Danelaw
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History of England
 |
|
| Prehistoric Britain | (before AD 43) |
| Roman Britain | (43–410) |
| Anglo-Saxon England | (ca. 410–1066) |
| Anglo-Normans | (1066–1154) |
| Plantagenets | (1154–1485) |
| House of Lancaster | (1399–1471) |
| House of York | (1461–1485) |
| House of Tudor | (1485–1603) |
| House of Stuart | (1603–1714) |
| United Kingdom | (after 1707) |
The Danelaw (from the Old English Dena lagu, Danish: Danelagen ) is an 11th century name for an area of northern and eastern England under the administrative control of the Danish Viking empire (or Danes, or Norsemen) from the late 9th century until the early 11th century. The term is also used to describe the set of legal terms and definitions established between Alfred the Great and the Viking Guthrum, which were set down following Guthrum's defeat at the Battle of Edington in 878. Later, around 886, the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum was created, which established the boundaries of their kingdoms and made some provision for relations between the English and the Danes.
Contents |
[edit] Geography of the Danelaw
The area occupied by the Danelaw was roughly the area to the north of a line drawn between London and Chester.
Five fortified towns became particularly important in the Danelaw: Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford and Derby, broadly delineating the area now called the East Midlands. These strongholds became known as the "Five Boroughs". Borough derives from the Old English word burg, meaning a fortified and walled enclosure containing several households — anything from a large stockade to a fortified town. The meaning has since developed further.
[edit] History of the Danelaw
- Main article: History of the Danelaw
From about AD 800 on, waves of Danish assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles were gradually followed by a succession of Danish settlers. Danish raiders first began to settle in England starting in 865, when brothers Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless wintered in East Anglia. They soon moved north and in 867 captured Northumbria and its capital, York, defeating both the recently deposed King Osberht of Northumbria, as well as the usurper Ælle. The Danes then placed an Englishman, Ecgberht, on the throne of Northumbria as a puppet.[1]
In response to this Danish invasion, King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, Alfred, led their army against the Danes at Nottingham, but the Danes refused to leave their fortifications. King Burgred of Mercia then negotiated peace with Ivar, with the Danes keeping Nottingham in exchange for leaving the rest of Mercia unmolested.
The Danes under Ivar the Boneless continued their invasion in 870 by defeating King Edmund at Hoxne and thereby conquering East Anglia[2]. Once again, the brothers Æthelred and Alfred attempted to stop Ivar by attacking the Danes, this time at Reading. However, this time they were repulsed with heavy losses. The Danes pursued, and on January 7, 871, Æthelred and Alfred defeated the Danes at Ashdown. The Danes retreated to Basing (in Hampshire), where Æthelred attacked and was, in turn, defeated. Ivar was able to follow up this victory with another in March at Meretum (now Marton, Wiltshire).
Shortly thereafter, on April 23, 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded him as King of Wessex. However, his army was weak and he was forced to pay tribute to Ivar in order to make peace with the Danes. During this peace the Danes turned to the north and attacked Mercia, a campaign that would last until 874. The Danish leader, Ivar, and the Mercian leader, Burgred, would die during this campaign, with Ivar being succeeded by Guthrum the Old, who finished the campaign against Mercia. The Danes had in ten years gained control over East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia, leaving only Wessex to resist.[3]
Guthrum and the Danes brokered peace with Wessex in 876, when they captured the fortresses of Wareham and Exeter the following year. Alfred laid siege to the Danes, who were forced to surrender after reinforcements were lost in a storm. Two years later, Guthrum once again attacked Alfred, this time surprising him by attacking him while he wintered in Chippenham, Wiltshire. King Alfred was saved when the Danish army coming from his rear was miraculously destroyed by inferior forces at Countisbury Hill. Alfred was forced into hiding for a time, returning in the spring of 878 to gather an army and attack Guthrum at Edington. The Danes were defeated and retreated to Chippenham, where King Alfred laid siege and soon forced them to surrender. As a term of the surrender, King Alfred demanded that Guthrum be baptized a Christian, which he did (with King Alfred serving as his godfather).[4]
This peace lasted until 884, when Guthrum once again attacked Wessex. He was defeated, with Guthrum and Alfred agreeing to peace through the aptly named Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum.[5] The treaty outlined the boundaries of the Danelaw and allowed for Danish self-rule in the region. The Danelaw represented a consolidation of power for Alfred; the subsequent conversion of Guthrum to Christianity underlines the ideological significance of this shift in the balance of power.
