The
Battle of Dyrrhechium – Don’t I Know You From Somewhere?
While the story of the Battle of Hastings
(October 14) usually continues with a discussion of the Norman-French political
and to a certain extent cultural conquest of England, it is interesting to
consider the fate of certain of those who fought for the losing side of
Harold.
The core of Harold’s army was a corps of
household troops named the housecarls.
They fought with the Norwegian/Viking battle ax, sometimes with a shaft
of four feet in length. While it is true
that in the Middle Ages it would not be surprising for a person to be born,
live and die within a few miles of the same spot, all too often it is assumed
that such limited travel was typical.
Likely it was not.
After Hastings, some of Harold’s
housecarls traveled to Byzantium and there joined the Byzantine Emperor’s
Varangian Guard. According to some
sources, some of those housecarls, now as members of the Varangian Guard,
fought at the Battle of Dyrrhachium on October 18, 1081, a battle which took place
in modern day Albania. Where they were
opposing Norman invaders (the Normans had invaded and made a kingdom in
Southern Italy and Sicily and were seeking to expand their reach). According to those same sources, certain of
the troops who had fought as mercenaries for William (now the Conqueror) in
England in 1066 now faced off against the now Varangian former housecarls of Harold.
Normans versus Saxons, this time in
Albania. Not everyone stayed close to
home.
BTW, the Normans won the battle.
Today is as well the anniversary of one
of the greatest sacrileges of all time, that being the ordering of the
destruction in 1009 of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem under the
orders of Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.
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