Harald Hardrada (18 page)

The name ‘Bulgar' derives from the Old Turkic
bulgha
, meaning ‘to mix', and the earliest ancestors of the people who were known by that name in the tenth and eleventh centuries would have been a Turkic steppe tribe akin to the Huns and Pechenegs – as also, indeed, to the later Mongols. That original stock of nomadic warrior-herdsmen had long since been diffused by its passage through the various gene pools of the Balkans, and most influentially those of the Slav pastoralists, by the time of the creation of the ‘First Bulgarian Empire' under its tsar Samuel, who was himself of largely Armenian descent. There were, of course, other branches of the same original stock – principally the Volga Bulgars, who adopted the Islamic faith from their Arab trading contacts – but the Bulgar subjects of the Byzantine empire were those settled around Macedonia.

As frighteningly vindictive as he had been after his victory over the Bulgars in battle, Basil was to show a remarkable generosity towards them once they had become imperial subjects, and most particularly in allowing them to pay their taxes in kind rather than in cash, but the same generosity was soon to be discontinued during the reign of Michael IV, especially when the emperor's health had entered into its terminal decline and responsibility for imperial finances had passed to John the Orphanotrophus. Now the great power at the Byzantine court, he was soon to demand taxation rendered in hard currency, thus provoking a tide of hostility among the Bulgars, which only awaited the emergence of some sort of leader before it erupted into full-scale revolt.

Just such a figurehead appeared in 1040 when one Peter Deljan declared himself tsar in Belgrade. This ‘Tsar Peter' is sometimes identified as an escaped slave and sometimes as a grandson of the great Samuel, yet he could well have been both because he was possibly a son of Samuel's son and short-lived successor, Gabriel Radomir. His claim would seem to have had some measure of legitimacy, because he was joined in early autumn by an ally in the person of Alusian – presumably Peter's cousin, because he was not only a grandson of Samuel but also a son and younger brother of the last two Bulgarian tsars – who had escaped from house arrest in Constantinople (where he had been held by order of the Orphanotrophus but on an unknown charge) to take his place beside Peter Deljan at the head of the rebellion.

With its joint lords of revolt in place, the Bulgar rising was unleashed against an imperial authority already under pressure from Saracens in Sicily and Normans in southern Italy, so the rebels would seem to have had a head-start for their surge through Macedonia and into northern Greece, where they inflicted a heavy defeat on the garrison at Thebes. The emperor Michael was in his palace at Thessalonika when the rebellion broke out and lost no time in hurrying back to Constantinople to organise his military response – which may well have included the recall of Harald and his troop from Italy and, if so, then in all likelihood on the recommendation of Michael's brother, the general Constantine.

Constantine remained in Thessalonika and held the city when the Bulgars arrived to lay it siege. He was supported by forces apparently drawn from a regiment of the Tagmata, but identified only as the ‘Tagma of the Great-hearted', who made a magnificent sortie in the last week of October to win an impressive victory in throwing back the besieging Bulgars, who suffered casualties in the thousands and the rest of their forces put to flight. Nonetheless, the rebels were evidently able to recover and to fight on, because they had driven westward to storm Dyrrachium on the Adriatic coast before the end of the year. In the spring of 1041, however, their prospects were beginning to darken when an impressive imperial army – assuredly now including Harald and his Varangians – was in Thessalonika with the emperor who declared his intention of leading his forces in person.

This was, indeed, an extraordinary announcement because, although still only in his twenties, Michael the Paphlagonian was a chronic invalid obviously nearing the end of his life. He had long suffered from epilepsy, but what Psellus calls his ‘internal trouble' had caused him to become bloated to the point of semi-paralysis, his legs hideously swollen and afflicted by gangrene so that every movement must have been a torment. Yet Michael was determined to lead his army on a carefully planned operation, which would have been confident of victory even if the rebel leaders had not fallen out with each other and thus ensured its absolute certainty.

