Hi,
Just like to thank Alan Kempner for his answer. The Varangian Guard, of Byzantine fame, would have been in existence from the Dark Ages until near the end of Medieval period (I’ve often considered early 1500’s marks this end) and my brother might have confused them as belonging to a later period.
However, there was a guard unit wielding pole-arms in Tsarist Russia. These might have been referred to as ‘Sterlitz’ (although I might have got that wrong). Perhaps my brother was thinking of them?
Robert Douglass