those who wield swords on their shoulders’ 98 were,
with the soldiers who had arrived from Chome, ‘drawn up…in good order from the
Forum of Constantinople as far as the Milion, and beyond’ 99. The Milion is about half

94
See B. Leib, ‘Nicephore III Botaneiates et Marie d’ Alanie’. Actes du VIe Congress international d’
etudes byzantines (Paris 1950) 1.132-137.
95
She had probably begun gathering material long before she actually wrote the Alexiad; see Anna’
reference to an oral informant, III, ch. 12 (Leib 1.141-142). See also G. Buckler, Anna Comnena
(Oxford 1929) 229-230, where it is stressed that to allude to oral sources was a classical convention
‘faithfully copied by the Byzantines’
96
A. Hohlweg, Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgeschichte des Oströmischen Reiches unter den Komnenen
(Munich 1965) 45-46.
97
See below, at n. 110.
98
i.e. Varangians
99
Alexiad, II, ch, 12, (Leib, 1.100)

70
a mile from the Forum of Constantine, and we are told that the Varangians and the
men of Chome stretched beyond there, ‘shield next to shield ready for battle’ 100. We
are not told whether they were in single file or not; it seems probable that they were in
more than one rank, perhaps on either side of the Forum and the street. We are told
they stood tightly packed together; so each man cannot have taken up more than a
yard at the most. There are 1,760 yards to a mile, and the ranks stretched for over a
half mile, to make, let us say, 1,000 yards altogether. That gives us 2,000 Varangians
and men of Chome. Chome was a small town in Lykia, 101 whose troops are unlikely to
have been very numerous. They are unlikely to have numbered more than 500 or 600,
which gives us a minimum figure of about 1,400 Varangians.

We do not know how many of these Varangians had come from England, but it is
probable that Englishmen formed a considerable proportion. For one of the emperor
Nicephorus’ advisers had expressly mentioned ‘the Varangians from the isle of
Thule,’ when he had pleaded with the emperor to let him organize resistance in the
capital to the Comneni’s forces 102. But this does not supply us with a specific figure
and it should be noted that the significance of the English role may have been far
greater than their numbers would lead one to expect.

We are able to obtain a glimpse of the English who served at Byzantium from
sources relating events that occurred just after Alexius became emperor on April 4,
1081. His position at that time was precarious. To the west, Robert Guiscard was
threatening Dyrrachium, having led an expedition of considerable size across the
Adriatic from Brindisi103. To the east, the Turks were in control of much of the
hinterland of Asia minor, and bands of them were roving close to the coastal plain
bordering the sea of Marmara104. Alexius Comnenus had few troops to meet this
twofold menace. Those which he had led against Nicephorus in Constantinople were
apparently of low quality, and untrustworthy,105 while he seems to have had doubts
about the loyalty of the soldiers who had served the former emperor, Nicephorus.
Such doubts were understandable, seeing that they had been arrayed against him, and

100
Alexiad, II, ch. 12, (Leib, 1.100)
101
RE III, col. 2369. Cf. DHGE, Vol. XII, col. 760. The men of Chome seem to have been a troop
raised by Nicephorus Botaneiates: see A. Hohlweg, Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgeschichte…p. 82.
102
Alexiad, II, ch. II, (Leib, I, p. 98).
103
Alexiad, I, ch. 16, (Leib, I, p. 57).
104
C. Cahen, Premiere penetration Turque en Asie Mineure, Byzantion 18 (1948), pp. 43-45.
105
Alexiad, II, 9, (Leib, I, p. 91)

71
would probably have fought against his forces had not Nicephorus abdicated 106. Their
position under the new regime was an ambiguous one, and it is unfortunate that our
evidence about their subsequent role is inadequate. It consists, for the most part, of
information in Anna Comnena’s Alexiad. From Anna’s account, it appears that some
of the troops that had been marshalled on Nicephorus’ behalf form the Milion to the
Forum of Constantine continued to serve under Alexius, but that their loyalty was
suspect, and some may have been dismissed from the emperor’s service before the
campaign against Guiscard began in August, 1081. With a greater degree of certainty
it can be said that a fresh wave of Englishmen arrived to serve under Alexius after he
had come to power, and that they played an important part in his struggle with
Guiscard and with the Turks. Before discussing this new wave of Englishmen, let us
return briefly to the imperial troops that Alexius ‘inherited’ from Nicephorus. Anna
Comnena paints a dark picture of the position after her father came to power: ‘The
Romans [i.e. the Byzantines] had no battle-worthy forces; there were no more than
300 soldiers in the capital of the Romans, and these were men from Chome, quite
unfit for war…, there were also a few mercenaries barbarians whose custom it was to
wield swords on their right shoulders’107. We have calculated above (see above at n.
102) that the men of Chome and the Varangians probably numbered about 2,000,
considerably more than Anna’s statement suggests. Her statement should be regarded
in the light of two considerations: the imperial forces that were at Alexius’ disposal in
the summer of 1081 really may have been far fewer than they were in the first days of
April. And Anna may have been painting the picture in the gloomiest colors, to make
her father’s later achievements shine all the more brilliantly. It is probable that both
these considerations are valid. For Anna, after stressing Alexius’ lack of good troops
when he came to power, says that he found no money in the imperial treasury 108. But
she goes on, in her next chapter, to quote a message sent by Alexius to the emperor
Henry IV of Germany in the summer of 1086109.

Part of it reads, ‘As for the presents…, they are now delivered…, namely 144,000
pieces of gold and the hundred purple cloths…when you take the oath the remaining
216,000 pieces of gold will be forwarded’. The treasury cannot have been all that

106
See above at n. 99.
107
Alexiad, III, ch, 9, (1.130).
108
Ibid.
109
Ibid.(1.134); F. Dölger, Regesten, Abt. i, Teil 2, No. 1077.

72
empty; Alexius’ troops may not have been as deficient as Anna makes out. Yet it
appears from elsewhere in the Alexiad that some, perhaps many, of the troops that had
defended the capital’s walls at the beginning of April, left the imperial service, or
were disbanded, shortly afterwards. In part this conclusion is an argumentum ex
silentio: the Nemitzoi, who had betrayed their master to lest Alexius’ forces into the
city, disappear from the Alexiad’s pages and are not mentioned in other sources for
the period just after 1081. It is true that this silence may reflect the scantiness of our
sources rather than the dismissal of the Nemitzoi. But we have some more positive
evidence of Alexius’ suspicions of the former troops of Nicephorus; once he had
abdicated, Nicephorus was urged by Alexius’ followers to enter a monastery, as they
feared ‘some new attempt of revolution might be made by…the men from Chome 110.’
It may well be that, in these circumstances, Alexius felt himself lacking in reliable
troops to meet the challenge of the Normans and the Turks.

His response to this was the traditional Byzantine combination of diplomacy and
military measures111. He raised a force of native-born Byzantine troops with which to
harry the Turks who were making incursions as far as the Bosphorus itself 112. He sent
envoys to potentates in the east and in the west, and as a result, he established friendly
relations with certain Turkish chiefs, and obtained form them Turkish mercenaries
who subsequently served in his campaigns against Guiscard at Durrachium 113. Alexius
also stirred up trouble in Guiscard’s rear in Italy, sending ‘letters to the prince of
Lombardy, Herman…, and to Hervey, archbishop pf Capua…and also to all rulers of
the Celtic regions, offering them a fair amount of gifts, and promising many presents
and titles’114. It is probable that one of the objectives of these missions was to recruit
mercenaries to come and serve under Alexius.

The most direct allusion to Alexius’ attempts to recruit mercenaries is made in

Orderic Vitalis’ Historia Ecclesiastica. Textual analysis of a section devoted of
Byzantine history and Robert Guiscard’s expedition to Dyrrachium indicates that it is
derived from two sources, one of which was sympathetic to Guiscard, while the other
favors Alexius Comnenus and the Byzantines. The pro-Norman account was split by
110
Alexiad, III, ch. 1 (1.102).
111
See D. Obolensky, ‘ The Principles and Methods of Byzantine Diplomacy’ Actes du XIIe congress
international d’ etudes byzantines (Belgrade 1963) 1.45-61, passim.
112
Alexiad, III, ch. 2 (1.136)
113
Alexiad, IV, ch. 2 (1.146)
114
Alexiad, III, ch. 10, (1.132-133).

