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Genre: Education
Date of upload: Mar 13, 2024 ^^
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RYD date created : 2024-04-28T19:38:48.502269Z
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“For nine centuries the great City (Byzantium/Constantinople) had been the capital of Christian civilization. It was filled with works of art that had survived from Ancient Greece and with the masterpieces of its own exquisite craftsmen.”
- Sir Steven Runciman, pre-eminent British historian and author
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I would like to mention that Amon Amarth even has a song about them. "Varyags of Miklagaard."
"Miklagaard has been our home for 20 years or more
We've lent our axes, spears, and swords
In service of the emperor
We are loyal warriors
That's the oath we gave
To protect the emperor even to a violent grave"
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Byzantium did not have a Dark Age. As the late Merle E. Severy, Editor, National Geographic, wrote: "The Dark Ages are only dark if you look at Western Europe, for long centuries a back-water: decaying towns, isolated manors, scattered monasteries, squabbling robber barons. In the East blazed the light of Byzantium, studded with cities such as Thessalonica, Antioch, and Alexandria, more cosmopolitan than any Western society before the modern age."
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12:55 There actually weren't that many Byzantine Emperors who were assassinated, The main purpose of an emperors "bodyguard' was not to prevent him from being assassinated, it was his private military force paid directly by himself, the emperor. If one of the emperor's vassals rebelled then that vassals soldiers would almost certainly remain loyal to him rather than the emperor. So the Varangian Guard did whatever the emperor required them to do, they did act as a literal bodyguard, even being trusted with the keys to the city while the emperor was away, but they also acted as law enforcement as well, but the main purpose was to act as loyal retainers ready to defend the emperor in case of rebellion which was incredibly common in the Eastern Roman Empire. They were his insurance against the scheming nobility, so they were very well paid and had their own special privileges.
So while assassination was a threat, more emperors were deposed through military coups than assassination. That's the purpose of having a private army rather than lets say Game of Thrones Kings Guard.
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In 1081 at Dyrrhachium, the Varangian Guard faced the same person whose feint and charge broke the English shield wall in the Battle of Hastings: Brian of Brittany. The result was very much the same. Although Brian was instrumental in that defeat of Alexios Comnenos, the Emperor's daughter Anna Comnene described Brian as "the most courageous and most honourable of all the Gauls".
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I like the way you name the Byzantium Empire the dark ages...
The East never experienced dark ages like the west...
It was only after the fall of Constantinople and the invasion of the "utman Turk" did the East experience dark ages
Most of the elite and educated East had escaped to the west and Italy after the fall of Byzantium which began the revival or the renaissance of Europe
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Clearly, Harald Hardrada was an out-of-the-box thinker and charismatic leader. He believed in the power of the Skald, the Norse record-keeper/storytellers very much. Probably the main reason we have these tales. It is ironic though that after roaming the eastern Med, that his eventual undoing likely involved inclemently warm weather, former Roman roads (and the English longbow) at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. His force at Stamford Bridge in 1066 had left much of their armor at the boats due to the heat, and had underestimated the speed in which Harald Godwinson's army would arrive from the south via Roman-built roads. Even though Harald H. caught an arrow to the neck and perished with his army, they damaged Harald G.'s army bad enough that they lost their next crucial battle for control of England at Hastings. Even in death, Harald Hardrada's impacts on the western world are felt yet today via the Normans, another Norse-derived culture. The arrival of Haley's Comet in early 1066 was to portent a very eventful year-and did not disappoint.
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@KernowekTim
1 month ago
"Basil! Basil! Basil, what, do you thing you are doing rubbing shoulders with Vikings and Templar Knights?"......."Just a spot of, um, of...'hunting' Sybil dear".
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