New England

New England was a colony allegedly founded, either in the 1070s or the 1090s, by Anglo-Saxon refugees fleeing the Norman invasion of England. Its existence is attested in two much later sources, the French Chronicon Universale Anonymi Laudunensis (which ends in 1219) and the 14th-century Icelandic Játvarðar Saga. They tell the story of a journey from England through the Mediterranean Sea that led to Constantinople, where the English refugees fought off a siege by heathens and were rewarded by the Byzantine Emperor 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 Premonstratensian monastery in Laon, Picardy, and covers the history of the world until 1219. The Chronicon survives in two 13th-century manuscripts, one in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Lat. 5011), and the other in the Staatsbibliothek, Berlin (Phillipps 1880). 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). It was compiled in the 14th century, in Iceland, probably using the Chronicon Universale Anonymi Laudunensis (or common ancestor) as a source. Account Játvarðar Saga relates that when the English rebels, fighting against William the Conqueror, became sure that the Danish king Sveinn Ástríðarson would not help them any more, they agreed to leave England for Constantinople (Miklagarðr). The English force consisted of 350 ships, a "great host" and "three earls and eight barons", all led by one "Siward earl of Gloucester" (Sigurðr jarl af Glocestr). They sailed past Pointe Saint-Mathieu (Matheus-nes), Galicia (Galizuland), through the Straits of Gibraltar (Nörvasundz) to Ceuta (Septem). They captured Ceuta, killing its Muslim defenders and plundering its gold and silver. After Ceuta, they seized Majorca and Menorca, before embarking to Sicily, where they heard that Constantinople was being besieged by infidels.