Byzantium and the Rus
The Byzantine Empire and Eastern Europe are two of the most interesting geographic areas in the world for anyone studying the Scandinavian mercenary. For starters, studying Nordic sellswords in these areas is much easier than in other parts of the world because there is quite a large pool of primary sources to pull from. One of the main reasons that there is so much primary source coverage is simply because whenever a Nordic man went east and sought employment amongst the Rus or Byzantines, he often returned a changed man. Without almost any exceptions this change was for the better. These men often left poor, commanding no more respect or wealth than they could fit into their solitary longships, and returned as some of the most wealthy and powerful people of their time. So powerful, that some were even able to make themselves kings.
Disclaimer and Tips:
- Major cities which may have multiple points – Constantinople, Novgorod, Kiev
- Remember to use the zoom feature, there are quite a lot of points on this map.
- If you find yourself clicking on the same point over and over again, check to see if there isn’t a small arrow symbol (looks like a play symbol) in the pop-up window.If there you find this symbol, it means that at your current zoom level the points are too close to one another and therefore have been lumped together.From here, you can either click this button to cycle through the points at your current zoom level, or, use the built in zoom tool and re-adjust your view until the points are distinct from one another.
- Unless said otherwise, the color of each map-point is specific to a particular mercenary. Legends are provided for more detail. In the runestone map individual colors represent individual runestones.
- The runestone map is organized differently than the rest. It does not fall under the same theme categories.
- For those who have slower setups or may be accessing the maps via WiFi I recommend slow scrolling. These story maps have quite a lot of media and data attached to them and if one scrolls too fast there is a chance that the page will not load or display properly.