New England (medieval)
Its existence is attested in two 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.
[4] 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).
[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.
[16] 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.
Some sent to Sveinn, king of Denmark, and urged him to lay claim to the kingdom of England ... Others went into voluntary exile so that they might either find in banishment freedom from the power of the Normans or secure foreign help and come back and fight a war of vengeance.
Some of them who were still in the flower of their youth travelled into remote lands and bravely offered their arms to Alexius, emperor of Constantinople, a man of great wisdom and nobility.
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".
[29] Scholars such as Ottar Grønvik note apparent West Germanic forms in the sparsely-recorded lexicon of Crimean Gothic dating from the 16th century.
