Britain ... - Blue-Lite

NOTES TO THE VARANGIAN. 425
wealth, of which his prodigality had deprived him. He was
condemned for the murder of many wives, whom he had married
successively, and of more than an hundred children, and was
burned alive in the presence of I. Francois Duke of Brittany,
near Nantes. A thousand instances of the horrid atrocities of
these titled thieves and murderers might be collected. Their
manners and character were the same for ages throughout
Christendom, wherever the feudal system was established.
Henry I., the Lion of Justice, struck down many of these
petty despots, and protected the ministers of the law : but
they soon recovered their detestable power and privileges 5 and
it is to the splendid institution of modern chivalry and knighterrantry,
united with the writers of Romance, that the amelioration
of the savage manners of Europe in the middle ages is
chiefly to be attributed.
15
( ) Varangian! what
New mystic title's that? .... p. 285.
During the troubles in England after the Norman invasion,
numbers both of Saxon and Danish race fled the kingdom,
and sought refuge in other countries. Many wandered as far
as Constantinople, where they were honourably received by the
Emperor, and enlisted into his guards. Ordericus
"
says, that
the Anglo-Saxons sought Ionia, where they and their heirs
served faithfully the sacred empire : and they remain till now
among the Thracians with great honour, dear to the people,
the senate, and the sovereign."
The Varangian guards of the Greek emperors were originally
Scandinavian rovers, who conquered the ancient Russians.
The first Waldimir advised them to embark for Greece, where
they might find a nobler reward for their services than he could
bestow. They were received at Constantinople, and employed
in the duty of " "
guards and their -,
strength (we quote Gibbon)
" was recruited by a numerous band of their countrymen from
the island of Thule. On this occasion, the vague appellation
of Thule is applied to England j and the new Varangians were
a colony of English and Danes, who fled from the yoke of the
Norman conqueror. The habits of pilgrimage and piracy had
these exiles were
approximated the countries of the earth ;
entertained in the Byzantine court and ; they preserved, till
the last age
of the empire, the inheritance of spotless loyalty,
and the use of the Danish or English tongue. With their
broad and double-edged battle-axes on their shoulders, they
attended the Greek emperor to the temple, the senate, and the
hippodrome ; he slept and feasted under their trusty guard ;