When he was accused of treachery by Deljan, Alusian had struck back with a cook's knife (at least according to Psellus, who describes the whole grisly exchange enacted at a banquet) to put out both of his cousin's eyes and then to slice off his nose. Now in full command of the rebels, Alusian led them against the Byzantine army but with so little success that he had to flee into hiding when their onset was thrown back. Presumably recognising the inevitability of total defeat, Alusian entered into his own secret negotiations with the emperor, offering surrender in exchange for restoration of such honours as were due to him and to his family. When these conditions were accepted, Alusian proceeded with a pre-agreed charade of advancing his horsemen once more towards the enemy before suddenly abandoning them in a theatrical rush to throw himself upon the emperor's mercy. While he was granted a full pardon and returned to Constantinople, the Bulgar host persisted in its dogged resistance, now with the mutilated Deljan at its head and refusing to surrender until it was finally crushed by the emperor's army at the battle of Prilep.

When the skald Thjodolf makes mention of Harald having fought ‘eighteen fierce battles' before his return to Norway, it is reasonable to assume that these would have been the major engagements in which he saw action as a Varangian mercenary in the service of Michael IV. So too, when Thjodolf's description of his king as ‘burner of the Bulgars' is set beside the reference made by the author of the
Advice
to ‘the revolt of Delianos in Bulgaria [where] Araltes went on campaign with the emperor, with his own troops, and demonstrated deeds against the foe worthy of his birth and nobility', Harald was quite certainly involved in this later phase of the Bulgarian war and (if Thjodolf's words might be taken literally) possibly deployed on a firebrand-wielding intimidation of the rebel heartland.

What can also be said with certainty is that this campaign was to be his last in imperial service – leading on to the probability of the battle at Prilep having been the last that he fought as a Varangian mercenary. Once again though, Harald clearly served the emperor with sufficient distinction to merit promotion, and this time to the rank of
spatharokandidatos
when he accompanied Michael's triumphal return to the capital.

P
robably the most extraordinary aspect of the Varangian Guard is the fact of the personal protection of the
Basileus
(as the Byzantine emperor was formally styled in Greek), who was ‘held to be the sole legitimate sovereign of the Christian world' and represented as ‘the earthly counterpart and vice-regent of the Christ Pantokrator',
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having been entrusted to fighting-men out of the remote northland whose two best-known characteristics were their mighty battle-axes and notorious appetite for alcohol. Customarily referred to in the Greek annals as ‘the axe-bearing Guard' – and on one occasion by a contemporary observer as the ‘Emperor's wine-bags' – at least there is some reflection of ceremonial dignity encoded in the Greek titles bestowed on the various ranks of the Varangians of the City.

The title of
manglavites
, for example, had its origin in
manglavion
, the name given to a short whip borne by officers of the Hetairia preceding the emperor in procession and used by them to clear the way for the progress of the imperial party. Although thought to be largely honorary in Harald's time, the rank of
manglavites
still carried with it the privilege of wearing a gold-hilted sword, such as that described in
Laxdæla saga
when Bolli Bollason returns home from his service in the palace guard with his sword ‘now inlaid with gold at the top and shank and with gold bands wound around the hilt'. This reference is of particular interest because it confirms an officer of the Varangian Guard having used gold decoration on his own sword (in some cases a valued heirloom and given its own name, as in the case of Bolli's ‘Leg-Biter'), while Michael Psellus describes a quite different weapon, ‘a single-edged sword of heavy iron' known as the
rhomphaia
, which was ‘slung from the right shoulder' of every palace guardsman. This must have been a dress sword and thus quite distinct from the double-edged blade of the traditional northern type which accompanied the spear (of a heavier type than that found in the Byzantine armoury) and, of course, the famous two-handed axe to make up the more typical complement of Varangian battle-weaponry.

