Young, virile, muscular and vulgar, the Varangians flaunted their wealth and behaved like football hooligans. Having little regard or respect for anyone but themselves, their behaviour often appalled locals, especially when one drunken Varangian chiselled his name, ‘Halfdan’, into a wall at the church at Hagia Sophia.
Yet such wealth and prestige saw the Varangian Guard become the envy of family and friends. The Norse sagas even speak of the riches one Varangian displayed on his return home:
Bolli rode from the ship with twelve men, and all his followers were dressed in scarlet, and rode on gilt saddles, and all were they a trusty band, though Bolli was peerless among them. He had on the clothes of fur, which the Garth-king had given him, he had over all a scarlet cape; and he had Footbiter girt on him, the hilt of which was dight with gold, and the grip woven with gold, he had a gilded helmet on his head, and a red shield on his flank, with a knight painted on it in gold. He had a dagger in his hand, as is the custom in foreign lands; and whenever they took quarters the women paid heed to nothing but gazing at Bolli and his grandeur, and that of his followers.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Varangian Guard were considered to be the Premier League footballers of their age. And soon every Viking wanted to follow in their footsteps. Such was the exodus from Scandinavia that a law was passed declaring that no one was allowed to inherit any money while they served in the Byzantine Empire. Yet this did nothing to stem the flow of eager young warriors desperate to make their mark. Among those eyeing up a place in the Varangian Guard was an exiled king who would take the unit to a whole new level.
Harald Hardrada was born into Norwegian royalty in AD 1015. Renowned for his enormous size, and huge personality, at just fifteen years of age he helped lead an army to head off an uprising against his brother, Olaf. But he could only watch on as his beloved brother was killed in front of him. This moment was subsequently ingrained in his memory for the rest of his life. While he had to flee, he promised to one day return from exile, take his vengeance, and claim his rightful place on the throne.
But for now Hardrada needed a friend. As such, he made his way to Kiev, where his brother’s ally, Yaroslav I, sat on the throne. While Hardrada was assured of a friendly welcome, Yaroslav was immediately struck by his physique.
Snorri Sturluson, who wrote the biography, King Harald’s Saga, described him as physically ‘larger than other men and stronger’, with some suggesting he was over 7ft tall. He also stood out thanks to his long fair hair and bristling beard, while one of his eyebrows was said to be somewhat higher than the other. His hands were apparently so large that he could hold a human head within them, while his big feet propelled him across the ground in a flash. Yet Hardrada wasn’t just a brute like so many of his fellow Vikings. He had also mastered horse-riding, swimming, skiing, shooting, rowing and could even play the harp.
With Yaroslav badly in need of military leaders, he subsequently made Hardrada captain of his forces, where he excelled in battles against the Poles, as well as against rivals in Estonia and the Byzantines. Word quickly spread of this prodigious Viking warrior and, in 1034, an opportunity presented itself that, as had many Vikings before him, Hardrada found hard to resist.
The Varangian Guard had heard of this impressive young warrior and now looked to recruit him to their ranks. For Hardrada, this offered an opportunity to recoup his fortune, while also building an army that could see him regain his crown. However, like all those before him, no matter his talents, Hardrada still had to pay a substantial fee before he could become a Varangian. This was something most recruits did without hesitation, knowing the riches that awaited them once they had joined the ranks.
By this time, Basil II was dead and had been succeeded by his niece, Empress Zoe, and her husband, Michael IV. Once again, the rulers, and the Byzantine Empire, were under threat and Hardrada and his men were desperately required to help them re-establish their authority. Following his own experiences, this was something Hardrada tackled with relish, having particular disdain for those who sought to usurp the crown.
While he fought victoriously in campaigns against the Pechenegs, he also helped to push the Arabs out of Asia Minor, where, according to his poet Arnorsson, he participated in the capture of eighty Arab strongholds. However, it was in Sicily that Hardrada would truly prove he was the finest warrior of his age. The stories of this time have been extensively detailed by Snorri Sturluson, as well as in Greek, Latin, French and Arab sources. While some believe them to be nothing more than folk tales, with similar accounts also attributed to other famous warriors throughout history, they nevertheless serve as thrilling stories.
Sicily had once been a Byzantine stronghold before it was captured by the Arabs in AD 902. For anyone who wished to control shipping, and trade, in the western Mediterranean holding sway in Sicily was vital, the island being a great meeting point between the Islamic, Greek and Latin worlds. For Michael and Zoe, recapturing Sicily would be a major coup, especially with so many rivals looking to usurp them.
However, taking Sicily would not be easy. When Hardrada landed on the island, he found that the Arabs had withdrawn into their fortified towns and had closed the gates. Before the age of gunpowder and cannons, this made it very difficult for any invading army to breach the walls. As such, castles and fortified towns were rarely taken. To storm a town wall would leave the attacker vulnerable to being shot from above by arrows or spears or to having boulders or boiling water dropped onto their heads.
In most cases, all that could be done was to lay siege to the towns and wait for the inhabitants to starve, or to succumb to disease. But Hardrada did not have the time to do this to every fortified town in Sicily. He needed results, and quickly. Yet this time around the sheer strength and ferocity of his fellow Varangians would not suffice.
