River Kings

by Cat Jarman

  MIXED IDENTITIES

  Regardless of whether or not the stories of Olga’s cruelty are true, the narratives about her and her son Svyatoslav are enlightening for a number of reasons. First, with regards to religion: while Olga became Christian, her son remained a pagan. The two still co-ruled without this causing any major difficulties. This suggests that the process of conversion in the early tenth century was not only gradual but also gentle. Second, their combined Slavic and Scandinavian identities. The Russian Primary Chronicle mentions a number of people around Svyatoslav who clearly had Scandinavian names: for example, his tutor Asmund and troop commander Sveinald. Still, it seems that at this point identities were beginning to mix, because Svyatoslav was the first ruler of the Kyivan state to carry a Slavic name.

  While some of this may not be an accurate reflection of their tenth-century perspectives, but rather of the context in which it was written down by Nestor, it’s important. The lasting legacy of the Rus’ is evident in nearby Chernihiv, a city to the north of Shestovitsa. If you walk through its city park you will find it filled to the brim with small, undulating mounds, mostly covered by slender, leafy trees. Each and every one is a burial mound dating to the Viking Age; there are hundreds of them, right in the middle of the city, though we don’t know whether their dead had Scandinavian origins.

  Then, at the park’s exit, on the high point of a steep cliff, are two enormous mounds, next to each other. These are two of three monumental mounds in Chernihiv, of which the third and most famous lies a little way away, currently squeezed in between buildings; known as the Chernay Mogila or ‘Black Grave’, it stands eleven metres tall. Legend has it that the mound was the resting place of the so-called Black Prince who some believe founded the city a millennium ago.

  The Scandinavian affiliation of the mound’s inhabitants (for there were two of them) is clear. Excavations in the 1870s revealed the two cremated bodies and a rich accompaniment of Viking Age objects: two helmets, chainmail, knives and weapons, two golden Byzantine coins, along with the remains of an elaborate funerary feast, as well as a small bronze figure depicting Thor. Allegedly, the grave also contained the bodies of slaves, but the literature on this is less reliable and it is possible that it is a creative interpretation. What is clear from all of the mounds, though, is that they represent an elite group, asserting both power and a very specific identity linked through burial to Scandinavian traditions.

  It’s difficult to work out how identities were formed here and to get an accurate understanding of the extent of Scandinavian influence. The reality is that we probably can’t. We have the same problem in the west, where the Vikings are most commonly referred to as Danes (or simply pagans), when new evidence is showing that this is not an accurate reflection of their make-up from an ethnic or geographical perspective. The bioarchaeology makes that very obvious and, presumably, the same is the case in the east – we just don’t have much evidence for it yet. So far, there are no isotopes, no DNA studies and, in many cases, we don’t even have the burials to work with. What is clear is that this region, much like Birka, was a polyethnic melting pot of groups – Scandinavians, Slavs, Khazars and others, all fitting within the cultural context of the Rus’.

  I’m especially interested in interrogating the idea that few apart from Swedish Vikings went in this direction, to the east. This has always been the prevailing narrative: the Danish and Norwegian Vikings headed west, the Swedes went east. For the most part, this was likely true, because much of the archaeological evidence supports it, as do many of the literary sources. But was the picture really that simple?

  An important consideration is whether there was a much more direct connection between the east and the west than we have previously thought. The evidence that objects were coming to England in the 870s from the east has been growing significantly. But since the written sources are so silent, we have to look for other clues, and one particular type of objects is particularly interesting: falcon scabbard chapes. These small metal ornaments that fitted at the bottom of a sword’s scabbard are very distinctive: a falcon in flight represented in bronze. They have a link to the east that is undeniable, as a survey has shown that with one exception they have not yet been found in the more westerly reaches of the Viking world.[7] The vast majority have been found in Sweden, around the Baltic, and down to eastern Europe; the furthest south is in Kyiv and four were found in burial mounds at Shestovitsa. The only one recorded to the west of Scandinavia was discovered in the enigmatic Viking ship burial at Île de Groix on the coast of Brittany.

  Now there is another place to look: in the Portable Antiquities Scheme metal detectorists’ database for England. And there, I found more. The database has shown another four chapes, with reference to at least two others not on the database, all found in recent years by detectorists. The matches are certain, and this is exciting news. The implication is that they have a direct link either to Sweden or to the east – or maybe to both. Whether they arrived through trade or came with people who had obtained them themselves is not clear, but it’s tempting to see them as the belongings of those who held roles in a warrior retinue in the east, before travelling westward. This is evidence we didn’t have before: any surveys in the literature show the distribution of these chapes to be entirely eastwards. It now seems that that might not entirely reflect the facts.

  Returning to the Dnieper area, as we move into the tenth century, not only does the number of Rus’ sites along these rivers increase, but it seems their organisation is also becoming more complex. In the first phase of their development, most travel took place between these sites and the north, back and forth towards Novgorod and beyond. In a later phase, this changed as the focus shifted to the south. Eyes were increasingly turned towards a megalopolis located a few weeks’ sailing along the rivers and filled to the brim with riches and trading goods: the Byzantine capital, Constantinople.

