Chapter 15: Fools to the Left, Jokers to the Right (February 1079 – September 1080)
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A Fool Falls: February – May 1079
We resume with the main campaign in Bohemia having just seen its culmination in the Battle of Praha in January 1079, while in the 3rd Crusade for France the Papal army approaches the border of Rurikid France and Rurikid troops have landed in Rome and started to besiege and assault the walls of its holdings.
In Bohemia, the armies of Prince Falki and Fredrik were combined and then divided in half after the Battle of Praha. Falki stayed to continue the sieges in Praha, while Fredrik took the other half south to clear a small Bavarian regiment out of Domazlice. This was accomplished easily and the siege works established by 19 February.
As that was being done, Falki began a series of assaults in Praha to help speed up the process of Bohemia’s defeat.
In France, after a chase around the countryside, Hysing finally caught up with the main Papal army, supported by the Teutonic Knights, in Saintois on 24 February. At the Battle of Brixey, the only Crusader army of any size was comprehensively defeated. The Pope himself commanded the left flank but was able to escape capture during the pursuit.
The Crusade was already in big trouble, as holdings were already beginning to fall through assaults whenever the Rurikid besiegers were ready.
Fylkir Arni had recently invested a good deal of title grants in King Guðroðr of Irland. But he lived (or rather, died) up to his reputation as a puny, depraved and sickly man after succumbing to leprosy in March 1079. He was succeeded by his very young son, King Birger II. Birger’s heir was his uncle, Guðroðr’s brother Gnupa.
On 26 March, the levies sent by boat from Livland back in late October the year before arrived in Rome, adding another 8,000 men to the besiegers and making the assaults quicker and less costly. Having passed through Constantinople on their way, they were able to report that the massive smallpox outbreak in Anatolia and Thrace had largely dispersed by then, though camp fever now infected much of Greece.
By mid-April, Rome’s six holdings had all been reduced either by siege or assault since 9 January at the cost of a total of 1,473 Rurikid soldiers. When Urbanus III was approached, he knew he was already beaten and a week later was obliged to offer his capitulation, paying an indemnity and losing even more prestige and what little remained of Catholicism’s moral authority.
Arni disbanded the levies in France, leaving those still prosecuting the war in Bohemia in the field as the large force in Rome took to the ships again. On 9 May, Jarl Rikulfr of Champagne’s Holy War for Savoy ended inconclusively when his
casus belli lapsed after his target became unlanded. But the Jomsviking’s conquest of Bordeaux ended in victory just four days later, linking Marsan to the rest of the empire and depriving Aquitaine of its capital and access to the Atlantic coast.
As May ended, Birger (the siege-specialist general) was in Amalfi with over 13,700 men left over from the attack on Rome. But because the war with Bohemia still dragged on, they were barred from invoking the sacred raiding toggle. They waited until they could once again go
on viking: until then, it was rumoured that many a manly Norse sword was drawn (and indeed, sheathed) in the flesh pots of the wealthy Italian port!
To hasten the end of the war with Bohemia, more assaults were begun where the odds appeared reasonable.
A Joker Capitulates: June-December 1079
By 9 June, all three holdings in Domazlice had been taken at the cost of just 396 levies. As that conflict was being brought to as rapid a conclusion as possible, young King Oddr ‘the Sword of Thor’ was living up to his name. The Lotharingian civil war had ended by 12 June and he was drawing ahead in his defence against King Þorsteinn of Sviþjod.
One may have thought that Warchief Valdemar’s recent victory in Bordeaux may have cemented his authority among the Jomsvikings but this was clearly not the case. Barely two years after succeeding he predecessor Anlaufr (who had died of the plague in May 1076), Valdemar (himself not a well man and rumoured to be a lunatic) was overthrown. By Haukr af Vendel: who suffered from cancer!
By mid-July, Arni decided to see if Bohemia had realised its pitiful claim war was hopeless, even though they were not yet fully occupied. It seems they did! In Praha and Plzen, a total of a further 5 holdings had fallen to siege and assault, at the cost of almost 2,000 levy troops. But the job was done, and quite quickly.
Two days later, the raiding toggles were ceremonially invoked and over 14,000 raiders embarked on 173 galleys. They were headed for rich Tunis, in the lands of the powerful Tulunid Sultanate, which had been untouched by the sweep of the black death.
In August, a few of the empire’s lesser lights were trying their own hands at conquest against the eastern Aquitanian enclave in Upper Burgundy, prosecuting overlapping claims.
Soon after, the last of the levies that had been employed in Bohemia were safely back on Russian territory and could be disbanded, saving money and mollifying the vassals they had been drawn from. But the force that landed in Tunis on 4 September contained a mix of levies and ‘regulars’ and would have to pay their way, as the vassal ship levies were also kept in service, a sore point for the lords upon whom this imposition fell.
At the Imperial court, Arni’s desires to continue some more legal reform were on hold due to the current attitude of the Council. With the treasury in good enough shape and raiding revenue set to return in coming months, a concerted program of ‘gift giving’ followed to those members for whom this was likely to prove beneficial.
Arni’s kinsman Anlaufr of Volga Bulgaria had proven an active and effective marcher lord over the years in the eastern steppe lands. To both decrease imperial vassal over-reach and ensure continued power and loyalty of a key marcher lord, Arni granted his crown for this region to a grateful ‘Sword of the Allfather’ in early October 1079. Together with some land grants some years before, this would more than make up for Anlaufr’s frustrations at not having a seat on the Council.