Taking in the fortified town before him, Hardrada knew that he couldn’t go over the walls so he came up with an alternative plan – go under them. He ordered his men to start digging near to a river, far from the prying eyes of the town’s lookouts, where they could deposit the dirt and avoid suspicion. While Hardrada knew he had the element of surprise, he took no chances. With the tunnel dug, he waited for the time when the Arabs would be at their most vulnerable.
Sitting down to enjoy their evening meal in the candlelit great banqueting hall, the Arabs were stunned when the limestone floor suddenly burst open. Before they could react, Hardrada led his men up from the floor and viciously hacked to death all those who dared to defy him. The stunned Arabs were no match for these bloodthirsty warriors and soon the town was in the hands of Hardrada and the Varangians. And this was just the start of a string of astonishing victories.
Faced with another fortification, his methods became more cunning. Hardrada knew that this time the inhabitants might be expecting him to go under the walls so he devised a plan that would see the Arabs open the gate and welcome him with open arms. Setting up camp outside the walls, he was aware that the town’s lookouts and spies were watching his every move. Therefore, he purposely placed his tent further away from the main Byzantine camp, as if to indicate he was unwell. His soldiers and medical staff also made a great show of rushing in and out of his tent, seemingly to tend to him. The Arabs not only took the bait, but they also joyously spread the word that Hardrada was dead, and the siege was over. The first part of Hardrada’s subterfuge had gone like clockwork.
A delegation of Varangians subsequently approached the city and made an astonishing request. They asked that Hardrada be given a suitable burial for a man of his standing and suggested the city’s church for such an event. Incredibly, the Arabs agreed. Having this famous warrior’s remains in their town was not only an honour, but also a signal to all other invaders that, if they could see off Harald Hardrada, then they could see off anyone.
On the day of the funeral, just as Hardrada had planned, the Arabs happily opened their gates and allowed the Varangians, and Hardrada’s coffin, into the city. However, as
the coffin was escorted through the gates by pallbearers, priests and mourning Varangians, they suddenly dropped it to the floor. At that crucial moment, Hardrada sprang his trap. The Varangians pulled out their weapons and the coffin jammed the gate open, allowing all of their hordes to storm the city. Taking no prisoners, it soon turned into a massacre, and yet another fortified town fell to Hardrada and his men.
Soon no fort was safe. Before long, the Arabs were all on guard, intent on frustrating Hardrada at every turn. If he was to have any more success, he had to come up with his most ingenious plot yet. Yet, as Hardrada laid siege to a well-supplied town, its soldiers watched his every move from their fortress wall. There appeared to be no way in.
For days, Hardrada racked his brains. Watching the town, taking in its inhabitants’ routines, he was desperate for any glimmer of inspiration that could help him crack the wall. Suddenly, birds flying from the town and settling in the surrounding fields caught his attention. He watched them day after day and saw that they would go from the fields and back to their nests in the thatched roofs of the town’s homes. This gave him an idea.
Ordering his men to catch as many of the birds as possible, they then attached small splinters of wood to their backs, which were smeared with tar and then set alight. Hardrada and his men then set them free and watched as the burning birds flew back over the town walls, to their nests, setting the thatched roofs alight and engulfing the town in an inferno. The city gates were soon opened, and the Arab inhabitants came pouring out, surrendering without a fight.
One by one more towns fell before the whole island was back in Byzantine hands. Sicily was not only a great triumph, but it proved that the Varangians were more than just axe-wielding thugs.
As the years passed, however, Hardrada’s favour in the imperial court declined following the death of Michael IV in 1041. The new emperor, Michael V, subsequently had Hardrada arrested and imprisoned. There is some disagreement about the reason for this. The Norse sagas state that Hardrada was arrested for defrauding the emperor of his treasure, while the English historian, William of Malmesbury, contends it was for defiling a noblewoman. Saxo Grammaticus, on the other hand, claims he was imprisoned for murder.
The sources also disagree about what happened next. Most, however, claim that during a revolt against the emperor the Varangians helped Hardrada to escape from prison, whereby he soon had his vengeance. After blinding the emperor, Hardrada watched as he was dragged kicking and screaming from his palace to be exiled to a monastery where he would spend the rest of his days.
Having escaped prison, Hardrada set his eyes on returning to Norway. With his huge fortune and loyal guards, he finally reclaimed his Norwegian crown, thanks in part to paying a large sum to his brother’s son, Magnus the Good, the then king of Norway. But Hardrada soon began to look for further conquests and, in 1066, he set his eyes on England. It would, however, be his last. At the famous Battle of Stamford Bridge, he was struck by an arrow and killed. This would prove to be the last time the Vikings tried to conquer another country, although they did land in America before Christopher Columbus, but failed to realise the magnitude of their discovery and soon left.
While the Varangians continued to guard their Byzantine emperors, by the eleventh century, their masters were becoming increasingly concerned at the Muslim expansion that seemingly threatened Europe’s way of life, as well as Christianity itself. To defend Europe, and reassert Christianity, a Byzantine emperor helped to fund a crusade to the Middle East. This would in time establish one of history’s most controversial elite units and usher in decades of bloodshed . . .
