The Viking Road to Byzantium (1976) is a major study of the Vikings who travelled east, based on the evidence of written sources and archaeology. Clues to the movements of the eastern Vikings may be found not only in Icelandic skaldic verse and runic inscriptions on memorial stones, but in such unexpected places as a Romanian chalk quarry near the Black Sea, among the carved stones of ancient Thrace and in Constantinople itself, the Miklagard of northern literature.
Part 1. Trade and Tribute 1. Across the Baltic 2. Finnmark and Biarmaland 3. Journeys into Russia 4. The Coming of the Rus 5. Markets and Fortresses 6. The Road to Constantinople 7. The Wares They Carried Part 2. Fighting in the East 8. The Rus as Warriors 9. The First Attacks on Constantinople 10. The Campaigns of the Rus 11. The Great Svyatoslav 12. The Varangians in Russia 13. The Last Links with Scandinavia Part 3. Norsemen in Byzantium 14. The Varangian Guard 15. Life in Miklagard 16. A Norwegian Prince in Byzantium 17. In the Service of the Emperor 18. The Holy City Part 4. Ideas from the East 19. Marvels and Portents 20. The Role of the Shaman 21. Odin in the East
Biography
H.R. Ellis Davidson
