AS Alexius was under attack by Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia,* with all his force in support of Michael,* whom the Greeks had expelled from the imperial throne for the despotism of his government, the English exiles met a favourable reception, and were arrayed in arms against the Norman bands with which the Greeks were unable to cope.
The emperor Alexius laid the foundations of a town called Chevetot,* beyond Byzantium,* for his English troops, but as the Normans gave them great annoyance in that post, he recalled them to the imperial city, and committed to their guard his principal palace and the royal treasure.
In this way the Anglo-Saxons settled in Ionia,* they and their posterity becoming faithfully attached to the holy empire, and having gained great honour in Thrace, continue to the present day, beloved by the emperor, senate, and people.
Robert de Hauteville ‘Guiscard’ (1015-1085) was born in Contentin in Normandy. He left home with a band barely thirty strong, but rose to be Duke of Apulia and Calabria, ruling over much of southern Italy. His audacious bid to capture Constantinople was rebuffed by Emperor Alexius and his Englishmen, but when he died in 1085 Robert was lord of Sicily as well as his estates on Apulia.
Michael VII Doukas, who ruled as Emperor from 1071 to 1078. He died in 1090.
‘Chevetot’ is a Latinised form of the Greek place-name Kivotos. It was a fortress on the southern shore of the Gulf of Nicomedia at modern-day Hersek, designed to guard the path through the strait to Nicomedia (Izmit) and keep at bay the raids of the Turks and the Normans. Alexius started work on the fortification in 1085.
Byzantium was the name of the ancient town on top of which Constantinople was raised, and for this reason the Roman Empire from the fourth century onwards is often dubbed the Byzantine Empire by later scholars, though not by the Empire’s contemporaries.
Ionia was a region of ancient Anatolia, where the city of Smyrna lay; Smyrna is now Izmir in modern-day Turkey. Ionia should not be confused with the Ionian Islands off the west coast of Greece. According to the Norse sagas, others from the band of migrants who had left Norman England in 350 ships settled on the far side of the Black Sea. See The Voyage of Sigurd.