73
Orderic into two parts,115 which immediately precede and follow the other account 116.
The pro-Norman account has been neglected by scholars who have paid far more
attention to express references in the other account to the arrival of Englishmen at
Byzantium117. Orderic probably incorporated two sources into one chapter because he
saw that they dealt with the same subject-matter the conflict between Alexius
Comnenus and Robert Guiscard. But he made no attempt to harmonize the two
sources, which are in fact separate accounts of the Norman campaign in the Balkans,
written from diametrically opposed points of view. The pro-Norman source
sympathetically describes Robert’s campaign against Alexius: Robert Guiscard is
described as ‘Magnanimus…Dux,’ and the Norman army ‘terrified its enemies not by
its numbers but through its courage’ 118. In response, Alexius sent out imperial
messengers (Augustales veredarii) and ‘cohorts of warriors were raised from the isles
of the sea [insulis maris] and from neighboring [to Byzantium] provinces’. Here,
surely, is a reference to Alexius’ attempting to raise troops from the British Isles 119.
This account does not expressly mention the English as taking part in the battle of
Dyrrachium, although it does say that ‘legions drawn from many nations’ fought on
the Byzantines’ side120. In contrast, the other account incorporated into the section
dealing with Guiscard and Alexius Comnenus mentions the English by name and says
that they fought in the campaign against Guiscard. It has already been argued 121 that
this pro-English source is inserted in more that one place in the Historia
Ecclesiastica: a brief reference to the arrival of the English at Byzantium is to be
found in the context, of the 1060s, 122 while the source is reproduced at greater length I
its true context, the early 1080s. Much, though not all, of the material in the first
reference to the English at Byzantium is contained in the second one. Form their
evidence, it appears that a number of Englishmen arrived at Byzantium after Alexius’

115
Le Prevost, 3, 166-167; 170-173. Chibnall, 4.10-13, 16-21.
116
Le Prevost, 3, 167-170. Chibnall, 4.12-17.
117
Ibid. 169. Chibnall 4.16-17.
118
Ibid. 166; 170. Chibnall, 4.12-13, 16-17
119
The term ‘isles of the sea’ is found in a number of eleventh and twelfth century works, e.g. Matthew
of Edessa, Chronique, ch. CIII, ed. E. Dulaurier (Paris 1858) 166. It has been accepted by scholars as
designating the British Isles, e.g. A.A. Vasiliev ‘Opening Stages…’ 58; V. Laurent, ‘Byzance et l’
Angleterre au lendemain de la conquete Normande,’ Numismatic Circular, 71.5 [1963] 96.
Furthermore, Orderic uses a similar expression elsewhere to denote the British Isles: ‘Anglia et allis
insulis Oceani;’ after Oceani was inserted the gloss ‘maris maximi’ Le Prevost 4.70 & n. 5.
120
Le Prevost, 3.172. Chibnall 4.18-19.
121
See supra pp. 1-3.
122
Le Prevost, 2. 172-173; Chibnall, 2.202-203.

74
accession in April 1081 and in time to take part in the campaign against Guiscard 123.
We are given little detailed information about the campaign, beyond the implication
that the English played an important part in it. But this evidence complements the
evidence of Anna Comnena about Alexius’ diplomatic activity, 124 and the evidence of
his recruiting form England supplied by the pro-Norman source.

It is possible to learn more about the role of the English from other sources besides
the Alexiad. It should be emphasized that the English were by no means the only
soldiers, or the only mercenaries, in Alexius’ service at that time. From Anna
Comnena’s description of the army her father led against Guiscard it is clear that there
were Turkish and ‘Frankish’ troops in his service 125. Anna does not, in fact, mention
the English by name, talking only of ‘Varangians’, nor does she set out to explain
their role in the Byzantine army. Yet from her narrative it is clear that they played an
important, and in some ways a decisive part in the battle of Dyrrachium. This
impression is confirmed by the account of the Sicilian Norman writer, Geoffrey
Malaterra, which agrees with Anna’s evidence to a remarkable extent, and makes it
possible to identify Anna’s Varangians with the English.

The battle of Dyrrachium took place on October 18, 1081. The Norman and the
Byzantine lines were drawn up facing each other, at right angles to the sea. Some of
the foreign mercenaries in Alexius’ forces had been sent off to attack Guiscard’s
camp from the rear126. But ‘those who wield two-edged swords on their shoulders’
remained with Alexius, under their commander Nampites 127. These ‘barbarians’ were
stationed by Alexius in front of the main battle-line, and were designed to act as a
kind of barrier, from behind which Alexius’ archers were to advance, discharge their
arrows, and then retreat behind the Varangians. At first, the battle went well for
Alexius, and the first Norman assault was repelled. But then the Varangians allowed
themselves to be drawn too far beyond the Byzantines’ main line. They grew tired and
the Norman infantry counterattacked them on an exposed flank 128. The Normans

123
‘Normannicis legionibus quae nimium Pelasgis [i.e. Byzantines] adversabantur, opposite sunt’ Le
Prevost. 2.172. Chibnall, 2.202-203.
124
Alexiad, III, ch. 1 (1.132-136).
125
Alexiad IV, ch. 4 (1.151, 152)
126
Alexiad IV, ch. 6 (1.158).
127
Nampites is called ‘commander of the Varangians’ in the previous chapter: Alexiad, IV, ch. 5
(1.155)
128
Alexiad IV, ch. 6 (1.160) Cf. Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogeri Comitis, Raccolta degli
storici Italiani, L. A. Muratori, nov. ed., V pt.i. (Bologna 1928) 74.

75
routed the Varangians, many of whom were killed. Some of the survivors fled to a
church, dedicated to St. Michael according to Anna Comnena, and to St. Nicholas
according to Malaterra. Quite possibly there is no real discrepancy here, for the
Varangians may have sought sanctuary in more than one church. This would explain
the different accounts that the two writers give of their fate. Anna Comnena says they
were cremated by the Normans, who set fire to the church; according to Malatera,
some, unable to fit into the church itself, clambered onto the roof, which collapsed
under their weight, killing them and their comrades underneath 129. From both accounts
it is clear that after the rout of the Varangians, the Byzantine line broke up, and the
Byzantine army fled.

As has already been admitted, at no point does Anna expressly identify ‘those who
wield two-edged swords’ with the English. One justification for making this
identification rests on a statement in Malaterra’s description of the battle, ‘Angli vero,
quos Waringos appelant’130. Malaterra’s statement has been challenged by Franz
Dölger, whose aim was to cast doubt on the importance of the Anglo-Saxons’ role at
Byzantium131. He alludes peremptorily to ‘den ebenfalls erst nach 1098 seine
Geschichte aufzeichnenden Gaufredus Malaterra’. It is, in fact, possible that Geoffrey
began his work before 1098. E. Pontieri, the latest redactor of the Muratori edition of
the De rebus gestis, states, ‘Voler fissare delle date per determinare quando l’ autore
abbia cominciato a stnederla, oppore quando l’ abbia terminata, e…impossibile’ 132. In
any case, Dölger does not make clear why Geoffrey’s account should be rejected for
being written at least 17 years after the events it describes. By that criterion, we
should not be left with much medieval history. What is remarkable is the extent to
which, as we have already seen, Geoffrey’s account tallies with Anna Comnena’s.
Even in the details of the armor of Nampites’ men there is some correspondence
between the two accounts. Geoffrey Malaterra says they fought, ‘caudatis
bipennibus…quibus hoc genus hominum potissimum utitur infestissime instantes’ 133.
Anna talks of the ‘axe-bearers, and Nampites himself, their leader (αρχηγός)’134.
Admittedly, she also refers to them as ‘those carrying on the shoulders swords that cut

129
Alexiad, IV, ch. 6 (1.160).
130
De rebus gestis, 74.
131
Byzantinische Zeitschrift 38 (1938) 236.
132
De rebus gestis, praefazione, VIII
133
De rebus gestis, 74
134
Alexiad, IV, ch. 6 (1.160).

