page_title: Siward Barn
section_title: Varangian and colonist?
hierarchical_section_title: Siward Barn / Varangian and colonist?
caption_attribution_description: English: A Thracesian woman kills a Varangian, and his companions surrender his belongings to her
context_page_description: Siward Barn was an 11th-century English thegn and landowner-warrior. He appears in the extant sources in the period following the Norman Conquest of England, joining the northern resistance to William the Conqueror by the end of the 1060s. Siward's resistance continued until his capture on the Isle of Ely alongside Æthelwine, Bishop of Durham, Earl Morcar, and Hereward as cited in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Siward and his confiscated properties in central and northern England were mentioned in Domesday Book, and from this it is clear that he was one of the main antecessors of Henry de Ferrers, father of Robert de Ferrers, the first Earl of Derby.
  Following his capture in 1071, he was imprisoned. This incarceration lasted until 1087, when a guilt-ridden King William, in expectation of his own death, ordered Siward's release. Firm evidence of Siward's later life is non-existent, but some historians have argued that he took up a career in the Varangian Guard at Constantinople, in the service of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.
context_section_description: Two modern historians, however, have argued that Siward subsequently became a mercenary in the service of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. A 13th-century French chronicle known as the Chronicon Laudunensis (or Chronicon universale anonymi Laudunensis, "the anonymous universal chronicle of Laon") and the 14th century Icelandic text, the Játvarðar Saga, a short saga devoted to the life of Edward the Confessor, both relate a story about English warriors who sail to Constantinople to escape the dominion of the Normans, and found a colony in the Black Sea called New England. The Játvarðar Saga says that the leader of this expedition was one "Siward earl of Gloucester" (Sigurð jarl af Glocestr).
  Siward and his force were said to have rescued Constantinople from a siege by "heathens", after which the emperor Alexios offered Siward and his men positions in the Varangian Guard. According to both sources, Siward and some of the English expressed their desire to have a territory of their own, and so Alexius told them of a land over the sea that had formerly been part of the empire, but was now occupied by heathens. The emperor subsequently granted this land to the English, and a party led by Earl Siward sailed onwards to take control of it. The land, the sources allege, lay "6 days north and north-east of Constantinople", a distance and direction that puts the territory somewhere in or around the Crimea and Sea of Azov. Earl Siward, after many battles, defeated and drove away the heathens. The Chronicon Laudunensis says that this territory was renamed "New England", while the Játvarðar Saga claims that the towns of the land were named after English towns, including London and York. The Chronicon alleges that, later, the English rebelled against Byzantine authority and became pirates.
  The theory that this Siward is Siward Barn was advocated by Jonathan Shepard and Christine Fell. Shepard pointed out, although never called "Earl of Gloucester", Siward had holdings in Gloucestershire – the only substantial Siward in Domesday Book with property in that county — and was indeed a participant in resistance to the Normans. Shepard argued that the narrative in question referred not, as the Chronicon Laudunensis had asserted, to the 1070s, but to the 1090s, after Siward's release from prison. Fell, while acknowledging that there were two Siwards participating in resistance to William the Conqueror, Siward Barn and Siward of Maldon, pointed out that Siward Barn is more prominent in the literary sources and, unlike Siward of Maldon, had property in Gloucestershire. Two other historians who have since commented on the point, John Godfrey and Ann Williams, accepted that the identification is tenuous and remained neutral.
caption: Varangian guards depicted in an illumination from the Skylitzis Chronicle; Siward is thought by a few historians to have become a Varangian after being released by the dying King William
exif: {}