  9.

  DRAGON’S HEAD: TO MIKLAGARD AND BEYOND

  HAGIA SOPHIA, ISTANBUL, C.945

  The interior of the building is cold but the throng of people pressing against you in all directions makes up for the chill in the air. It’s starting to get dark outside, but there is still light gleaming in through the windows: flecks of dust dance in the bright beams that cast lines through the central dome, illuminating the impossibly bright golden scenes on the opposite wall. The figures look down at you serenely, seeming benevolent and kind, yet they mean little to you. Other people’s gods. The sound of voices from the floor below is soothing, though you have no idea of the meaning of the words. You are tired, leaning against a column of smooth, even stone. As your hands run across it you feel the marks made on it by others: shapes, figures, writing. You feel for the knife hanging from your belt and test it against the stone. The material is surprisingly soft and all you need is a slight amount of pressure to make your own marks. You start at the top, cutting fine, curved lines. The person next to you notices and smiles, asking you what it is going to be, so you laugh, telling him to be patient. Soon the figure emerges, faintly: the curving head of a dragon facing west, with a large, benevolent eye looking towards you. You carve the beast’s neck and it transforms into the hull of a ship with shields hung on it, ready for action at a moment’s notice.

  MIKLAGARD

  The Dnieper snakes its way down to the north-western edge of the Black Sea, where it ends in the Dniprov’ska Gulf. Just beyond this is a tiny island by the name of Berezan; it’s diminutive in size, only nine hundred metres long and just over three hundred metres wide. Today it’s about a mile and a half from the coast but in the past it may well have been connected to land. Its location at the mouth of the Dnieper has turned it into something akin to a sentry, guarding access to the river system for those heading north or the access to the Black Sea for those heading south. There was a settlement here as early as the seventh century and it was even visited by the Greek historian Herodotus over a millennium before. On this small island, there is a trace of som
e of those who risked it all to make the treacherous journey, found on the southeasternmost runic inscription ever discovered.

  In 1905, archaeologists excavated a burial mound on the island that had been reused over a long period of time, with new graves having been inserted into it seemingly at random. The excavators came across ten skeletons, one in a stone coffin with the skeleton’s head and upper body resting on a flat stone. As one of the workmen lifted the stone to throw it on a spoil heap, the archaeologist in charge of the expedition noticed an inscription on its underside. The curved runes decorating the stone read: ‘Grani made this vault in memory of Karl, his partner’. The Berezan stone is the only runestone that has ever been found in Ukraine or Russia. Yet the style the runes are carved in strongly suggests that the carver, and maybe Grani and Karl too, came from Gotland.[1]

  Intriguingly, the word translated as ‘partner’ is the Old Norse term felagi, which describes a partnership either in raiding or in trading – possibly both. The term was also used for men who owned something together, perhaps a ship; maybe these two were business partners. It is impossible to date the stone, but we can guess what the men’s final destination was – the place where many Vikings would likely have ended their journey: Miklagard, the ‘Great City’, from mikill (‘big’) and gardr (‘wall’ or ‘stronghold’). Constantinople, or Istanbul as it is better known today, was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the place where east met west. From Berezan, the route to Miklagard would have been straightforward. Sail along the coast of the Black Sea, keeping south-west until you come to a strait some four kilometres across: the Bosphorus – the gateway to the west. The thirty-kilometre strait separates the Black Sea from the Sea of Marmara, which connects with the Mediterranean. At the western end of the strait lies the modern city of Istanbul, and it’s easy to understand why the location was (and still is) of such strategic importance.

  The first documented presence of the Rus’ in Miklagard is one we have already encountered, if indirectly, and appears to have been relatively peaceful. The delegation that visited Louis the Pious in Ingelheim and stated that they belonged to the tribe of the Swedes came with a letter from Theophilus, the Byzantine emperor, suggesting that their journey must have started in Byzantium – and, in all likelihood, Constantinople. This places the Rus’ in Constantinople as early as 839, several decades before the first documented raid on the city. Although we don’t know if they used the Dnieper route to get there, their presence is important because it means Scandinavians had contact with Byzantium from the early ninth century. And not just any type of contact: to travel with a letter from the emperor himself, that vouched for them and asked for assistance on their behalf, must have meant that diplomatic relations were well established.

  In fact, a coin of Theophilus has been found at Rurikovo Gorodische by Lake Ilmen, along with a Byzantine official seal dating to the first half of the ninth century, strongly suggesting that this would have been on the route taken. Similar seals have been found at Scandinavian trading sites like Hedeby, Ribe and Birka, which shows that movement and trade went in both directions. All of this suggests that Scandinavians may well have been present in Constantinople for quite some time before Theophilus’ reign; these seals may not represent the first encounter.

  It is also important to understand that those earliest contacts appear to have been peaceful. Yet for some reason, things seem to have changed fairly rapidly. The first recorded attack on Constantinople by the Rus’ took place a few decades later, on 18 June 860. By the second half of the ninth century, then, the Rus’ in this region were not only numerous enough to launch such a daring assault but they also had sufficient political organisation to be able to mount one that must have combined several groups of forces. They must also have been very familiar not only with the city itself and its defences, but with safe routes there and the logistics involved.