76
on both sides’, and to ‘all this people of shield-bearers’ 135 and she may be loading
these unfortunates with Homeric epithets. But Varangians do seem usually to have
been heavily armed and these, in particular, quickly grew tired from ‘the weight of
their arms’ during the battle of Dyrrachium136. Seeing that Malaterra agrees with
Anna, and is therefore presumably right, over so many details, he may also be correct
in identifying the Varangians at Dyrrachium with the English. Further it is worth
noting that the Anonymi Vaticani Historia Sicula alludes to the English at Dyrrachium
by name and ascribes to them a decisive role in the battle. Its account may be based
on Malaterra’s but there are details such as the English’s lack of mail-coats which are
not given by Malatterra137.

There is one further point of detail that suggests that the Varangians who fought
under Nampites were Englishmen rather than Scandinavians or Russians. In the early
stages of the battle, Alexius ‘ordered them to dismount from their horses and march
forward’138. One may well conclude from this that they were prepared to fight in
horseback. If that was so, these Varangians were unlike the Russian and
Scandinavian. Varangians of the earlier eleventh century: the latter are never recorded
as having fought on behalf of Byzantium as cavalry. On two occasions it is true, they
are mentioned as having horses but from the context it is clear that the horses were
being used as transports, and not as war-horses.139 Argument from silence is
dangerous, for the silence of our sources is profound, but it does appear to have been
unusual for Russian and Scandinavian troops to serve in Byzantium’s army as
cavalry. This supports the view that the Varangians at Dyrrachium were Anglo-
Saxons.140

It seems clear, then, that at the battle of Dyrrachium the English played a decisive,
if disastrous part;141 on the defeat of the English, the Byzantine ranks broke up. Their
importance is attested by Malaterra, a writer with no special reason to like the

135
Alexiad, IV, ch. 6 (1.158).
136
Alexiad, IV, ch. 6 (1.160).
137
See ed. L.A. Muratori, Rerum Italicorum Scriptores (Milan 1726) 7.770-772.
138
Alexiad, IV, ch. 6 (1.158).
139
Liber de re militari, Incerti scriptoris Byzantini saeculi X, ed. R. Vari (Leipzig 1901) 44; History of
Stephen of Taron, transl. by H. Gelzer and A. Burkhardt (Leipzig 1907) 210-211.
140
See W. Hollister, Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions (Oxford 1962) 134-140.
141
Anna implies that all English were slain, but she exaggerates, for she subsequently mentions their
commander, Nampites, as on Alexius’ campaign in 1087 against the Pechenges; Alexiad, IV, ch. 6,
(1.160) VII, ch. 3, (2.97)

77
English, when he says that in the English Varangians ‘lay [Alexius] greatest hope of
victory’142. Later in the campaign, Kastoria, which lay to the South of the Egnatian
Way, the route of the advancing Normans, relied on three hundred of them for its
defence: ‘Quorum praesidio et opera non minimum defenabatur’ 143. The English seem
to have been of special value in both this and subsequent operations in the earlier
1080s. Orderic Vitalis’ work suggests that they were transferred from one trouble spot
to another: after combatting the Normans, they were sent to garrison the newly
constructed fortress at Chevetot, against the Turks 144. But they were later withdrawn
to meet a renewed Norman threat – seemingly that posed by Guiscard’s second
Balkan campaign, which began in 1084 145. This evidence of Orderic is, then,
important in that if its chronology is correct, the most significant wave of exiles
arrived in time to serve in Alexius’ contest with Guiscard. But it also sheds light on
the nature of this migration.

According to Orderic, the Anglos-Saxons who travelled to Byzantium were ‘green

in the fine flower of youth’146. This statement has a rhetorical flavor, but it tallies with
Anna Comnena’s description of the Varangians at Dyrrachium. For her account
indicates that the English who fought at Dyrrachium were young men. She says that
they advanced ahead of the Byzantine line too fast and too far. ‘on account of their
ardor and inexperience’147. Inexperience is, surely, a mark of youth; this impression is
confirmed by Anna’s saying that the Varangians’ commander, Nampites, was himself
one of the ‘younger officers’. If the Varangians’ commander was young, so probably
were his men.

It is possible that Orderic and Anna Comnena were alluding to the same group of
exiles, but there is no positive evidence for this, and their statements are of greater
value as keys to the nature of the main migration. It took place some time after the
Norman conquest, and the majority of the migrants may well have been young men
who left England voluntarily. These were no major revolts after 1075, but the Anglo-
Saxon upper classes, particularly the new generation growing up after Hastings, must
142
Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, Muratori, nov, ed., V, 74.
143
Malaterra, De rebus gestis, 75.
144
Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, 2.172; Chibnall, 2.202-203. The Alexiad, VI, 10, 2.71, seems
to allude to the buildings of Chevelot, but its chronology is confused at this point. See 2.73, n. I
145
See William of Apulia, La geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. M. Mathieu (Palermo 1961) 242-245, II.
125-155.
146
Historia Ecclesiastica, 2.172; Chibnall, 2.202-203.
147
Alexiad, IV, ch. 6, (1.160).

78
have felt keenly the loss of status and opportunities that had been open to their fathers.
In part this was because of the confiscation of all or part of their estates by William
the Conqueror, a process that was far advanced by the time that Domesday was
compiled in 1086148. The lack of opportunities for wealth and status from
commissions and offices in the king’s service must have been at least as frustrating.
By the latter part of William’s reign, most of the royal charges that were responsible
and lucrative were in the hands of Normans149. Our evidence of this displacement is
mostly negative – the absence of the names of Anglo-Saxons as witnesses on writs
and charters. But we do posses more direct evidence for the exclusion of the English
from another important institution, which was at once an additional source of status
for thegnly families and an outlet for their younger sons: the Church. Eadmer the
monk of Canterbury, wrote ‘The king [Henry I] told them [the senior clergy] to be
shepherds, not wolves. This would, however, be more convincing if he had appointed
to these [senior] positions some Englishmen, at least, and not exclusively foreigners’.
Eadmer goes on to say that if a man was English no amount of good qualities could
help him reach a superior position in the Church 150. Eadmer wrote early in the twelfth
century, but his description of the situation probably holds good for the later years of
Williams I’ reign too. In fact one of our sources about the Englishmen at Byzantium,
Joscelin, is himself an example of how the Conquest’s effects were gradually felt
throughout the whole Church. Joscelin enjoyed the patronage of a prelate appointed
by Edward the Confessor from before the Conquest until 1078, when his patron,
Herman bishop of Wiltshire, died. According to Joschelin, ‘there came the king who
did not know Jospeh’, which is an allusion to the successor of Herman (and to Exod.
1.8) with whom he soon quarrelled and who was a protégé of William I. Joscelin
described himself as ‘a victim of viperine envy and step-fatherly barbarity…forced to
wander far’151. Of course, personal factors played a part in this sort of affair, and to
some extent Norman rulers were aiming to reform the Church of England, rather than
systematically to bar Englishmen from its higher echelons. But the effect of their

148
F. M. Stenton, English familied and the Norman Conquest, Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society, Fourth Series, 26.1-2.
149
F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1947) 624-25.
150
Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. M. Rule, Rolls Series (London 1884) p. 224.
151
Quoted by F. Barlow, Life of Edward the Confessor, (London 1962) xiiv-xiv; 100-101.

79
policy was to deprive the Anglo-Saxon upper class of what had been an important
outlet for its progeny.152

