Saxons in Iceland

I've always tried to promote the idea of medieval colonization, as popularized in Empty America, but have been thwarted by LSCatilina at every turn.

Today my Wiki travels have revealed this thing:

New England (Latin: Nova Anglia) was a colony allegedly founded in the mid-to-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.

Okay, that's just silly, but my two takeaways:

1. Medievals Icelandics thought that Anglos were capable of fleeing William the Conqueror in great numbers

Játvarðar Saga relates that when the Anglo-Saxon & Anglo-Danish 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).[5] The English force consisted of 350 ships, a "great host" and "three earls and eight barons", all led by one "Siward earl of Gloucester" (Sigurðr jarl af Glocestr).

2. Icelandics, you say?

What if this great host actually happened, and instead of doing some weird reenactment of the Varangian Guard, they went west (like I always insist they should), but instead of ahistoricallly discovering America, they go to Iceland, instead. Or Greenland.

I mean, why would they flee all of the way to Constantinople? They might as well sail west.
 
but have been thwarted by LSCatilina at every turn.
Sorry to break in already, then.

Medievals Icelandics thought that Anglos were capable of fleeing William the Conqueror in great numbers
Actually, it's not exactly Icelandics. The story comes as well from a French XIIIth account than a late medieval (XIVth) Icelandic saga.

We're talking of an account that only appears centuries after the fact, and blended with Novia Anglia stuff. I'm sorry, but that doesn't exactly scream for entiere plausibility and says nothing about possibility of that of a great departure that is not accounted elsewhere, and especially contemporarily.

You'd notice that we're mainly talking of Anglo-Scandinavian people there, rather than Saxons (even if the difference may have been quite limited). They have a story of migrations, as with Anglo-Scandinavian forming the bulk of Norman settlement in Francia, that late Saxons didn't have. (Of course, it generally implied an important acculturation).

What if this great host actually happened, and instead of doing some weird reenactment of the Varangian Guard,
Having Anglo-Dane going all the way to Constantinople is an historical fact, as long it doesn't involve fantastic numbers : Saxon presence into Varangian Guard is attested, at the point it was nicknamed the "Anglian Varangian" before it mixed into a Slavo-Byzantine culture.

Rather than a "reenactment" (the Varangian Guard didn't ceased to recruit Northern Europeans)

they went west (like I always insist they should)
From Sigurd (or its historical equivalents) point of view : why? Constantinople was better known to them, and promised more riches and fame than a life of poor exiles in a remote land. That certainly did appealed more to a social class based on warfare (and their immediate clients).

That said, you certainly had IOTL a Saxon/Anglo-Scandinavian settlement in Iceland (along with others : Norwegians, Gaels, Frisians/Flemish...) but it eventually blended with the general Icelanding background.
So the idea of a partial migration isn't implausible, as it happened, as long it keeps touch with reality (as in, no fantastically inflated numbers).
 
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