The reasons for these waves of immigrations are complex and bound to the political situation in Scandinavia at that time; moreover, they occurred at a time when the Viking forces were also establishing their presence in the Hebrides, in Orkney, the Faroe Islands, in Iceland, in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (see Kievan Rus').
The Danelaw was gradually eroded by Anglo-Saxon raids in later years. Edward the Elder (reigned 899 - 924) later incorporated the Danelaw into his newfound Kingdom of England.
[edit] Legal concepts of the Danelaw
The Danelaw was an important factor in the establishment of a civilian peace in the neighbouring Anglo-Saxon and Viking communities. It established, for example, equivalences in areas of legal contentiousness, such as the amount of reparation that should be payable in weregild.
Many of the legalistic concepts were very compatible; for example the Viking wapentake, the standard for land division in the Danelaw, was effectively interchangeable with the hundred.
[edit] Enduring impact of the Danelaw
The influence of this period of Scandinavian settlement can still be seen in the North of England and the East Midlands, most evidently in place names: name endings such as "by" or "thorp" being particular giveaways.
Old Norse and Old English were still mutually comprehensible and the mixed language of the Danelaw caused the incorporation of many Norse words into the English language, including the word law itself, as well as the third person plural pronouns they, them and their. Many Old Norse words still survive in the dialects of Northeastern England.
Four of the five boroughs became county towns — of the counties of Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. However, Stamford failed to gain such status — perhaps because of the nearby autonomous territory of Rutland.
[edit] Genetic heritage
In 2000 the BBC conducted a genetic survey of the British Isles for its program 'Blood of the Vikings' with the conclusion that the Norse invaders settled throughout the British isles with a particular concentration in Cumbria and the Orkneys.
[edit] Archaeological sites and the Danelaw
Major archaeological sites that bear testimony to the Danelaw are few, but perhaps the most famous is the site at York, which is often said to derive its name from the Norse, Jorvik, though that name is itself a borrowing of the Old English Eoforwic (the Old English diphthong eo being cognate with the Norse diphthong jo, the Old English intervocalic f typically being pronounced softly as a modern v, and wic being the Old English version of the Norse vik), which in turn was derived from a preexisting name for the town, spelled Eboracum in Latin sources. Other sites include the cremation site at Ingoldsby.
When considering the Danelaw as agreed in the treaty with Alfred the Great, in general, archaeological sites do not bear out the historically defined area as being a real demographic or trade boundary. This could be due to misallocation of the items and features on which this judgement is based as being indicative of either Anglo-Saxon or Norse presence. Otherwise, it could indicate that there was considerable population movement between the areas, or simply that after the treaty was made, it was ignored by one or both sides.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Bibliography
- Types of Manorial Structure in the Northern Danelaw, Frank M. Stenton, London, 1910
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Flores Historiarum: Rogeri de Wendover, Chronica sive flores historiarum, p. 298-9. ed. H. Coxe, Rolls Series, 84 (4 vols, 1841-42)
- ^ Haywood, John. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings, p.62. Penguin Books. ©1995.
- ^ Carr, Michael. Alfred the Great Strikes Back, p. 65. Military History Journal. June 2001.
- ^ Hadley, D. M. The Northern Danelaw: Its Social Structure, c. 800-1100. p. 310. Leicester University Press. ©2000.
- ^ The Kalender of Abbot Samson of Bury St. Edmunds, ed. R.H.C. Davis, Camden 3rd ser., 84 (1954), xlv-xlvi.