It is then, probable that by the later years of William’s reign there was a
considerable number of young men of thegnly rank who were unable to find a
position commensurate with the promise of their birth, in Anglo-Norman society. Not
all of them, of course, made for Byzantium. It is probable that many stayed in
England and put up with their gradual loss of status. Of the foreign courts abroad that
might be ready to receive them, Byzantium was the most distant. But it was also the
most famous and the wealthiest. Later in the eleventh century, Eadmer broke off a
fragment of a relic of St. Prisca and was about to break off a bit more when
Archbishop Anselm stopped him. ‘ “Don’t! no, don’t!” ’ he cried, “What you have
already is enough. The lady whose piece this is would not fail to reclaim it on
Judgment-Day for all the gold in Byzantium”.153Byzantium’s reputation may be itself
have been sufficient to attract a number of Englishmen direct from England, or from
where they had taken refuge on the Continent of Europe 154. But the evidence of
Orderic Vitalis, which has already been discussed 155, indicates that in 1081 the
emperor Alexius took the initiative in trying to raise recruits from Western Europe.
His recruiting agents may well have negotiated with William I. For we have direct
evidence of the Empire’s trying to raise troops from William a few years earlier.
William of Poitiers, writing before 1071, states that ‘Optabat hunc [William of
Normandy] vicinum et amicum nobilis et ample multisque regibus dominans
Constantinopolis; quo propugnatore sperneret gravem potentiam Babylonis’ 156. From
the context it appears that these negotiations took place before William conquered
England. But there is no reason to think that diplomatic exchanges between
Byzantium and William ceased after 1066157. Alexius’ measures in the 1080s may,
152
For the large number of men of high social rank in the upper levels of the late Anglo-Saxon Church,
see F. Barlow, The English Church, 1000-1066 (London 1963) 55-56, 68, 72,74,
153
Eadmer, De vita Anselmi, ed. R. W. Southern (London 1962) 133-134.
154
See supra at n. 26.
155
See supra at n. 123.
156
Gesta Guillelmi Ducis, ed. R. Foreville, Paris 1952, pp. 144-145; as William subsequently states that
‘Normani…propugnant Constantinopolim, ingerunt metum Babylonis’ ibid., 228-229, it appears that
the Empire’s efforts at recruiting were successful.
157
A seal has been excavated from a late-eleventh or early-twelfth century house in Winchester: it
belonged to John Raphael, commander of Varangian mercenaries in Byzantine southern Italy in 1046-
1047. It has been suggested that the seal is a sign of attempts by Raphael to recruit mercenaries from
Anglo-Saxon England: V. Laurent, ‘Byzance et l’ Angleterre au lendemain de la conquete normande’,
Numismatic Circular, 71. No. 5 (May 1963) 93-96. See also V. von Falkenhausen, Untersuchungen
uber die byzantinische Herrschaft in süditalien vom 9 bis 11 Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden 1967) 92-93.

80
therefore, have followed other Byzantine attempts at recruitment from northwestern
Europe. Further, there is evidence which suggests that Alexius continued to seek
mercenaries from England later in his reign. For between 1101 and 1116, an
Englishman named Ulfric was sent on a mission by Alexius to Henry I. The purpose
of his mission is not known, but recruitment is the most likely motive. For he came
with a plentiful supply of relics, some of them of the highest quality 158. So even in the
twelfth century, there may have been some migration from the British Isles to
Byzantium. And we have evidence of another migration a little earlier, in about 1091.
The source of this is an Icelandic saga.

The Edwardsaga has, on the whole, been neglected by scholars. Their neglect has
come justification, for the saga contains some fantastic elements and some
inaccuracies and it is as R. M. Dawkins noted, 159 a very late source. The most recent
Quellenkritik of the Edwardsaga appears to be that of H. L. Rogers in ‘An Icelandic
Life of St. Edward the Confessor’ 160. Rogers postulates various Englishmen and
Anglo-Norman works at sources of the saga, which he thinks may have assumed its
present form in the thirteenth century. 161 He argues that the saga is partly based on an
early source also used by William of Malmesbury for his Gesta Regum Anglorum,
competed in 1125, and by Osbert of Clare for his Vita beati Edwardi regis Anglorum,
and suggests that this common source was a collection of miracle stories – the so-
called scedulae – kept by the monks at Westminster 162. However, in the light of
Professor Barlow’s demonstration that William of Malmesbury and Osbert drew on
the anonymous Vita Aedwardi regis, whose second part seems to have been
completed in 1066-1067,163 it may well be that this anonymous Vita Aedwardi forms

(For these references, and for much sound advice, I am greatful to Mr. James Howard-Johnston).
Further, an anonymous ‘Life’ of Edward the Confessor describes diplomatic contacts between England
and the Empire: I hope before long to subject to detailed criticism Professor Barlow’s dismissal of the
‘Life’s’ account of a vision of Edward about Byzantium as fictitious; The Life of Edward the
Confessor, ed. F. Barlow (London 1962) 66-71. Finally, for a general discussion of contact between
England and Byzantium, see R. Lopez, ‘Le probleme des relations Anglo-Byzantines du septieme au
dixieme siecle’ Byzantion, 18 (1948) esp. 158-162.
158
Among them was an arm of St. John Chrysostom, which Ulfric presented to the abbey at Abingdon:
Historia Monasterii de Abingdon, Rolls Series, ed. J. Stevenson, vol. II (London, 1858) 46-47. It is
perhaps worth noting that Ulfric was a native of Lincoln, in the Danelaw, which had been the scene of
many of the risings against the Norman regime. The Danelaw may have been the homeland of some of
the Varangians described as Danes in the Byzantine army in about 1100: see below, at n. 234.
159
Later History of the Varangian Guard, Some notes, Journal of Roman Studies, 37 (1947), 42.
160
Saga Book of the Viking Society (University College, London 1953-1957) 14.249-272.
161
Ibid. 270-271
162
Ibid. 259-260.
163
Ed. F. Barlow, The Life of Edward the Confessor (London 1962) XXV-XXXIII.

81
the ultimate basis of part of the Edwardsaga’s account. Further research is needed
into the sources of the Edwardsaga, ‘so long neglected and even despised’,164 but it is
clear that at least some of its material derives, whether directly or indirectly, from
early sources.

How far does the saga throw light on the Anglo-Saxon migration? To answer this,
one must follow in detail the last section of the saga, which deals with events after
Hastings. A brief account is given of the story that Harold Godwisson survived the
battle and lived on as monk 165. But it should be stressed that the saga’s author is very
cautious about this tale, and implicitly disowns it. He proceeds to describe Anglo-
Saxon leaders’ appeals to Swein of Denmark to invade England and William’s
diplomatic contacts with Swein.166 No mention is made of any invasion, such as that
which actually took place in 1069-1070: the saga’s sin here, as elsewhere, is of
omission rather than commission. Its narrative continues:

“When the English chiefs were sure that the Danes would not help them against William –
but they had made up their minds that they would not abide under his rule – then they left
their estates and fled away from the land with a great host. There were three earls and eight
barons, who were their leaders, and the foremost of them was Sigurd, Earl of Gloucester. But
they had three hundred and fifty ships and aboard them a great force of many picked men.
They fared first south over the sea, and afterwards west off Matthewsness, and so further off
Galicialand, and then they faced to Norva-sound, and further across the sound to that capital
which is called Septem. They made an onslaught on the city and got it won; they slewthere a
host of heathen men, but took…much fee in gold and silver…Thence, they held on East,
through Norva-sound, and came to the isles, and won both of them Majorca and Minorca,
after that they fared to Sicily, and when they were come there then they heard great strife out
of Micklegarth[Byzantium].”

The English decided to sail there ‘and held on east over the sea, and north to
Micklegarth’, where they found the city under siege. The English at once attacked and
overcame the besiegers. This earned the English the gratitude and friendships of
Byzantium’s emperor. The emperor ‘offered them to abide there and guard his body,

164
Rogers, op. cit. 272
165
Edwardsaga, Orkneyingers’ saga, vol. 3; Translated by G. W. Dasent, Rolls Series, Appendix IV,
424-425.
166
For the historicity of these contacts, see E. Freeman, Norman Conquest, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1876)
4.135-136.

82
as was the wont of the Varangians’, and a number of them stayed there in his
service.167

The saga itself supplies a precise data for Sigurd’s journey: he arrived at
Micklegarth when ‘Kirjalax the tall [i.e. Alexius] was Emperor and had just come to
power. That was some winters after the fall of King Harold Godwinson’ 168. But it
seems to me that in this it is incorrect; Sigurd’s journey was subsequently associated
with the main migration which took place in the early 1080s, but in fact it took place
some years later. There are three reasons for believing this: the saga describes a
situation which corresponds with that at Byzantium about 1091; Sigurd may well be
identical with the Anglo-Saxon rebel, Siward Barn, who was released from prison in
1087; and the presence of an English fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean is attested by
various other sources for the 1090s.

