Annales Bertiniani.html



The Annales Bertiniani, or Annals of St. Bertin, is a Frankish chronicle that was found in the Monastery of St. Bertin, after which it is named. The chronicle covers the period 830-82 and was written by a number of scribes, including Hincmar of Reims. It is available in Monumenta Germaniæ Historica.

The Annals are notable, among other things, for a reference to a group of Vikings who called themselves "Rhos" and who had visited Constantinople about the year 838. Fearful of returning home through the steppes, which would have left them vulnerable to attack by the Magyars, the Rhos traveled via Germany. Somewhere near Mainz they were questioned by Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious and informed him that their leader was known as "chacanus" (Latin for "Khagan") and that they lived in northern Russia, but that their ancestral homeland was in Sweden.^[1]

References

1. ^ Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings, 2nd ed., London, Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 249-250.