polotaswarf

English

Alternative forms

• polutasvarf

Etymology

From Old Norse, palace-looting.

Noun

polotaswarf (uncountable)

1. The right of the Viking Varangian guard, upon the death of the Byzantine emperor, to remove from the royal palace as much treasure as they could carry in their hands.
   • 1230, Snorri Sturlason, chapter 16, in Heimskringla: The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway:

     Harald [Hardraade] had been three times in the poluta-svarf while he was in Constantinople. It is the custom, namely, there, that every time one of the Greek emperors dies, the Varings are allowed poluta-svarf; that is, they may go through all the emperor's palaces where his treasures are and each may take and keep what he can lay hold of while he is going through them.

   • 1866, Charles Kingsley, Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 42:

     I shall go down to Constantinople to the Varangers, get my Polotaswarf out of the Kaiser’s treasure, and pay thee back five to one.

   • 1904, Colingwood, W. G., “King William the Wanderer”, in Saga-book‎^[1], volume 4, pages 171-181:

     In the eleventh century, and among people who knew the Viking Age at first hand, this custom of Polotasvarf would be familiar. Modern English readers have the word from Kingsley's Hereward," where it is used as equivalent to loot, or booty; but it was properly the "palace-scouring" of the Warengs, who had the right of pillaging when the Greek Emperor died; an Oriental custom, I imagine, brought north from Byzantium.