First, the situation at Byzantium: the saga makes out that Constantinople itself was
under siege, and that the English came to its rescue. 169 The besiegers are not named,
but they are said to have been a ‘heathen folk’, beleaguering the capital by land and
sea. It must be admitted that there is no evidence of an organized siege. But in the
spring of 1091 such a siege very nearly took place: for the Turkish pirate called
Tzachas built up a fleet and was in contact with the Pechenegs; he planned to make a
joint attack with them by land and sea on the Chersonese. 170 Meanwhile his fleet
‘overran all the coastal areas’ 171 and may well have harried the capital’s approaches 172.
And the Pechenegs came so close to Constantinople that its citizens did not dare go
outside the walls173. The capital was in a state of near-siege that March. The Pecheneg
menace was lifted by the arrival of another nomadic people, the Polovtsy, (called by
Byzantines and western sources ‘Cumans’) who set upon the Pecheneg and
annihilated them at the battle of Lebounion, on April 29, 1091. 174 But Anna never

167
Edwardsaga, Orkneyingersaga, vol. 3, Appendix IV, 425-427. For what happened to the others, see
below, n. 241.
168
Edwardsaga, Orkeyingersaga, vol. 3. Appendix IV, 426.
169
Edwardsaga, 426-427
170
Alexiad, VIII, 3, (2.134).
171
‘τα παρά θάλατταν άπαντα κατατρέχοντος’ Alexiad, VIII, 3, (2.134).
172
Tzachas planned and partly implemented an attack on Abydos on the Dardanelles, some years later
when his power was not what it had been in 1091, Alexiad, IX, 3, (2.165)
173
Alexiad, IX, 3, (2.133).
174
Ibid. (2.136-144). The Polovtsy seem to have been sent for by Alexius: see V.G. Vasilievsky,
Vizantiya i Pechenegi, Trudy, I (St. Petersburg 1908) 76, and n. I.

83
explains what dispelled Tzachas’ threat from the sea. 175 She merely hints that he was
defeated by land and sea, 176 without supplying details. It seems reasonable to suggest
that the English were responsible for this defeat: as foreigners, their exploit was more
likely to be overlooked by Byzantine records than the victory of a Byzantine fleet
would have been. It is true that an engagement at Constantinople itself, as described in
the saga, is unlikely to have been overlooked. But it may well have taken place near
enough to the beleaguered capital to be remembered with slight exaggeration by the
Varangians as effecting the capital’s relief. It may, then, be the English who ‘heard
great strife out of Micklegarth’ that responded to the appeals for help which Alexius
sent out ‘in all directions’ (απανταχοθεν) in the winter of 1091.177

The commander of the English fleet is said to have been Sigurd earl of Gloucester.
There is, admittedly, no evidence of any earl Siward (the English form of Sigurd)
subsequent to earl Siward of Northumbria, who died in 1055. But there was, in the
reign of Edward the Confessor, a man called Siward who held a very valuable set of
estates in Gloucestershire, and who seems to have been of noble blood 178. His
holdings can be reconstructed from Domesday Book’s account of who held them in
1086.179 They amounted to 52 ½ hides. On page 169 of the 1783 edition is written, in
tiny and presumably contemporary letters, above Siward’s name, ‘BAR’. This is, I
think, sufficient to identify him with the Siward Barn who took part in the uprising in
the Fenland in 1071.180 Siward Barn’s valiant resistance there, in the company of
Hereward the Wake, is also referred to by Florence of Worcester 181. According to
Florence, Siward was eventually taken prisoner; he remained in captivity until 1087,
when William the Conqueror released him on his deathbed. 182 Siward Barn disappears
from Anglo-Norman sources thereafter. Perhaps he was claimed by the grave. But

175
As Vasilievsky notes, Anna is very cursory in her treatment of this crisis, which was in some ways
even graver than that of 1081: Vizantiya i Pechenegi, 73-74.
176
Not disheartened by ‘defeat by land and sea’, he built up a new fleet in the spring of 1092, Alexiad,
IX, I, (2.158).
177
Alexiad, VIII, 3, (2.134).
178
Siward Barn appears to have been ‘a member of the family of Northumbrian earls’: F.S. Scott, ‘Earl
Waltheof of Northumbria’ Archaeologia Aeliana, 30 (1952) 172. See also M. Chibnall, op. cit. 2.194,
n. 4.
179
Domesday Book, vol. 1 (London 1783) 168-169; see also the Rev. C. S. Taylor, The Domesday
Survey of Gloucester (Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 1890) 160.
180
Peterborough Chronicle, in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 208.
181
On Florence’s value as a source for this period, see R. R. Darlington, Anglo-Norman historians,
(London 1947) 13-15; F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England 682.
182
Florence of Worcester, Chronicon, ed. B. Thorpe, (Oxford 1849) 2.9,20,

84
there is no reason to reject his identity with Sigurd of Gloucester, who features in the
Edward-saga.

It should be noted that king Sigurd of Norway took the same route as his namesake
when he led a fleet to the Holy Land in 1106. He sailed past France to ‘Galizialand’,
then past ‘a castle Cintra’, Lisbon, ‘Norvi-sound’ (the straits of Gibraltar), the isle of
Forminterra in the Balearics, Minorca and Sicily. 183 It is possible that the
Edwardsaga’s author borrowed king Sigurd’s itinerary t ofill a gap in his spurces. But
such a hypercritical attitude underestimates the integrity of the saga’s author, who
seems to have had a real concern for accuracy and truth. ‘The author [was]…not a
romancer, for what is fantastic in his work was not of his own invention’.184

A third reason for believing that Siward’s fleet arrived at Constantinople at the
beginning of the 1090s is that an English fleet is known to have been cruising in the
Eastern Mediterranean later in that decade. It helped the Crusaders at St. Symeon in
Syria in March 1098.185 Some have supposed that it had only recently arrived from
England, but as Sir Steven Runciman shrewdly suggests, ‘the fleet was almost
certainly composed of English Varangians, who had left England long ago’. 186 It
seems to me probable that Siward’s fleet is partly identical with the fleet off St.
Symeon. For it does not seem likely that more than one very large fleet made the long
journey from England to Byzantium. Indeed, it is remarkable that any such fleet
should have sailed: clearly it can only have been organized with the cognizance of the
king of England.187 But in the light of evidence which suggests that there were direct
contacts between the Empire and the Norman kings, 188 this is a distinct possibility.
The Normans rulers may well have regarded the migration to Byzantium as a means

183
Heimskringla, transl. E. Magnusson and W. Morris (London 1895) 3.249-255.
184
H. L. Rogers, ‘Icelandic Life’ 249, 266.
185
According to Raymond of Aguilers, the fleet initially consisted of thirty ships, but by the end of the
1090s only nine or ten were left. Raymond states that the fleet reached Laodicea before the Crusades,
Historia Francorum, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades. Hist. Occidentaux, III, (Paris 1866) 290-
291. Cf. the letter of the citizens of Lucca, in H. Hagenmyer, Die Kreuzugsbriefe, (Innsbruck 1901)
165. Other English ships may have participated in the Crusades – for example, a fleet of ships from
Flanders, Normandy and England ferried between Cyprus and the Holy Land: William of Tyre,
Historia, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Hist. Occidentaux (Paris 1844) 1. 310, 146
186
S. Runciman, History of the Crusades (Harmondsworth 1965) 1.228, n. 1.
187
The English are said to have ‘turned into money all the estates that they had in England’ before
leaving, Edwardsaga, Orkneyingers’ Saga 3. Appendix IV, 426.
188
See above, at n. 155.

85
of disposing of a number of Anglo-Saxon thegnly families in a humane but permanent
fashion189.

It must be admitted that the Alexiad, our principal Byzantine source, offers little
evidence about the English Varangians after the crisis years at the beginning of
Alexius’ reign. This is partly because he was soon able to raise additional troops: in
the spring of 1083 he arranged for 7.000 Seljuk Turks to fight for him as
mercenaries.190 But it may also be because after Alexius had ridden the storm of the
earlier 1080s, he appointed most of the English as guards of the imperial palace at
Constantinople, a role which failed to excite the detailed attention of later chroniclers.
It is only in 1118, when the relative tranquility of Comnenian court-life was
temporarily shattered by the death of Alexius, that the Varangians are caught in
history’s beam.191 The silence of the sources is deceptive: the English played an
important part in maintaining the calm at court, and they were almost on the footing
of family friends of the Comneni.

