Now this is a treasure of a thing. Settle down and read Caitlin Green’s article, The medieval ‘New England’: a forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast. It begins:
Although the name ‘New England’ is now firmly associated with the east coast of America, this is not the first place to be called that. In the medieval period there was another Nova Anglia, ‘New England’, and it lay far to the east of England, rather than to the west, in the area of the Crimean peninsula. The following post examines some of the evidence relating to this colony, which was said to have been established by Anglo-Saxon exiles after the Norman conquest of 1066 and seems to have survived at least as late as the thirteenth century. [continue]
This was long enough to read on my e-reader but I’m so glad I did. What an amazing piece. I wonder whether any of the local inhabitants of the Crimean peninsula have genetic markers consistent with some Anglo-Saxon DNA in their distant past. I’d love to know what became of this group; I suspect they were ultimately overwhelmed by the warring groups around them.
It is amazing. I read the whole thing aloud to my husband as he cooked me dinner (a fine arrangement, btw) and we were both captivated by the article.