Byzantine form of Christianity. Well before the ninth century, Scandinavians—known
as Rus in the East but as Vikings in the West—had traveled eastward, to the regions
of Lake Ladoga and Lake Ilmen (see Maps 4.3 and 4.5). Mainly interested in
trapping animals for furs and capturing people as slaves, they took advantage of river
networks and other trade routes that led as far south as Iraq and as far west as
Austria, exchanging their human and animal cargos for silks and silver. Other peoples
in the region were also engaged in long-distance trade, above all the Khazars, whose
powerful state, straddling the Black and Caspian Seas, dominated part of the silk
road. (See Map 3.2 on p. 88 for the location of the Khazar Empire.) A Turkic-
speaking group whose elites converted to Judaism in the ninth century, the Khazars
were ruled by a khagan, much like the Avars and the Bulgars. Scandinavians had no
khagans, but they were influenced enough by Khazar culture to adopt the title for the
ruler of their own fledgling ninth-century state at Novgorod, the first Rus polity.
Soon northern Rus’ (the apostrophe is used to indicate the state formed by the
Rus people) had an affiliate in the south—in the region of Kiev. This was very close
to the Khazars, to whom it is likely that the Kievan Rus at first paid tribute. While on
occasion attacking both Khazars and Byzantines, Rus rulers saw their greatest
advantage in good relations with the Byzantines, who wanted their fine furs, wax,
honey, and—especially—slaves. In the course of the tenth century, with the blessing
of the Byzantines, the Rus brought the Khazar Empire to its knees.
Nurtured through trade and military agreements, good relations between Rus’ and
Byzantium were sealed through religious conversion. In the mid-tenth century quite a
few Christians lived in Rus’. But the official conversion of the Rus to Christianity
came under Vladimir (r.980–1015). Ruler of Rus’ by force of conquest (though from
a princely family), Vladimir was anxious to court the elites of both Novgorod and
Kiev. He did so through wars with surrounding peoples that brought him and his
troops plunder and tribute. Strengthening his position still further, in 988 he adopted
the Byzantine form of Christianity, took the name “Basil” in honor of Emperor Basil
II, and married Anna, the emperor’s sister. Christianization of the general population
seems to have followed quickly. In any event, the Russian Primary Chronicle, a
twelfth-century text based in part on earlier materials, reported that under Vladimir’s
son Yaroslav the Wise (r.1019–1054), “the Christian faith was fruitful and multiplied,
while the number of monks increased, and new monasteries came into being.”^3
Vladimir’s conversion was part of a larger process of state formation and
Christianization taking place around the year 1000. In Scandinavia and the new states
of East Central Europe, as we shall see, the process resulted in Catholic kingships