There are several reasons why this was so. First, they do appear to have been
excellent warriors, and to have been capable of adapting to a variety of terrains and
different sorts of enemy. They served as infantry in the battle of Dyrrachium; 192 they
also served as warriors for Byzantine fortresses at Kastoria and at Civetot. And they
took part in Alexius’ campaign against the Pechenegs on the Danube in 1087. 193 A
second reason why they played an important part was that they seem to have been
exceptionally trustworthy. Anna Comnena’s observations about this tally to a
remarkable extent with Orderic Vitalis’: both speak of the English’s hereditary loyalty
to the emperor, whose person they guarded.194 Their statements should not be
dimissed as rhetoric: for the steadfastness of the English is understandable. Unlike the
Norman mercenaries in Byzantium’s army, they had no kinsmen near at hand with
whom they could ally in rebellion. Nor did they have any homeland to return to, even

189
Temporary exile on the Continent was sometimes meted out by William I, for example in February
1067, Florence of Worcester, Chronicon, ed. B. Thorpe (Oxford 1849) 2.1.
190
Alexiad, V, ch. 5, (2.23).
191
John Zonaras, Epitome, III, ed. T. Büttner-Wobst, (Bonn 1897) 763-764. By that time, the imperial
bodyguard was regarded as consisting mainly of Englishmen, John Cinnamus, Epitome, ed. A.
Meineke (Bonn 1837) 8.
192
Anna Comnena remarks that they were as keen on war as the Normans, ‘and by no means their
inferiors’. Alexiad, IV, 6, (1.160).
193
Alexiad, VII, 3, 2.97.
194
Alexiad, II, 9, (1.92); Historia ecclesiastica, 2.172-173; Chibnall, 2.202-205.

86
if they found the emperor’s pay inadequate 195. It is true that a number of the
Scandinavians in Byzantium’s army were exiles, but they at least had some hope of
returning home if they wanted to196. For the English there was no such hope – or at
least no hope of recovering their former status in Norman England. A consequence of
this may have been that the English were readier to accept moderate payments for
their services. Such a quality must have endeared them to the emperor Alexius, whose
coffers seem to have been empty in the first phase of his reign 197. A third reason why
the role of the English was so important at the beginning of Alexius’ reign is that
there seems at that time to have been a decline in the number of Russian and perhaps
Scandinavian troops in the Byzantine army. Admittedly, our evidence for this is
scanty, and it may be purely coincidental that no surviving source refers to Russian
mercenaries by name after 1078, while we possess several expresses references to the
English mercenaries in the early 1080s. 198 Speculation about why Russians ceased to
serve the Empire in large numbers is hazardous. But at least it should be possible to
dismantle one explanation for this phenomenon: Russians and Scandinavians did not
stop travelling to Constantinople because of the threat posed by the Polovtsy – the
nomads who raided traffic along the Dnieper. 199 For this route had been dangerous in
the earlier eleventh century and in the tenth century, and had nonetheless been a vital
artery of communication.200 Furthermore, the route to Constantinople along the lower
Don was open throughout the eleventh century, as can be gathered from the frequent
references in the Russian Primary Chronicle to communications between Kievan
Russia and the city of Tmutorokan, which lay near the mouth of the sea of Azov. 201
195
The Byzantines seem to have been well aware of the danger of mercenaries leaving the Empire’s
service because of inadequate pay. See the warning by the author of the Νουθετικός, etc., in Cecaumeni
Strategicon et incerti scriptoris de officiis regis libellus, ed. V. Vasilievsky and V. Jernstedt (St.
Petersburg 1896) 94. The Nouthetikos’s author was, in fact, probably Cecaumenos writing between
about 1085 and 1078; see P. Lemerle ‘Prolegomenes a une edition crititque et commentee des
‘Conseils et Recits’ de Kecaumene,’ Academie royale de Belgique, Classe de Lettres 54 (1960) 5-8.
196
And some of them successfully did so, e.g. Harold Hardraada, though significantly, the emperor
tried to stop him, Cecaumenos, ibid, 97.
197
Anna Comnena states that, faced with the demands of mercenaries for higher pay, the government
was forced to melt down Church plate: Alexiad, V, 2, 2.10-12.
198
It should however, be noted that Russians continue to be listed first in the exemption-charters up to
1088, the date of the last known charter to contain such list: Dölger, Regesten, No. 1147; Acta et
Diplomata, ed. F. Miklosich and I. Müller (Vienna 1890) 6. 47.
199
For this notion, see V.G. Vasilievsky, Varyago-Russkaya druzhina, 317, 354.
200
See De administrando imperio, ch. IX, ed. G. Moravscik and R. Jenkins, (Washington 1967) esp.
63, ‘There at last [Mesembria in Thrace] their voyage, fraught with such travail and terror, such
difficulty and danger, is at an end’
201
Ed. A. Adrianova-Peretts and D. Likhachev, Moscow, 1950, vol. I, s.a. 1022, p. 99; s.a. 1024, p. 99;
s.a. 1064, p. 110; s.a. 1079, p. 135; s.a. 1080, p. 135; s.a. 1081, p. 135; s.a. 1083, p. 135; s.a. 1094, p.
148.

87
Other reasons must be found to explain the dwindling of the Russian contingent in the
Byzantine army. There is no room to discuss them here; but it may be suggested that
one, short-term, reason applying to the 1080s, was the bad political relations which
seem to have obtained between Kiev and Constantinople in the early 1080s: for in
1082 Byzantium helped Oleg Svyatoslavich to recover Tmutorokan – Oleg was an
enemy of Vsevolod Yaroslavich, prince of Kiev.202 The contraction in the number of
Russian mercenaries must have been serious for the Byzantine army: for, judging by
the absence of evidence of their mutinying, the Russians appear to have been very
loyal as mercenaries203. This aspect of loyalty must strongly be emphasized for it
explains why some ethnic groups, such as the English, were preferred to others, and
given responsible tasks such as the guarding the emperor’s person. The Normans’
military prowess204 made them valued recruits to Byzantium’s army, but they were not
trusted by the Byzantines205 and, indeed, they gave little ground for trust.206 In fact,
this quarrelsomeness of the Normans sometimes worked in the Byzantines’ favor, and
Normans, having broken with their own leaders changed over to the Byzantine side. 207
Some of them achieved high rank in the Byzantine army. But neither they, nor, as far
as is known, any other people of western or northwestern Europe, constituted as large
or as coherent a unit as the exiles from the British Isles. 208 That, probably, is the basic
reason why the English were entrusted with such important duties at Byzantium.
202
Povest’ , s.a. 1082, Likhachev, 1.135.
203
Connected with this is, perhaps, the fact that no Russian officer achieved sufficient prominence or
notoriety at Byzantium to have his name recorded in Byzantine sources. For the anonymity of the
Russian mercenary leaders, compared to the Normans, see V. G. Vasilievsky, Varyago-Russkaya
druzhina 319.
204
Anna Comnena noted the irresistible impact of their heavy cavalry charge, Alexiad, V, 6 (2.28-29).
205
They were called ‘a people treacherous [απιστον] by nature by Michael Attaleiotes, Historia, 125;
Cf. ibid 123-124; Skylitzes Continuatus in Cedrenus, Compendium Historiarum, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn
1839) 2.545-546.; Cf. ibid. 679.
206
Norman mercenaries seem from the first to have been engaged in quarrels with the Byzantine
authorities over pay and the distribution of plunder: Amatus of Monte-Cassino, Storia de’ Normanni,
ed. V. de Bartolomaeis, Fontii per la storia d’ Italia (Rome 1935) 67-68; 72-73; 75-76; 79-82. Cf.
Geoffrey-Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Comitis, ed. E. Pontieri, Raccolta degli storici Italiani, V,
I (Bologna 1972) 10-13. Anonymi Vaticani Historia Sicula, ed. L.A. Muratori, Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores, VIII (Milan 1726) cols. 747-750. Scandinavians also took part in this campaign, which was
fought in Sicily under the command of George Maniaces. It is worth comparing the Norman sources
with a Scandinavian account, preserved in the Heimskringla. Both sets of sources accuse the Greeks of
cowardice and craftiness, but the Scandinavians, unlike the Normans, draw the line at mutiny. See
Heimskringla, transl. E. Magnusson and W. Morris (London 1895) 3.60-63.
207
See Marquis de la Force, “Les conseillers latins d’ Alexis Comnene.” Byzantion II (1936) 157, 160-
163. Cf. William of Grantemauil, who about 1094, received an unfavorable judgement in a legal
dispute over his lands in Sicily. He went with his wife to Byzantium, ‘ubi aliquantisper commoratus,
tandem, cum multa pecunia rediens…terram quam amiserat…, recepit’. Geoffrey Malatera, De rebus
gestis, ed. Muratori, 101. Cf. R. Janin, ‘Les Francs au service des Byzantines’ Echos d’ Orient, 29
(1930) 68.
208
For the British exiles ‘coherence’, see infra at n. 234.

