This seemed like an interesting Quora.

Did any of the Anglo-Saxon nobles survive the Norman Conquest of 1066?
Are their descendants a prominent part of British Society today?

Barry McGuinness, knows about being European
Updated Dec 2
This is a little-known but fascinating episode in British history known
as the Anglo-Saxon emigration to Byzantium (Constantinople). It led to
the founding of a ‘New England’ settlement of Anglo-Saxon exiles in the
Crimea.

Following the Conquest of 1066, the Anglo-Saxon English initially fought
a resistance campaign against the new king William and his Norman
invaders, but this proved unsuccessful. Within twenty years of the
invasion, almost the entire nobility had either died or fled the country.

“By the time the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, the elite had been
almost completely wiped out: of the 500 or so top individuals listed in
the survey as tenants of the king, only 13 had English names... The
aristocracy of Anglo-Saxon England had been almost completely swept away
– killed in battle, driven into exile or forced to exist in suppressed
circumstances.�

Morris (2016), p. 34
A few Anglo-Saxon nobles had relocated to Scotland, France or
Scandinavia. Those who had remained were mostly dispossessed of
everything they owned and reduced to poverty.

The rest, however, undertook a mass exodus by sea, sailing from England
into the Mediterranean, heading ultimately for Constantinople.

Medieval Constantinople

The city of Constantinople (part of modern-day Istanbul, Turkey) was
known to the ancient Greeks as Byzantium. It had been the capital of the
Eastern Roman Empire since the fall of the West.

The exodus of Anglo-Saxon nobles to the city is recorded in both a
13th-Century French chronicle, Chronicon universale anonymi Laudunensis
[see Ciggaar, 1974] and a 14th-Century Icelandic saga, Játvarðar Saga.
The arrival and welcoming of English refugee warriors at this time is
also recorded in Byzantine history.

But why would so many Anglo-Saxon nobles want to emigrate to
Constantinople of all places?

There are various likely reasons:

Constantinople was known to be the largest, wealthiest and most
beautiful city in all of Europe, ‘the Queen of Cities’.
It had long-established trade links with southern Britain.
It may also be that the Anglo-Saxons revered Constantinople as the holy
centre of Christendom, their spiritual heartland, and felt an affinity
with Eastern Orthodox Christianity [Turner, 2015]. The Great Schism
between the Catholic Church of Rome and Eastern Orthodox Church of
Constantinople had only recently occurred, in 1054.
The Anglo-Saxon fleet consisted of 250 to 350 ships, and up to 5,000
people, including “three earls and eight barons", their top fighting men
(and presumably their families as well as some clergy). They were led by
one "Siward earl of Gloucester", who may (or may not) be the person
known to history as Siward Barn. [1]

In effect, the Anglo-Saxon nobles and warriors were migrant refugees
seeking a new life abroad. But they were also battle-hardened Christian
soldiers, perhaps eager for victory.

Sailing into the Mediterranean, they captured Ceuta (a city on the north
coast of Africa) and the islands of Majorca (Mallorca) and Menorca
(Minorca) from ‘infidels’ (Muslims) before embarking to Sicily.


But upon hearing that Constantinople itself was being besieged, they
headed straight there too and helped free the city.

As a result of their triumphs:

The ruler of Constantinople, Alexius I Comnenus (Kirjalax), offered to
take the English into service, allowing them to live in Constantinople
as his bodyguards, "as was the wont of the Varangians who went into his
pay".

New England (medieval) - Wikipedia
The Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine Army whose
members served as personal bodyguards to the Emperors. The Varangians
also participated in many wars and often played a crucial role, since
they were usually employed at critical moments of battle.

Composed primarily of Scandinavians for the first 100 years, the guard
began to see increased inclusion of Anglo-Saxons after the successful
invasion of England by the Normans. In 1088 a large number … emigrated
to the Byzantine Empire by way of the Mediterranean. [They] became so
vital to the Varangians that the Guard was commonly called the
Englinbarrangoi (Anglo-Varangians) from that point…

Varangians — New World Encyclopaedia
By the time of the Emperor Alexios Komnenos in the late 11th century,
the Varangian Guard was largely recruited from Anglo-Saxons.

Varangian Guard - Wikipedia

[The Byzantine Empire, c. 1070]

The fact that axe-bearing English soldiers joined the Guard at this time
is also recorded by Byzantine historians. And in true character —

Other than their fierce loyalty, the most recognizable attributes of the
Varangian guard during the 11th century were their large axes and their
penchant for drinking. There are countless stories of the Varangian
guard either drinking in excess or being drunk.

Varangians — New World Encyclopaedia
The Anglo-Varangians helped Alexius in his many battles to restore the
Byzantine Empire’s lost ground, fighting Seljuk Turks in the East as
well as (ironically) Norman invaders in the West.

