down the Dnieper and then plying the same craft across the unpredictable waters of the
Black Sea.
Yet that is what the Rus embarked upon soon after installing themselves at Kiev and
a few other points along riverways converging on that town. We catch a glimpse of how
they proceeded from the agreements with Byzantium that gave them the advantage of
direct access to the many markets and broader choice of goods on offer in the empire’s
capital. This brought them opportunities for more lucrative deals than were available in
Crimean towns, cutting out the Chersonite middleman. For the Byzantines the benefits
were less commercial than political: by engaging their potentially troublesome
new neighbours in trade they could dampen enthusiasm for alternative methods of
self-enrichment, such as raiding: Leo VI had noted their capacity for trouble in his
tactical treatise, but their river-going boats did not seem a threat at the time of writing,
the 890 s (Dain 1943 : 32 ).
The earliest accord was issued not long afterwards, in 907. Although the text is
known only from the fragments incorporated in the Rus Primary Chronicle, enough
survives to suggest that it was laying down house-rules for regular visits to Con-
stantinople; a fuller treaty followed soon afterwards, providing for various contingencies
likely to arise in the course of trading. This agreement, dated 2 September 911 ,
included among its attesters all five of the men named as Rus negotiators in the text
datable to 907 , Karl, Farulf, Vermund, Hrollaf and Steinvith. The total number of
northerners personally vouching for the bilateral treaty ‘of peace and friendship’ between
Leo VI and the Rus ruling elite came to fifteen; they probably represented power-nodes
across the land of Rus, with the locus of authority still lying far to the north, embodied
in the palace-bound kagan.
The 907 accord amounts to a set of privileges vouchsafed by the emperor, compensat-
ing the Rus for the costs and dangers which trading visits incurred and encouraging
them to persist. They were exempted from all customs dues, and monthly allowances
supplemented the free board and lodging provided for periods up to six months.
Unlimited baths were part of the treatment and, for the return journey, sailcloth
and anchors were supplied. But such ‘perks’ were only available to prospective traders:
‘Rus coming here without goods shall receive no monthly allowances’ (PVL: 17 ; RPC:
65 ). And the Byzantines remained on their guard. The Rus were to reside north of the
Golden Horn and were only to enter the city through one gate, fifty at a time, unarmed
and escorted by an imperial agent. Politico-military considerations likewise underlie the
terms for dispute-settlement and determination of rightful ownership of chattels in the
911 treaty. Opportunities for strife between individual Rus and Byzantines are expected
to be numerous, with detailed regulations as to what was to be done with the crews
and cargoes of any stricken ‘Christian’ vessels the Rus might encounter. These apply
Romano-Byzantine law to conditions in the tenth-century Black Sea. (PVL: 19 ; RPC:
67 ; Malingoudi 1998 : 59 – 64 ). But the notion of compensatory fines based on a duo-
decimal system to resolve issues of murder and property was alien to Byzantine law. So
was the right of the victim of theft to slay a thief caught red-handed and to undertake a
house-search of a suspect. Robbery, in contrast, was treated more leniently: a foiled
robber must repay three times the value of what he had seized, but vengeance is not
countenanced. These procedures, with thieves deemed utterly contemptible, are in the
spirit, if not the letter, of laws codified two or three centuries later in Nordic societies
and they show the lengths the Byzantines went to accommodate their Rus guests in the
–– chapter 37 : The Viking Rus and Byzantium––