sagas’ boasting of his exploits gains some corroboration from a Byzantine contemporary
who was probably acquainted with him, Kekaumenos (Litavrin 2003 : 298 – 300 ).
Byzantium, rather than Rus, seems to have been proverbial for its wealth in the
eleventh-century Scandinavian world, and sagas’ claims for the riches brought back by
Haraldr from ‘Micklegarth’ echo those of Adam of Bremen (Trillmich 2000 : 394 ). The
greed and unruliness of Varangian mercenaries is, conversely, a motif of the Rus Primary
Chronicle alongside sagas for the late tenth and earlier eleventh centuries (Pálsson and
Edwards 1989 : 73 , 79 – 80 ). But their appetites were more or less manipulable by Rus
rulers and employers, as by Byzantine emperors. Only internal dynastic strife opened the
door to interlopers such as Ragnvaldr and Tury in the 970 s or Sveinn Hákonarson, who
sacked Staraia Ladoga shortly before Vladimir’s death in 1015. A personal bond with
forceful Nordic dynasts appeared politic to the capable yet hard-pressed Iaroslav
Vladimirovich. In 1018 , after being routed by his half-brother Sviatopolk and the
Polish ruler Bolesław, he contemplated flight ‘across the sea’ to Scandinavia (PVL: 63 ;
RPC: 132 ), and his marriage the following year to Olof Skottkonung’s daughter
Ingigerðr was probably intended to bring security to Staraia Ladoga and a supply of
cooperative warriors from Swedish courts. Many years later, Iaroslav wedded his daugh-
ter Elizabeth to an ambitious konungr now heading back north after nearly ten years at
Byzantium – Haraldr Harðráði. Shortly before the marriage, in 1043 , Iaroslav had
drawn on his Nordic contacts to raise fresh warriors for the last great Rus expedition
against Constantinople. This attack seems to have been prompted by Iaroslav’s need to
save face after a supposed slight, a matter of honour that would have been familiar
enough to those involved with the famous embassy of the Rho ̄s some 200 years earlier.
Besides contacts at the ruling elite’s level, commercial exchanges went on between
persons based in the Baltic region and those who called themselves Rus and resided in
the land of Rus. Trade was most conveniently and profitably conducted across fairly
short distances, from emporia such as Sigtuna or Gotland’s markets to Staraia Ladoga or
Novgorod. Traders from Scandinavia had, together with warriors, their own compound
in Novgorod by 1016 at the latest, and within a few years of Olaf Haraldsson’s death he
was believed to be working miracles for fellow Northmen there: a church in Novgorod
was subsequently dedicated to him (Mel’nikova 1999 : 542 – 4 , 553 – 4 ; Antonsson
2003 : 148 – 53 ). But ‘Varangians’ were still a common enough feature of the Middle
Dnieper region for the mid-eleventh-century law code promulgated by Iaroslav’s
sons to provide specifically for escaped or stolen slaves whom they harboured: the slaves
were to be handed back to their rightful owners, and a fine of 3 grivnas paid ‘for the
offence’ (Kratkaia Pravda in Kaiser 1992 : 16 ). Brawls involving ‘a Varangian or a
Kolbiag’ (another term designating northerners from across the sea) were also specially
catered for (Kratkaia Pravda in Kaiser 1992 : 16 ). The association of Varangians with
runaway slaves calls to mind the forementioned Saxon’s impression of Kiev in 1018 : it
also suggests that Scandinavian armsbearers still had some involvement with slave-
trading.
At any rate, commercial as well as court-level exchanges between Rus and the rest of
the Nordic world were still intensive in the mid-eleventh century. In fact goods and
produce of Byzantine origin were reaching Baltic emporia such as Lund and Sigtuna in
increasing quantities, not only silks but also bulkier commodities such as glazed wares
and amphorae that probably brought oil and wine (Roslund 1998 : 359 – 68 , 380 – 5 ). The
land of Rus may now have been forming into a distinctive politico-cultural order whose
–– Jonathan Shepard––