But while some of the English refugees liked the idea of joining the
Varangian Guard, Siward and a number of others desired a realm of their
own to rule over into old age.

Alexius told them of a land over the [Black] sea that had formerly been
under the emperor of Constantinople, but was now occupied by heathens.
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.

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. They
called it "England" and the territory's main towns were called "London",
"York", and "by the names of other great towns in England".

New England (medieval) - Wikipedia
Thus some of the English took up the offer of establishing a ‘New
England’ (or Nova Anglia) settlement across the Black Sea, evidently in
the Crimea and to the south of the nearby Sea of Azov.


There is evidence to support this. A hundred years later, missionaries
passing through this area reported coming across a Christian people who
called themselves ‘Saxi’ (Saxons).

Medieval maritime charts of the area also show place names such as
‘Londina’ (London) and ‘Susaco’ (Sussex). [2]


The English colonialists kept their independence. According to the
French account, Chronicon universale anonymi Laudunensis, when an envoy
of the Byzantine emperor came to Nova Anglia demanding taxes, they
killed him.

Their descendants might still be in the region today. Certainly their
language seems to have persisted for centuries.

Crimean Gothic was an East Germanic language spoken by the Crimean Goths
in some isolated locations in Crimea. The existence of a Germanic
dialect in Crimea is noted in a number of sources from the 9th century
to the 18th century.

Crimean Gothic - Wikipedia
Examples:

apel – apple

bruder – brother

goltz – gold

handa – hand

hus – house

kommen – come

plut – blood

reghen – rain

ringo – ring

salt – salt

schuuester – sister

siluir – silver

singhen – sing

stul – seat (stool)

sune – sun

tag – day

vvaghen – wagon

Gothic Online: Lesson 10 — web archive [Thanks to Brendan Gordon for
this addition]
NOTES

[1] Siward Barn was the only landowner named ‘Siward’ listed in William
the Conqueror’s Domesday Book of 1086 as having substantial holdings in
Gloucestershire. This Siward had been captured and imprisoned in 1071
while fighting for the English resistance against the Normans, but was
released from prison by a guilt-ridden King William just before the
latter’s death in 1087. If the Anglo-Saxon fleet arrived in
Constantinople in 1088, then theoretically this could be the same Siward
after all.

[2] According to Andrew Philips (1952):

“After painstaking research it has been discovered that mediæval maps of
this region list no fewer than six towns with names suggesting English
settlements. These settlements on maps of the fourteenth to sixteenth
centuries are located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. One of
the names appears as ‘Susaco’, possibly from ‘Saxon’. Another town,
situated some 110 miles to the east of the straits of Kerch near the Sea
of Azov appears variously as ‘Londia’, ‘Londin’ and ‘Londina’. On the
twelfth century Syrian map the Sea of Azov itself is called the ‘Varang’
Sea, the Sea of the Varangians, a name used for the English in
Constantinople at this period.� -

SOURCES

Krijnie N. Ciggaar (1974) L'émigration anglaise Ã* Byzance après 1066. Un
nouveau texte en latin sur les Varangues Ã* Constantinople. Revue des
études byzantines, Vol. 32, 301-342
Caitlin Green (2015) The medieval 'New England': a forgotten Anglo-Saxon
colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast
Frank Jacobs (2015) Another New England — in Crimea - BigThink
Stephen Lewis (19 Oct 2013) Seeking Revenge – The English Varangian
Guard at the Battle of Dyrrhachium in 1081. The Wild Peak (blog).
Stephen Lewis (20 Oct 2013) Exile rather than servitude – the English
leave for Constantinople. The Wild Peak (blog).
Marc Morris (November 2016) What the Normans did for Us. BBC History
Magazine.
Vladimir Moss- The Anglo-Saxon Exiles in Constantinople - article
largely based on Andrew Phillips (1952), Orthodox Christianity and the
Old English Church.
Nicholas C.J. Pappas (2014) English Refugees in the Byzantine Armed
Forces: The Varangian Guard and Anglo-Saxon Ethnic Consciousness. De Re
Military - The Society for Military Medieval History.
Fr. Andrew Phillips (1952) Orthodox Christianity and the Old English
Church [PDF]
Cynthia L. Puryear (1974) The effects of the Norman Conquest on Anglo-
Saxon Aristocracy. Honors Theses. Paper 711. University of Richmond.
Jonathan Shepard (1974) Another New England? Anglo-Saxon settlement on
the Black Sea, Byzantine Studies 1: 18–39. [PDF]
Jonathan Shepard (1973). The English and Byzantium: A Study in their
Role in the Byzantine Army in the Later Eleventh Century. Traditio 29:
53–92. [Google Scholar]
Jack Turner (2015) The Orthodoxy of the Anglo-Saxons: conversion and
loyalty in the pre-conquest English Church. International Journal for
the Study of the Christian Church, Volume 15, Issue 3, 199–213.