In the first quarter of the 11th century, a force of Kievan Rus’ warriors sailed for Constantinople hoping to join the Varangian Guard — the Byzantine emperor’s elite personal bodyguard, foreign troops trusted precisely because they had no stake in local politics, not unlike Rome’s Praetorian Guard centuries earlier. The city turned them away at […]

“I have sent him a ribbon when, in fact, what he deserved was a rope.” This phrase is attributed to King George IV of England, and the ribbon in question would be that of the Order of the Bath, which had just been awarded to Edward Codrington, the admiral who had achieved victory in the […]