88
 One further reason may be adduced: a considerable proportion of the English
exiles had been thegns in their native land, and some had been of higher rank still.
This probably counted for much with their Byzantine employers. It is true that the
Byzantines were liable to dismiss all foreigners as ‘barbaroi’. But they were conscious
of distinctions of blood and status among foreigners. Even Cecaumenos, whose
military manual emphasized the need to employ native-born Byzantines in the army,
concedes that high titles and ranks may justifiably be awarded to a foreigner of high
birth.209 We have evidence from Western sources that high titles were bestowed on
several of the English who had been of high rank in their own land. One of them,
from the ‘curia et nutriture’ of St. Augustine’s Canterbury, ‘obtained such favor with
the emperor and the empress…that he received a dukedom (ducatum) over wise
soldiers and a large part of the auxiliaries (sociorum)’.210 This man, who is referred to
only as ‘vir honorificus’ by Joscelin, may perhaps be identical with the Nampites who
figures in the Alexiad as commander of the English Varangians. 211 For Nampites too
was of high rank in his own country. 212 S. Blöndal thinks ‘that we have here a
Scandinavian nickname’ and speculates that Nampites may have meant ‘biter
corpses’, ‘bird or beast of prey’, a very appropriate name for a soldier of fortune’.
But, as he concedes, this suggestion is somewhat hypothetical. 213 And there is no
positive evidence that Nampites and the ‘vir honorificus’ were one and the same
person. For, according to Joscelin the ‘vir honorificus’ was accompanied to
Byzantium by many nobles.214 Joscelin’s statement is matched by Orderic Vitalis’ that
among the exiles were ‘proceribus regni’.215 And the high rank of the exiles is
suggested by the Edwardsaga. Admittedly, the saga’s evidence is in a romanticized
form216. But is probable that the voyage to Byzantium called for leaders of rank and
means, as well as enterprise. At any rate, the saga seems to corroborate the evidence
of the other sources. And it is perhaps worth noting that a tradition existed in
209
Cecaumenos approved of the granting of high titles to Harold Hardraada, who was of royal blood.
Cecaumeni strategicon et incerti scriptoris de officiis regiis libellus, ed. V. Vasilievsky and V. Jernstedt
(St. Petersburg 1896) 97.
210
‘Miracula S. Augustini Episcop. Cantuariensis’, Acta Sanctorum, Mail, 6.410. Its author, Joscelin,
probably wrote this about 1094. See F. Barlow, Life of Edward the Confessor, 110.
See supra at n. 28.
211
See supra at n. 28.
212
Anna calls him ‘τον άρχοντα Βαραγγίας’, Alexiad, VII, 3, (2.97).
213
‘Nabites the Varnagian’, Classica et Mediaevalia 2. (1939) 147-150.

214
‘Cum multis Optimatibus patriae profugis’, Acta Sanctorum, Mail, 6, 410.
215
Historia Ecclesiastica, 3.169, Chibnall, 4,16-17.
216
The English fleet is said to have been headed by ‘three earls and eight barons’, Edwardsaga, 425

89
thirteenth century England that the English Varangians in the Byzantine’s service had
been of high rank at home. Matthew Paris wrote disapprovingly, ‘Baranagium sive
barnagium, quod et baronagium, procerum regni senatus est et coetus…, a cuius
nobilitated stipendiarii Graecorum Angli, vanam titulorum libidinem Graecanico
more sectati nomen sibi Barragon in Curia Constantipolitana finxerunt et
adaptarunt’217. It may well be that the Byzantines valued the service of the English
because they had their own command-structure; the bands of English exiles had
leaders whose status and authority was accepted by the rank-and-file, many of whom
may have been tenants or ‘men’ of the former. 218 The ‘vir honorificus’ catered for the
spiritual need of his men. He had a church built and dedicated it to Saints Nicholas
and Augustine of Canterbury. This was lit by lamps that ‘turned night to day’ in what
was apparently the English manner219. It served as a rallying point for the English
community – ‘hic dulcem parentem, velut advenae orphani, repetere dulce
habebant’.220

Here, then, are reasons why the English who travelled to Byzantium were given
responsible positions by the emperor. It appears to have been in the first years of his
reign that Alexius Comnenus carried out the reorganization of the Byzantine army. A
number of regiments seem to have been disbanded – the Excubiti, the Hikanatai and
the Schools.221 Their place was partly filled by new regiments of foreign mercenaries.
The detachment who were Turkish guards of the palace, the Bardariotai, seems to
have been formed late in the eleventh or early in the twelfth century. 222 The
Varangians had already occupied quarters in the imperial palace, 223 but the early-
twelfth century they occupied quarters there which had previously belonged to the

217
Matthew Paris, Lexicon, quoted in Annotationes to Cedrenus’ Compendium, 2.885. I have been
unable to find the original reference to this.
218
That groups of exiles came from a common district is indicated by Joseph the Monk’s recognition of
his old friends together at Constantinople: presumably they were all from the district of Canterbury: see
Infra at n. 237
219
It is perhaps worth noting that above an icon of St. Augustine on the church’s south side was an
inscription in Greek, Agios Augustinus, Anglorum Apostolus’, and that Greeks went into the church of
the English, including an irreverent matron who noticed that Augustine’s right eye in the icon had
suffered from damp, ‘Miracula S. Augustini Episcopi Cantuariensis’, in Acta Sanctorum, Mai, 6.410.
On the church, see R. Janin, ‘Le siege de Constantinople et le Patriarchat oecumenique: les eglises et
les monasteries,’ La geographie ecclesiastique de l’ Empire byzantine I. 3 (Paris 1953) 591.
220
‘Miracula Sancti Augustini’, Acta Sanctorum, 410.
221
Α. Hohlweg, Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgeschichte des Oströmischen Reiches unter den Komnenen
(Munich 1965) 51, 5257.
222
Α. Hohlweg, Ibid. 61-62.
223
Michael Attaleiotes, Historia, 295.

90
Excubiti224. There many, then, be a connection between Alexius’ reorganization and
the arrival of large numbers of English Varangians. It must, however, be conceded
that, as Alexius consolidated his power, he recruited a considerable number of
Scandinavians; these, as well as the English, are designated by the term ‘Varangian’
in our sources for the 1090s and 1100s 225. References in Norse saga to Scandinavians
going ‘eastwards’ and entering the ‘Greek’ emperor’s service become fairly common
again from the 1090s onwards, after a gap of about forty years. 226 And, further,
Scandinavians begin to be mentioned explicitly in western European sources: Albert
of Aix lists them as in Alexius’ army in 1098. 227 They appear to have done guard duty
for the emperor in the capital, as well as served in expeditions with the main army.
For Saxo Grammaticus alludes to ‘Men of Danish tongue’ (‘Danicae vocis’) as
occupying first place in the army, ‘and the emperor ensures his safety by having them
as guards’.228 Clearly Scandinavians held responsible positions under Alexius. But
Saxo’s account also indicates how their position differed from the Anglo-Saxons,’ and
why the latter formed a hard and permanent core of the imperial guard, who enjoyed
the Comneni family’s special trust. For, according to Saxo, when King Eric of
Denmark arrived at Constantinople, the emperor, fearing a plot, ‘observed the Danes
in his immediate entourage with suspicion in case their actions should spring from
respect for their ancestral king, rather than from him who paid them. 229 The visit of a
Scandinavian ruler to Constantinople was, of course, exceptional, and such a direct
conflict of loyalties – which in any case never materialized during Eric’s visit – was
not often likely to arise for the Scandinavian Varangians at Byzantium. But the
224
John Zonaras, Epitome, 3.763.
225
It is, therefore, only in specific instances, such as the events around 1081, that ‘Varangians’ become
virtually co-terminous with Anglo-Saxons: see supra, at n. 56.
226
The lack of saga evidence for that period may be accidental, because of the loss of material, or it
may result from the lack of fit subject-matter, such as journeys to Byzantium, during that period. See P.
Riant, Scandinaves en terre sainte, 125. At the beginning of the twelfth century, King Sigurd of
Norway was urged to lead a band to the Holy Land by way of Constantinople, where ‘it was said…that
Northmen got any wealth they would to bless them withal, they who would go into warwage.’ Pressure
on Sigurd arose because there ‘came back from Jerusalemland and some from Micklegarth, those men
who had fared out with Skopti Ogmundson’ Heimskringla, transl. by E. Magnusson and W. Morris,
3.247-248. For the reliability of Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla as a source see J. de Vries
Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, 2nd ed. (Berlin 1967) 2.293-295. This reference to Jerusalem
pilgrimages is a reminder of the role which Jerusalem played in attracting potential recruits to the
Byzantine Empire’s sphere of influence. There may be a connection between in the late 1070s and
1080s and the difficulties that beset pilgrims to Palestine at about that time. See S. Runciman, History
of the Crusades, 1.49, 75-76.
227
Liber Christiane Expeditionis pro ereptione, emundatione et restitution sanctae Hierosolymitanae
ecclesiae, PL 166.503.
228
Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum (Copenhagen 1931) 1.338.
229
Ibid. 338.

