New England (medieval)

New England (Latin: Nova Anglia) was a colony allegedly founded in the late 11th century by English refugees fleeing William the Conqueror. Its existence is only attested in two sources, dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, the French Chronicon Universale Anonymi Laudunensis and the 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". Though these sources are late, New England is thought by some historians to be based on a reality.

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.

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