monarchy, the feudal system was implanted.

Feudality was the natural first step of a people emerging from
barbarism. The sovereign rewarded his favorites, or compensated his
servants, civil and military, by ceding to them provinces of greater
or less extent, with unlimited authority over the people subject to
their control. These lords acknowledged fealty to the sovereign, paid
a stipulated amount of tribute, and, in case of war, were bound to
enter the field with a given number of men in defense of the crown. It
was a system essential, perhaps, to those barbarous times when there
was no easy communication between distant regions, no codes of laws,
and no authority, before which savage men would bow, but that of the
sword.

At this time two young Norman nobles, inspired with that love of war
and spirit of adventure which characterized their countrymen, left the
court of Rurik at Novgorod, where they had been making a visit, and
with well-armed retainers, commenced a journey to Constantinople to
offer their services to the emperor. It was twelve hundred miles,
directly south, from Novgorod to the imperial city. The adventurers
had advanced about half way, when they arrived at a little village,
called Kief, upon the banks of the Dnieper. The location of the city
was so beautiful, upon a commanding bluff, at the head of the
navigation of this majestic stream, and the region around seemed so
attractive, that the Norman adventurers, Ascolod and Dir by name,
decided to remain there. They were soon joined by others of their
warlike countrymen. The natives appear to have made no opposition to
their rule, and thus Kief became the center of a new and independent
Russian kingdom. These energetic men rapidly extended their
territories, raised a large army, which was thoroughly drilled in all
the science of Norman warfare, and then audaciously declared war
against Greece and attempted its subjugation. The Dnieper, navigable
for boats most of the distance from Kief to the Euxine, favored their
enterprise. They launched upon the stream two hundred barges, which
they filled with their choicest troops. Rapidly they floated down the
stream, spread their sails upon the bosom of the Euxine, entered the
Bosporus, and anchoring their fleet at the mouth of the Golden Horn,
laid siege to the city. The Emperor Michael III. then reigned at
Constantinople. This Northmen invasion was entirely unexpected, and
the emperor was absent, engaged in w