  A contemporary account of the attack is given by Photios, the patriarch (archbishop) of Constantinople, whose words are evocative and scathing in their description of the attackers. According to Photios, they came from ‘an obscure nation, a nation of no account, a nation ranked among slaves, unknown, but which has won a name from the expedition against us, insignificant, but now become famous, humble and destitute, but now risen to splendid height and immense wealth, a nation dwelling somewhere far from our country, barbarous, nomadic, armed with arrogance, unwatched, unchallenged, leaderless’. Photios makes it clear not just that these people came from the far north, as far north as you could possibly imagine, but also that they travelled by rivers and ‘harbourless seas’. He went on to explain that the invaders had sailed past the walls and raised their weapons ‘as if threatening the city with death by the sword’.

  The attack is also mentioned in the Russian Primary Chronicle. Nestor’s account is rather more fanciful and bears all the hallmarks of a literary tale (there’s little to suggest that this version of events is any truer than Photios’ version). Nestor claims that the attack was led by two Varangians named Askold and Dir, who had arrived in the east with Rurik and were later killed by Oleg, his heir.[fn1]

  Regardless of the outcome of this first attack, afterwards things changed. From this point on the Rus’ became a credible and significant entity that Constantinople had to deal with; a serious part of Byzantine foreign policy. A curious love-hate relationship ensued. Strangely, one of the best ways to handle this was through conversion to Christianity. Reportedly, the fortunes of the Rus’ whose first attack was so successful quickly turned: on their way back home they were caught in a storm and perished. As a consequence, an envoy was sent to Constantinople from one of the Rus’ian leaders requesting baptism, which the Byzantines were only too happy to help with. There’s a parallel here to what happened in England in 878, when Guthrum – one of the leaders of the Great Army that left Repton in 874 – agreed to be baptised along with several of his men, in order for the treaty with King Alfred to be agreed. Both in the east and the west, religion was obviously used as a political tool. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem that this newfound religion gained too much of a foothold among the Rus’, as burials across the region continue to look distinctly pagan.

  The Primary Chronicle describes a second Rus’ raid in the year 904, led by Oleg. The attack was substantial, as he was apparently accompanied by two thousand vessels filled with ‘pagans’ from different tribes: Slavs, Varangians, Polyanians (from near Kyiv) and Croats among others. When they arrived in Constantinople, the emperor was ready for them. To deter the attackers, he had ‘fortified the strait and closed the city’. Oleg, however, wasn’t discouraged: he disembarked and ordered the ships to be beached, after which the attackers went on to inflict dreadful atrocities on the natives. Palaces were destroyed, churches were burned, and prisoners were taken, tortured and thrown into the sea.

  Curiously, the Chronicle states that at one point Oleg commanded his warriors to attach wheels to their ships, then spread their sails and wait for a favourable wind, at which moment they ‘set upon the city from the open country’. It was now that the defenders realised they were in trouble. Messengers were sent to Oleg begging him not to destroy the city and offering to pay tribute to stop the advance from going any further. Refusing their offers of food and wine to appease him (Oleg was no fool, realising this would surely be poisoned), he demanded tribute at a rate of twelve grivny, the local currency, per man. With an estimated forty men on each of his two thousand ships, this would have meant a total of 960,000 grivny, clearly a substantial amount.

  Over the following years the relationship between Constantinople and the Rus’ seems to have been a bewildering mix of attacks followed by diplomatic engagement, with both sides realising that peaceful associations were the most beneficial. The exact nature of the dynamics is unclear, which raises the question of whether we are dealing with one coherent group of people, or whether the term ‘Rus’ used in the written sources actually masks a range of different peoples. In any case, a section of the
Russian Primary Chronicle gives us a glimpse into the lives of those involved. In what are likely the most reliable parts of this history, a series of treaties describe relations between traders and Byzantines. One, dated to 2 September 911, lays down rules for those who want to trade with Constantinople: fifteen individuals, most likely members of the Rus’ ruling elite, are named as endorsing a bilateral treaty of peace and friendship with Emperor Leo VI. Five of them bear the unmistakably Old Norse names of Karl, Farulf, Vermund, Hrollaf and Steinvith.

  The emperor evidently recognised just how dangerous the trading visits down the rivers were, making sure that if he were to encourage them to continue peacefully, some rewards would be necessary. Hence he awarded the Rus’ a number of perks. First of all, those who made it to the big city would be exempt from customs payments and on arrival would be given not just free board and lodging but a monthly allowance, including bread, wine, meat, fish and fruit. This was tenable for up to six months. Free baths were, of course, also included in the deal. When you were ready to return up the rivers again, you would be given both sailcloth and anchors to aid your journey.

  However, you couldn’t just turn up in Constantinople without anything to trade, as the treaty specifically stated that ‘Rus’ coming here without goods shall receive no monthly allowances’. Gaining these trading rights was a strategic move on behalf of the Rus’. Access to Miklagard gave them resources and products that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain elsewhere.