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incident serves as a reminder that, unlike the English, the Scandinavian Varangians
did have a home to return to, and many of them probably expected to do so: 230 Eric, in
his address to the ‘men of Danish tongue’, promised to reward them ‘as soon as they
got home,231 and to honor their dependents if they themselves fell in battle for the
emperor. Eric’s gesture must have been a welcome one to Alexius, but it nonetheless
indicated the temporary nature of the Scandinavians’ service: in the event of low pay
or bad conditions, they could leave for home. Compared to the English, most of them
were birds of passage.

The English, for their part, no longer had a homeland. 232 They seem to have
transplanted elements of the society they had known to Constantinople, such as their
class-structure, and their religion.233 Some of them married Byzantine wives, and they
don not seem to have lived separately for the rest of Byzantine society. 234 But others
may have brought wives or daughters with them from England: Harold Godwinson’s
daughter, Gytha, may not have been the only Anglo-Saxon woman to go into
permanent exile. The English Varangians seem to have preserved a distinctive identity
well into the twelfth century, if not later. It must be stressed that the total number of
battle-worthy English Varangians was probably well under a thousand. What marked
them out was not their number, but the character of their relationship with Alexius
Comnenus and his family. Most of our western European sources make plain the
closeness of the English to the imperial household235. It is worth considering one of
them in particular – an account of the visit paid to Byzantium by a monk of
Canterbury, which has been preserved in a Rochester lectionary. 236 The monk’s name
230
Our knowledge of the form and terms of contracts made between Scandinavian recruits and the
imperial authorities is minimal. It is, perhaps, worth noting that in Russia about 1018, Eymund, the
leader of a band of six hundred Scandinavians, renewed his contract with prince Yaroslav annually. See
Eymundarsaga, ‘Antiquites Russes,’ II, Societe royale des antiquaries du nord (Copenhagen 1852)
182,188,202
231
Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta, 1.338.
232
It is true that their ruler, Edgar the Atheling, visited Constantinople on his way to Palestine in 1098.
But Alexius cannot have regarded him as a serious threat, and Edgar seems to have left Constantinople
almost at once, to sail to the Holy Land. See S. Runciman, History of the Crusades, 1.227-228.
233
But the Scandinavians, too, had a church in Constantinople, dedicated to St. Olaf; see P. Riant,
Scandinaves en terre sainte, 122.
234
The ‘vir honorificus’ described by Joscelin married a Byzantine lady, ‘well born and rich’ and they
lived in a house in a wealthy part of the city. Miracula S. Augustini, 410.
235
‘Ipsi ac hereded eorum sacrto imperio fideliter famulati sunt’. Ord. Vit., Historia, 2.172; Chibnall,
2.202-205; Cf. Joscelin, Miracula S. Augustini, 410-411: in Joscelin’s last paragraph he implies that the
emperor himself was impressed by the miracle which St. Augustine is described as having performed at
Constantinople
236
‘An English monk at Constantinople, C. 1090.’ Published by C. Haskins in English Historical
Review 25 (1910) 293-295. Haskins states that the text breaks off abruptly at the foot of the page; this I

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was Joseph, and about 1090 he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 237 On his way
back, he broke away from the main party of pilgrims to visit Constantinople, where he
had heard there was ‘thesaurum reliquiarum incomparabilem’. On reaching the city
and enquiring how to view the relics, ‘he found a number of men there who came
from his own land, and were his friends’. They were now in the emperor’s household
(‘ex familia imperatoris). They are said to have been friends (amici) of the officer in
charge of the guard over the relics, and obtained special permission for Joseph to be
allowed to view the relics. Joseph was especially struck by the relics of St. Andrew,
and wanted to take a piece home with him. Unfortunately, the txt breaks off before
saying whether he was granted his request. But the account is valuable in that it
suggests that the English were trusted members of the imperial household, and that
their role was something more than that of temporary foreign mercenaries.

It may be wondered why permanent and, indeed, hereditary mercenaries were

preferable to temporary recruits. For this might as well have been a source of
inefficiency in the long run. 238 To such doubts, the words of Anna Comnena, already
quoted, offer a partial reply: ‘they pass on loyalty to the emperors… from one to
another like an ancestral inheritance…These stay unshakably loyal, and will not brook
the slightest hint of disobedience’.239 Anna’s sentiments find an echo in the historical
work of her husband, Nicephorus Bryennius. For his description of the palace-guards’
clamorous demonstration of support for Michael VII Ducas in 1071, he copied a
passage of Psellus’ Chronographia.240 But where Psellus had left the ethnic origin of
the ‘barbarian’ guard unclear, Bryennius implies that they were Englishmen, ‘loyal
from days of old to the Emperor of the Romans’. 241 This does not, admittedly, answer
all the questions that might be asked – the precise manner in which the English army
can confirm from personal examination of the lectionary in the Vatican Library, Greek Mss. No. 4951.
(See H. Ehrensburger, Libri Liturgiei Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae (Freiburg 1897) Chapter VI
No. 29, p. 150). A number of loose leaves were bound into the lectionary, but the leaf completing the
text is not one of them.
237
English pilgrimages were not in one direction only: Joscelin states that the ‘vir honorificus’ who
settled at Constantinople spent fourteen months away from his new home on a pilgrimage to
Rome and St. James of Compostella; Miracula, 410-411.
238
The English Varangians were not the first hereditary corps of soldiers in the imperial army. The
Maniaketes, who appear from time to time in sources for the later eleventh century, were descendants
of Frankish mercenaries who had served under Maniakes in the 1030s and early 1040s. But note that
they were stationed in Illyria, and not as imperial guards in the capital. See R. Janin, ‘Les Francs au
service des byzantins’, Echos d’ orient, 29 (1930) 69.
239
See above n. 65.
240
Chronographia, ed. E. Renauld (Paris 1928) 2.165.
241
Commentarii, ed. A. Meineke (Bonn 1836) 45; see V.G. Vasilievsky, Varyago-Russkaya I varyago-
angliiskaya druzhina, 342.

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liaised with the rest of the army; how it managed to retain a separate identity and keep
up its numbers. Further research should throw light on these problems. 242 But at any
rate one thing does seem clear – that Englishmen played an important part in helping
Alexius Comnenus on his campaigns in 1081-1084, and that he and his family long
remained grateful.

New College, Oxford

242
There may well be truth in the concluding section of the Edwardsaga. This tells how a number of
the English who went with Sigurd, together with Sigurd himself, reconquered on behalf of the emperor
a territory to the north of Constantinople ‘six days and nights’ sail across the sea in the east and north-
east of Micklegarth’. They are said to have settled in this newly conquered land. The role of the
English is probably much exaggerated by the saga, but the date and area which it seems to indicate
coincide with evidence from other sources that the Byzantines recovered their influence in the region of
the Sea of Azov at about the end of eleventh century. The saga’s evidence is corroborated by toponomy
and by later travellers’ accounts, as I hope to suggest in an article to be entitled ‘Another New
England?’. In the meanwhile, see A.V. Soloviev, ‘Domination byzantine ou russe au nord de la mer
noire a l’ epoque des Comnenes?’ Akten des XI Internationalen Byzantinistenkongresses, (Munich
1960) 569-580, passim; G.G. Litavrin, ‘A propos de Tmutorokan,’ Byzantion 25 (1965) 221-234,
passim.

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