New England (medieval)

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For the region in the northeastern United States, see New England.

New England (

Alexius I Comnenus. A group of them were given land to the north-east of the Black Sea
, reconquering it and renaming their territory "New England".

Sources

There are two extant sources which give an account of the foundation of "New England". The first account is the Chronicon Universale Anonymi Laudunensis. This was written by an English monk at the

Staatsbibliothek, Berlin (Phillipps 1880).[2]

The second is the text known as the Játvarðar Saga (Saga Játvarðar konungs hins helga), an Icelandic saga about the life of Edward the Confessor, King of England (1042–1066).[3] It was compiled in the 14th century, in Iceland, probably using the Chronicon Universale Anonymi Laudunensis (or common ancestor) as a source.[4]

Account

Játvarðar Saga relates that when the English rebels, fighting against

Majorca and Menorca, before embarking to Sicily, where they heard that Constantinople was being besieged by infidels.[7]

The English sailed to Constantinople, vanquishing the besieging fleet and clearing the heathen army.

Varangians who went into his pay".[8] While some of the English liked this idea, Earl Siward and some others desired a realm of their own to rule over into old age.[9] Alexius told them of a land over the sea that had formerly been under the emperor of Constantinople, but was now occupied by heathens.[9] The emperor granted this land to the English, and a party led by Earl Siward sailed for this land while another party of English remained in the service of Alexius.[9] The land lay "6 days north and north-east of Constantinople", and was won by Earl Siward, who after many battles drove away the heathens.[10] They called it "England" and the territory's main towns were called "London", "York", and "by the names of other great towns in England".[10] The English did not adopt "St Paul's law" (the Eastern rite liturgy), but instead sought bishops and other clergymen from the Kingdom of Hungary.[11] The descendants of these English are said to have remained in the region ever since.[11]

The story told by the Chronicon Universale Anonymi Laudunensis is largely the same in summary, but has a few variant details. It does not name the Danish king (Sveinn Ástríðarson), named as "Sveinn son of Ulf" by the Játvarðar Saga.[12] Likewise, it does not mention the route taken by the English to the Mediterranean, a route added by the Icelandic author(s) probably from "general knowledge".[12] There are other small variants, like, for instance, "William king of England" (Willelmus rex Anglie) in the Chronicon is called by the Játvarðar Saga "William the Bastard" (Viljálmr bastharðr), "Sicily" in the saga is "Sardinia" in the Chronicon, the names of the cities (London and York) are not given by the Chronicon, and the "New England" (Nova Anglia) of the Chronicon is called only "England" by the saga.[13] A bigger variant is that the Earl "Siward" (Sigurðr) of the saga is called Stanardus by the Chronicon.[14] Most of the narrative however is largely the same, the numbers and ranks of the earls and barons, their ships, as is the sailing distance from Constantinople to the colony.[15] The Chronicon, after its account of the foundation of New England, adds that when Alexius sent an official to take tribute from them, the "eastern English" (Angli orientales) killed the official; the English who remained in Constantinople, fearing that Alexius would take his revenge upon them, are said to have fled to New England and to have taken up piracy.[16]

Historicity

Skylitzes Chronicle; many if not most members of the Varangian guard were English after the 11th century.[17]

It is generally agreed among historians that English Anglo-Saxons did migrate to Constantinople in these years and joined the Varangian Guard, something which can be shown beyond question from other sources.

duke of Apulia, had taken up arms against him in support of Michael whom the Greeks—resenting the power of the Senate—had driven from the imperial throne. Consequently the English exiles were warmly welcomed by the Greeks and were sent into battle against the Norman forces, which were too powerful for the Greeks alone. The Emperor Alexius laid the foundations of a town called Civitot for the English, some distance from Byzantium; but later when the Norman threat became too great he brought them back to the imperial city and set them to guard his chief palace and royal treasures. This is the reason for the exodus of the English Saxons to Ionia; the emigrants and their heirs faithfully served the holy empire, and are still honoured among the Greeks by the Emperor, nobility, and people alike.[19]

Beyond this account, the details of the story of New England are impossible to verify; the sources in question are late, and many of the elements are, in the words of one historian, "fantastic".[20]

