in Kiev and upon whose boy the lot fell, were overridden: father and son were slain in
their hall (PVL: 38 – 9 ; RPC: 95 – 6 ). It was not so much Vladimir’s patronage of this cult
cutting an odd figure with other Christian rulers as the cessation of victories that made
him think again. A campaign against the Bulgars on the Middle Volga in the mid- 980 s
failed to yield tribute, the first such setback recorded among Vladimir’s campaigns
(PVL: 39 ; RPC: 96 ). Soon afterwards, according to the Rus Primary Chronicle, Vladimir
embarked on what is sometimes termed his ‘investigation of the faiths’, Islam, the faith
of his formidable Bulgar foes, the Christianity of the Germans and the Greeks, and
Judaism.
Stylised as they are, the Chronicle’s tales of high-status investigative emissaries and of
discourses conducted before the prince probably register actual, high-profile, signals in
favour of a monotheistic cult on Vladimir’s part (Shepard 1992 : 76 – 81 ). But a series of
accidents seems to have determined which particular cult was adopted. Basil II was, by
c. 988 , virtually besieged in his capital, his army mostly in rebellion and the Bulgarians
at large to his west. In circumstances which have yet to be fully elucidated, a deal was
struck between Vladimir and the beleaguered emperor. At some stage in the pro-
ceedings, perhaps by way of pressurising Basil to honour an agreement already made,
Vladimir showed the Rus’ striking-power and nuisance-value, capturing Cherson and
sacking much of it. At all events, he sent an army, reportedly 6 , 000 -strong, and the new
arrivals surprised the rebels encamped across the Bosporos, enabling Basil eventually to
regain control of Asia Minor. Vladimir’s reward was marriage in Cherson to Anna,
Basil’s sister, and the match in itself implied Vladimir’s comparable standing with
members of the imperial family born in the palace’s purple chamber (Franklin and
Shepard 1996 : 162 – 4 ). As Vladimir would have foreseen, he could only wed such a
princess after being baptised, and Anna’s entourage was accompanied or followed by
a religious mission comprising prelates, priests and church-builders. Vladimir, with-
drawing from Cherson to Kiev, summoned the citizens to the riverbank and oversaw
their mass-baptism to the sound of clergymen’s prayers. Monumental halls decorated
with mosaics and wall-paintings were erected on the Starokievskaia Hill, flanking a
sizeable church built of brick and stone and dedicated to the Mother of God. The
builders were Byzantines, and the church’s layout and function seem to have echoed
those of the Mother of God of the Pharos, a prominent church in Constantinople’s Great
Palace. Vladimir thus set in stone his claims to comparability in status with the Greek
emperor, treating his retainers and ‘nobles’ to feasts and Sunday worship in his own
palace-complex. The foundations of Vladimir’s regime were very different from those
of the basileus. But the long-established monotheistic cult serviced mainly by the
Greeks brought a degree of coherence to the nexus under Vladimir’s care, and a German
missionary, visiting his court in 1008 , took it for granted that Rus was a Christian
realm. Only upon passing through gates of a ‘massive rampart’ did Bruno of Querfurt
enter the land of the pagans (Karwasin ́ska 1973 : 99 ). The rampart was the outermost
of a series of earthworks and fortified settlements built under Vladimir’s direction in
what had been nomads’ pasturing grounds. Reclaiming them for intensive agricultural
cultivation, he created a robust defensive shield for his city, transplanting ‘the best
men’ from Slav and Finnish populations in the north to live in his settlements
(PVL: 54 ; RPC: 119 ). The Rus were embedded on the Middle Dnieper more securely
than ever before, and there would be no further attempts at large-scale migration to the
south.
–– Jonathan Shepard––