Writing about the unit as it was in 1080, the chronicler and princess Anna Komnene refers to these "axe-bearing barbarians" as being "from Thule", likely a reference to the British Isles or Scandinavia. Likewise, the Byzantine civil-servant, soldier and historian John Kinnamos calls these "axe-bearers" that guarded the Emperor "the British nation, which has been in service to the Romans' Emperors from a long time back". Kinnamos was writing in the later 12th century, indicating perhaps that the more Dane and Saxon composition of the guard continued to the point of the Fourth Crusade.