Book description
This book is the history of the Eastern Vikings, the Rus and the Varangians, from their earliest mentions in the narrative sources to the late medieval period, when the Eastern Vikings had become stock figures in Old Norse Romances. A comparison is made between sources emanating from different cultures, such…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Varangians as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Dr. Jakobsson, a Professor of Medieval History at the University of Iceland, has provided a detailed history of the fabled Swedish Vikings known as the Rus and Varangians, who, between the 9th and 13th centuries, traveled southeast of the Baltic Sea, founded early Russian trading posts (Novgorod and Kiev), attacked and then traded with the Byzantine Empire, and some of whom became the famous private guard of the emperors at Constantinople.
The author employs contemporary Greek Byzantine and Abbasid Caliphate sources, later Norse sagas, and archaeological and numismatic materials to reconstruct the various medieval portraits that have come down from…
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