Nova Anglia legend

[tllwd]

This is a saga about some Anglo Saxons refugees after defeat by Normans at Hastings in 1066. Have anyone heard about it?

They left their estates and fled away from the land with a great host and were led by Siward, earl of Gloucester, and headed south to the Mediterranean, making a raid on Cueta, North Africa, and slaughtering there. Afterwards, they made haste to Micklegarth, now known as Istanbul, where they had heard a siege was underway.

They defeated the enemy ships and the saga says that the emperor ‘took wonderfully well’ to the newcomers. According to the saga he offered the English positions in his personal bodyguard, the Varangians, so impressed was he by the warriors. Rather astutely the Englishmen asked for land instead.

Rather than deprive his own aristocrats of their lands, the emperor advised the English of a region across the sea, which had once belonged to the Romans and that if they were able to defeat the barbarians that were living then then they could have the land.

[tllwd]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/800x ... I1X0XC.png

Italian atlas of 1553 of the Crimea, which names Susaco (Sussex) and Londina (London), believed to have been settlements in ‘Nova Anglia.

It was not possible to determine the dimensions of the image. Please verify that the URL you entered is correct.

[Black Orchid]

Interesting read.

Posting images here pretty well sucks. It needs an extension add-on to be able to post pics directly from a url.

[tllwd]

Now the picture is ok.

Anyway, Nova Anglia is a legend because there were no archeological evidence, however I've read rumors about some material findings when Russians were building the bridge to Crimea, but they were not published because of anti Russian sanctions that included scientific exchange.

So for now there are only the 14th-century Icelandic Saga of Edward the Confessor and the anonymous Chronicle of Laon of c1220 and plenty of speculations.

[Jasin]

Very interesting. Haven't heard this one. But there have been similar circumstances like Vikings also reaching Istanbul and before and doing the 'mercenary' thing, as did many through the ages for many others too.