7
THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR AND HOSPITALLERS
AD 1073
In AD 1073, Christians living in Jerusalem were rocked when the Sunni Muslim Seljuk Turks seized power from the relatively tolerant Egyptian Fatimids. As Christians fled the holy city in a panic, the reverberations of this seismic event were soon felt throughout Europe. With the Byzantine Empire already at war with the Seljuks in Asia Minor and Syria, and with Muslim armies overrunning Spain, France and parts of Italy, there was a real fear that not only was the empire itself under threat, but so was Christianity.
Increasingly concerned at this turn of events, the Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenus, desperately appealed to the west for aid in order to fight back. In 1095, his call was finally answered, when Pope Urban II publicly declared that all efforts should be directed towards funding a crusade to aid eastern Christians and recover the holy lands. In order to persuade a sufficient number of soldiers and holy men to enlist, the Pope promised them a remission of their sins. The response by western Europeans was immediate, with knights and peasants, rich and poor, flocking to the cross.
However, the First Crusade didn’t get off to an encouraging start. The first group to make their way east was an undisciplined horde of French and German peasants. As soon as they reached Constantinople, they were annihilated by the Turks.
It was then that members of my family played a prominent role. Undeterred by these events, my ancestors, Godfrey de Bouillon and his brother Baldwin de Boulogne, raised an army of 40,000 knights and foot soldiers, by mortgaging much of their property. Along with another relative, Eustace Fiennes, this main crusading force set off for the Holy Land in 1096. Arriving at Constantinople in the vanguard, Godfrey was the first Crusader general to take an oath to the Byzantine emperor.
Finally reaching Jerusalem on 7 June 1099, Godfrey and his forces found that it had by now fallen back into Fatimid hands. Nevertheless, the Fatimids treated the Christians just as cruelly as the Seljuks had before them and, in the eyes of the Crusaders, needed to be banished. Moreover, they had not travelled all this way only to leave without taking Jerusalem for themselves.
However, the city was highly fortified and the Fatimids had poisoned the wells outside it. If they were to succeed, they needed to strike hard and fast. Yet attempts to breach the walls by ladder were met with boiling oil, rocks and arrows. At this, two Genoese ships, which had brought supplies to the Crusaders, were quickly torn apart for their timber and three siege towers were built.
On the night of 13 July, the Christians, led by my ancestor Godfrey, began fighting their way across Jerusalem’s walls. As the Gate of Saint Stephen was forced open, the rest of the knights and soldiers poured inside and the city was captured. Tens of thousands of Jews and Muslims alike were swiftly slaughtered by the Christians, with chronicler Raymond of Aguilers recalling:
Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are ordinarily chanted. What happened there? If I tell the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much, at least, that, in the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgement of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies.
The Crusaders had achieved their aim – Jerusalem was finally in Christian hands, with my relative, Godfrey, becoming the first ‘Christian King of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem’. Heralded as a legend in Crusader circles, Godfrey was soon depicted in Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata, Dante’s The Divine Comedy, as well as in Handel’s opera Rinaldo. Hailing from the Belgian side of the French border, a statue of him was erected in the Royal Square of Brussels in 1848, while he was voted by the Belgian public as the seventeenth greatest Belgian of all time in 2005.
But, despite the success of the First Crusade, violence in the Holy Land continued. In particular, groups of Christian pilgrims from across western Europe were routinely robbed and killed as they crossed through Muslim-controlled territories. Mounting corpses were soon left to rot along the route to Jerusalem, with the nadir for these attacks occurring around Easter 1119, when over 300
pilgrims were massacred.
During my time in Oman, I worked alongside many Muslim men. As a Christian, I was a real rarity but most treated me with curiosity rather than with any animosity. However, I remember on one occasion a young Kolbani, who had a permanent scowl, said to me, ‘As a Christian, aren’t you afraid of death, knowing you will burn in hell?’ I had actually been waiting for someone to say such a thing so had already prepared a stock answer: ‘We Christians are, like all Muslims and Jews, people of the Book, which clearly states that we will all go to Paradise. It is correct that the followers of the Prophet will go there before those who follow Christ, or those who killed Christ, but the Book does not say that we will spend the waiting period in Hell . . . Insha’Allah.’
At this, there was much nodding of heads from those around me, although the Kolbani looked nonplussed and unconvinced. It remains a source of great mystery and sadness to me that there continue to be religious wars throughout the world. Is it not enough that we all believe in a god?
Yet, in Crusader times, as of now, this was clearly not enough, and the protection of pilgrims quickly became a priority. Just a few short months later, a French knight by the name of Hugues de Payens, along with eight relatives and acquaintances, came up with a solution. Founding the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon – later to be known simply as the Knights Templar – their goal was to protect Christian visitors to Jerusalem, as well as the city’s holy shrines. With the support of Baldwin II, the then ruler of Jerusalem, the Templars set up headquarters at the city’s sacred Temple Mount, from which they took their name.
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