While Arni’s vassal span was now well under control again, he had never been able to expand the acceptable number of demesne titles he could hold to the desired nine, though for now he clung to the extra barony despite the opinion and revenue penalties this accrued among his vassals. On 7 October, he changed his personal focus to pursuing family life. Given the uncertainties of medieval life, he wanted more spare heirs and daughters to help secure his own branch of the by now extensive Rurikid dynasty.
Demonstrating some excellent initiative, in mid-November Jarl Toke of Lothian decided to attempt a direct conquest of the recently weakened Pope’s own seat in Rome! It looked like Urbanus would be in considerable trouble unless he could find some allies to help him. Arni was able to have a good chortle at this turn of events and let Toke get on with his good work.
By mid-December, the raid in Tunis was continuing untroubled, with no serious Tulunid response yet visible and some minor scrub war went on to the west of the raiders.
Of Pirates and Popes: January-September 1080
The year began with further population recovery in Holmgarðr and Paris (therefore all depopulation now repaired for five of the nine imperial baronies), though minor depopulation still affected Torzhok. Despite this peasant fury or civil unrest still affected all the demesne counties in Russian and France, suppressing take takes.
By this time, a small amount was still being spent on Imperial levy upkeep, but most expenditure was for retinue upkeep, which would vary depending on losses and recruitment requirements. The vast bulk of regular income came from feudal taxes, while previously healthy demesne income remained low for the reasons highlighted above.
It was finally time to boost vassal willingness to pay more taxes by releasing one of the long-held excess baronies. The most recently established, Okulovka in Holmgarðr, was chosen. Though Rouen currently ranked below it in levy size and equal in tax income, this was due to ongoing temporary effects of the plague and it should eventually return to greater prosperity. Okulovka was granted to Arni’s son and heir, Arnfast, to keep it in the line of inheritance while removing the considerable malus of holding too many demesne titles.
This transfer immediately boosted all tax takes, adding more than 100 gold per annum to the bottom line and sending the budget from deficit to surplus (independent of any potential raiding income). This allowed retinue reinforcement to be reset to maximum after some years of economising.
More good news came when the rebellious county of Gnesen was finally converted from its Lollard heresy to Germanicism on 3 February: hopefully this should end the long series of peasant revolts that had afflicted it in previous years.
And Arni’s family focus paid off with the birth of a third son – his fifth child so far – in February 1080.
Just when the tax take was starting to recover, a pirate scourge struck all Russian port cities, affecting a significant part of the empire. Advisers blamed this on English ‘agents’, so Arni despatched a letter to the crusty old King Alfgeir of England to see if this was so.
Alfgeir resented the accusation and responded with insults. Arni was in turn similarly offended at the tone, mistrusted Alfgeir and sent a belligerent reply of his own.
Not surprisingly, this clash of wills ended in mutual recrimination and a breaking of the pact between the two realms that had been forged by Arni’s marriage to Asa, Princess of England and now Empress of Russia. “I hope the old turd chokes out his last consumptive breath soon!” was Arni’s final response. He informed his courtiers that he took pleasure in using Alfgeir’s reply "to wipe my hairy Viking arse!”
With the increased replacement rate, retinue replacement costs had ballooned and by April, as piracy continued to plague Russia’s trading ports, the budget was back into considerable deficit. By the end of May, Rouen was still suffering from significant depopulation, civil unrest and the effects of piracy, reducing tax income to a trickle in the Imperial barony and for the rest of the county.
But Arni was chuckling again when news came in early June that King Alfgeir had indeed kicked the royal bucket. He was succeeded by his son Hysing, who had earlier been betrothed to Arni’s daughter. Relations with England were fully repaired and a new pact began.
In Tunis, 6 holdings had been plundered from September 1079 to June 1080, with over 500 gold looted and only 162 raiders lost. The two raiding armies then split into two, heading north and south to continue the lucrative trade, still without any serious Tulunid threat.
The regular raiders left on the continent final pulled into southern France at around the same time. At that point, Arni decided to offer his support to Toke’s attack on Rome. As Andyamo’s army began the march to Rome, by 9 July its conquest (now under Arni’s control) was making fair progress as the Lothians continued their siege work. And unremarked until now by chroniclers, Istria had been conquered previously from the Venetians by one Sturla of Ugra, a powerful steppe chieftain who was now seeking to take Ravenna.
As these things often went, young King Birger’s time on the Irish throne did not last long. He died ‘under suspicious circumstances’ in July 1080. Lo and behold, his uncle and heir, Gnupa – whose only skill was in skull-duggery and was otherwise known as a lazy and cowardly drunkard – took the throne. But no kinslaying or murderous blame attached to him, so everyone from Arni down just shrugged, muttered and went on about their business.
The instability within the Jomsvikings continued when a revolt was launched on 31 August against Warchief Haukr seeking to return the deposed Valdemar to the leadership of the Order. For now, Arni would let them “have at it”, on the “boys will be boys” principle.
In great news, even as the war for Rome continued, Sturla succeeded in his conquest of Ravenna on 14 September 1080. This would provide an excellent land raiding base for all the surrounding counties and continued the gradual Rurikid infiltration of Italy as an active zone of expansion.
Not all the scars from the black death and its legacy of peasant unrest in the Imperial demesne counties had fully healed, but a resumption of ‘business as usual’ seemed to be well under way, at least.
And to him, the great unwashed are probably more that than genuine citizens in his eyes. He will ruthlessly deal with them if he must to preserve the dynasty. Kindness only extends so far in his mediaeval Norse-Rus sensibility.
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