Byzantine Military Tactics

OK, it's really not THAT much of a stretch from medicine to killing - wounds, etc., right? Check out this link - it's terrific. Medievalists.net is a newsletter full of articles and things for us - medievalists. They have a great article on Byzantine military tactics, which the Normans either appropriated (I'm thinking specifically here of Robert Guiscard, but they all did it) or, is this more interesting - did the Byzantine Emperor learn this from his Varangian Guard?

The Varangian Guard - Byzantine warriors - or English? Or Scandinavian?

So OK, I'm zooming from food to fighting - too much caffeine?  Maybe, maybe not.  Book #3 of The Vespers Trilogy, which is being written as we speak (or maybe an hour before we're speaking) has a new character called Arduin, who chooses to serve with the King's Assassin, and was a former Varangian guard.  So I did some more research on the Varangian guards, the elite Byzantine warriors who were feared through the medieval world.  Harald Hardrada, the greatest warrior of his time, served as a Varangian guard.


So I can't resist, one more time, another link.  This is a medieval military website where there just happens to be an article about English warriors as part of the Varangian guard.  Enjoy!!!


http://deremilitari.org/2014/06/english-refugees-in-the-byzantine-armed-forces-the-varangian-guard-and-anglo-saxon-ethnic-consciousness/