title: Introductory Essay: Migration—Travel—Commerce—Cultural Transfer. The Complex Connections Byzantium-Kiev-Novgorod-Varangian Lands, 6–14th Century
abstract: This paper uses the migration of Scandinavian groups towards Eastern Europe and the establishment of connections to Byzantium as case study for the illustration of the diversity of medieval migration movements. Various motives and socio-economic frameworks of migration are described. Equally, the enduring effects of human mobility in the long term as well as short term dynamics of the networks and spatial axes of migration are analysed.