Many historians have nevertheless embraced the historicity of the colony. Among them are

Edgar the Ætheling.[25] Shepard later identified possible remnants of English place names in the Crimea, including potentially a "London".[26]

One further reference to the English in Constantinople can be found in the account of the Fourth Crusade in 1205 by

Geoffroy de Villehardouin, "The Conquest of Constantinople", as follows:

The French planted two scaling ladders against a barbican close to the sea. The wall here was strongly manned by Englishmen and Danes, and the struggle that ensued was stiff and hard and fierce.[27]

Linguistic evidence

Place names

Kerch strait
(MENGRELIA)

Evidence of five place names from

portolans from medieval Italian, Catalan and Greek navigators of the north coast of the Black Sea supports the view of a medieval New England east of Constantinople. It is possible that Susaco (or Porto di Susacho) derives from the word "Saxon" or "South Saxons" (from the Kingdom of Sussex, now Sussex). This may be the place that gave its name to the Ottoman fortress of Sudschuk-ckala'h or Sujuk-Qale, now the site of the Russian port city of Novorossiysk.[28]

Medieval portolans also show Londina (a place on the north coast of the Black Sea to the north-west of Susaco) that gave its name to the Londina River and may derive from the place name "London".[29]

Dialectology

Scholars such as

West Germanic forms in the sparsely-recorded lexicon of Crimean Gothic dating from the 16th century.[30]

Notes

  1. ^ Ciggaar, "L'Émigration Anglaise", p. 302; Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 181
  2. ^ Ciggaar, "L'Émigration Anglaise", pp. 301–2; Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 181
  3. ^ Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 179; translated and printed Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. iii, pp. 416–28, reprinted Ciggaar, "L'Émigration Anglaise", pp. 340–2
  4. ^ Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", pp. 181–2
  5. ^ Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. iii, p. 425
  6. ^ Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. iii, pp. 425–6
  7. ^ a b Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. iii, p. 426
  8. ^ a b Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. iii, pp. 426–7
  9. ^ a b c Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. iii, p. 427
  10. ^ a b Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. iii, pp. 427–8
  11. ^ a b Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. iii, p. 428
  12. ^ a b Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 183
  13. ^ Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 184; Ciggaar, '"L'Émigration Anglaise", pp. 322–3
  14. ^ Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 184; Ciggaar, "L'Émigration Anglaise", pp. 320–1
  15. ^ Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 181
  16. ^ Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 186
  17. ^ See, for instance, Pappas, "English Refugees"
  18. ^ Ciggaar, "England and Byzantium", pp. 78–96; Godfrey, "The Defeated Anglo-Saxons", pp. 63–74; Shepard, "The English and Byzantium", pp. 72–8; see also Pappas, "English Refugees", n. 8
  19. ^ Translation based on Chibnall (ed.), Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii, pp. 203, 205
  20. ^ Shepard, "English and Byzantium", p. 79
  21. ^ See Pappas, "English Refugees", n. 29
  22. ^ Shepard, "English and Byzantium", pp. 82–3; Williams, The English, p. 34
  23. ^ Godfrey, "The Defeated Anglo-Saxons", p. 69
  24. ^ Ciggaar, "L'Émigration Anglaise", p. 322; Williams, The English, p. 57
  25. ^ Shepard, "English and Byzantium", pp. 80–4
  26. ^ Fell, "Anglo-Saxon Emigration to Byzantium", p. 195, n. 3, citing Shepard, "Another New England?"
  27. ^ Translation by M.R.B. Shaw, The Conquest of Constantinople by Geoffroy de Villehardouin, Penguin 1963 p. 70
  28. ^ Green, Caitlin (19 May 2015). "The medieval 'New England': a forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast". Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  29. ^ Green, Caitlin (19 May 2015). "The medieval 'New England': a forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast". Retrieved 13 December 2022. Londina is found close to Susaco on the fuller, more detailed charts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and has been plausibly viewed as being just what it looks like, a version of the English place-name 'London' (with this probably being applied originally to a city on the Black Sea coast and then transferred to an associated river—as sometimes occurs in with English place-names and river-names—hence the fact that the name Londina is frequently preceded by flume or flumen on the portolans).
  30. ^
    ISBN 9788200066149
    . Retrieved 13 December 2022.

References

Further reading

External links

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