Nonetheless, a ceremonial association with sword-bearing is clearly indicated by the
spatharo
- prefix found in the titles applied to ranks such as that of
spatharokandidatos
, to which Harald was promoted on his return from Bulgaria, and likewise that of the superior
protospatharios
, both of these having their origin in an earlier Hetairia lifeguard called the
basilikoi anthropoi
(literally the ‘emperor's men') which pre-dated the formation of the Varangian Guard. The
Laxdæla saga
account of Bolli Bollason's return from Constantinople also supplies some evidence for the dress uniform of the palace guard when it describes the eleven men of his retinue ‘dressed in clothes of scarlet' and Bolli himself wearing ‘a cloak of red scarlet given him by the emperor of Byzantium'. This has been taken to indicate ‘red scarlet' as the uniform colour of the
manglavites
, while that worn by officers of the Hetairia holding the honorary rank of
spatharokandidatos
had traditionally been white (with the distinguishing badge of a golden torque) and may still have been so in the eleventh century. Again, it must be stressed that these were items of ceremonial garb as distinct from war-gear, which would have been essentially a helmet, shield and coat of ring-mail for a Varangian on campaign or even garrison duty in the capital.

The conical helmet might well have been of ‘spangenhelm' construction, although some would have reflected Slavic or Turkic influence and, in the case of the more affluent warrior, may even have been decorated with precious metals. The longer a man remained in mercenary service, of course, the more likely he was to adopt items of foreign arms and armour, but Scandinavian military taste was invariably conservative in character and the mail-coat would seem to have been at least as characteristic of Varangian war-gear as was the axe. So it was in Harald's case, although his mail-coat is said by Snorri to have been unusually long and so would have been similar in style to those worn by the mailed Norman knights with whom he served in Sicily. The shield most often used by Varangians of Harald's time would have been of the traditional Scandinavian circular design, and thus much larger than the disc-shaped shields carried by Byzantine cavalry, although the long, tapered ‘kite' shields favoured by the Normans were finding their way into Russian and Byzantine armouries through the eleventh and twelfth centuries when fragments of saga evidence also suggest shields of that type brought back to Iceland, presumably by returning Varangians.

One further item of military equipment particularly associated with Harald is his banner, known as
Landeyðuna
(‘Land-ravager') and noticed on more than one occasion in Snorri's saga where it is said to have been his most highly prized possession. The name alone bears testimony to the banner's long active service before it was raised on his last campaign of 1066 and if this was the same banner which featured in Halldor's anecdote connected with the siege story then it must have come into Harald's possession while he was in Byzantine service, and perhaps in emulation of those carried by the standard-bearers of the Tagmata regiments. These regimental standards were highly honoured, in much the same way as the eagles carried by the old Roman legions, and yet smaller units within a regiment (companies or cavalry squadrons known as
banda
) also had their own banners, known as
bandophorai
, one of which might have found its way into Harald's hands – but the story of Land-ravager is a long one indeed, and worthy of its own appointed place later in these pages.

What can be said of Land-ravager at this point – and especially if Thjodolf's phrase ‘burner of the Bulgars' can be taken at face value – is that it would have fluttered proudly over Harald's troop on the march into Constantinople with the imperial forces returning victorious from the Bulgarian campaign in 1041. Michael Psellus – reporting, as usual, at first-hand – describes the entry of the emperor's army into the city as ‘a brilliant occasion', with the whole populace thronging to greet their emperor as he ‘returned in glory to his palace, bringing with him a host of captives, among whom were the most notable men of the Bulgars, including their leader, the pretender [Peter Deljan] himself, minus his nose and deprived of his eyes'.

The whole performance was a typically Byzantine blend of splendour and savagery, reaching its climax when the Bulgar prisoners were force-marched through the stadium of the Hippodrome in which the high and low usually gathered to watch horse-races, and yet for Psellus the really tragic figure was that of the emperor Michael himself: ‘I saw him on this occasion . . . swaying in the saddle of his horse. The fingers gripping his bridle were as if those of a giant, each of them as thick and as large as a man's arm, the result of his internal trouble, while his features preserved not a trace of their former likeness.' This was to be the last public appearance of an unlikely and yet remarkable
Basileus
whose personal tragedy has been justly recognised by one of the outstanding modern English historians of Byzantium: ‘Few emperors had risen from more lowly origins, or by more questionable methods; none suffered a more agonising end. He possessed wisdom, vision and courage . . . and in the reigns that followed, there would be many who regretted his loss'.
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