The Danelaw of England, 700-1100 A.D.

The Danelaw of England, 700-1100 A.D.

This paper is a relatively brief and incomplete historiography of the study done on the Danelaw of England and its effects upon Britain and elsewhere. It was written for HST 300, History Methods course at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Any comments or criticisms are welcome, as is serious discussion. For ease of reading, the endnotes have been linked for easy reference to the exact endnote in question.

NOTE: This paper is rapidly aging, having been written in 1995, and is not in my current areas of concentration. I'll try to be helpful if you have questions, but I really have no garauntees I can give you.

-------- ----- ------ -------- ----- ------ ----- ----- ----

England, the largest section of the Isle of Britain, has had a history of migrations coming to its shores, providing new settlers and conflict between these new settlers and the old holders of the land, who understandably did not wish to give up their land. Wave after wave came to the island, each bringing their unique cultures and influence to what would becom 555v218f e the country of England.

In the eighth century, England was a land of the Anglo-Saxons, who had migrated to England three centuries before. Northumbria to the north, Mercia in the midsection, and Wessex in the south and west were the major kingdoms of the time, vying for hegemony over each other, while also fighting the Celts of Wales and the Picts of Scotland.

Beginning in the ninth century, the political situation changed rapidly. Raids by Danish and Norwegian adventurers ravaged the north and east of England, followed by waves of settlers, who brought with them a system of customary law and religion that differed greatly from that of the Anglo-Saxon areas that they conquered.

Beginning in Northumbria, armies of Danish warriors carved out kingdoms for themselves. Eventually, they controlled an area extending from the city of Chester, down the old Roman Road known as Watling Street, to the River Lea down to the Thames and the sea. Slowly reconquered by the recovered kingdom of Wessex under the line of Alfred, this area would see a revival as an independent political body with the weakness of Aethelred the Unready, and later again with the ascendancy of Cnut the Great.

The homeland of settlers, a base for raiders, and the crucible for influences that would affect the English tradition of laws, land ownership, and language, the Danelaw was and is an important part of the English history, if a difficult one to study. We shall examine certain of the books, essays, and articles written on or related to the subject, to see how historians have treated the Danelaw.

One difficulty historians have in trying to minutely study the areas of Danish settlement in England is that those areas had very few written documents or records, especially when compared to their Saxon counterparts in Mercia and Wessex. Much of the information on the social, political, and military history of the Danelaw indeed actually comes from the Saxon perspective, especially from such sources as the Anglo- Saxon Chronicles. Cyril Hart, in his book, The Danelaw, (1992), states that besides the Wantage Code and a few other minor references, most of our information on the customary law comes from post- Conquest materials .

Other examples of this can be seen from coin hoards recovered that were laid in this time period, by the make and type of coins. As M.A.S. Blackburn writes in 1989 in his study of the Ashdon hoard, "[Viking imitations] identification is based upon three criteria: anomalous style, light weight, and poor literacy".2 Viking coins, often struck by illiterate moneyers, would appear much the same as Saxon coins, but the inscriptions would often be gibberish or mis-copied, due to the moneyer's inability to read the inscription that he was attempting to copy.

Most of the available histories involving the Danelaw are political histories, detailing more the warfare of England during the period, rather than the social or economic history of the Danelaw itself. These histories come in two basic perspectives: one, from the nativist Anglo-Saxon approach, which tends to concentrate upon the defensive efforts of the Anglo-Saxons, and the other, the Viking approach, which often incorporates a more European view, giving emphasis not only to the various campaigns and events in England, but also Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Continent.

R. H. Hodgkin's treatment of the Danelaw and its history is in the context of the history of the main victims and combatants of the Scandinavians in England, the Anglo-Saxons. He, like Loyn, takes care to try to explain the reasons behind the mass movements of the Danish, Norwegians, and Swedes from their homelands to raid and settle throughout Europe and the Baltic regions. Using place-name evidence in Norway, he traces the expansion of the population of Scandanavia, Norway in particular, and explains how this drove the movement overseas. 3

A common perception of the Vikings that Hodgkin takes exception to is the one of the "bloodthirsty Viking," who rapes, pillages, and murders merely for the sport of it. He points to the relative ease that the Danes had in settling down in the territories of the Danelaw. He discusses how the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles "often describes the Danes as "heathen," but does not dwell upon their atrocities." 4

Another major emphasis Hodgkin has is tying in the fortunes of the Vikings in the territory of the Franks with events in England. Rather than merely listing the time and place of the various Viking landings upon England, he correlates their movement back and forth across the channel, showing how good fortunes in one area would save another - and how poor fortunes would send the Vikings after easier pickings elsewhere. A prime example of this was the fleet that arrived in East Anglia in 878, while Guthrum was being baptized at Cirencester. Having come from word of Guthrum's victory the year before, they would sail to raid the Continent after wintering at Fulham, thanks to the changes in fortunes in England, with Guthrum and Alfred now at peace. 5

In Hodgkin's study, we get an important insight into the comparison between the legal systems of the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes. In 886, Alfred and Guthrum negotiated a treaty between Wessex and East Anglia, to help prevent quarrels between the Danes and the Saxons that could lead to war. One important clause lays down the southern boundary commonly recognized today as that of "The Danelaw" - "up the Thames, and then up the Lea and along the Lea to its source, then straight to Bedford, and then up the Ouse to Watling Street." 6

Another clause laid down a number of equivalencies between Saxon and Danish ranks for such things as the wergild, to be paid for the slaying of a man of a certain rank. This dealt with a major point of contention, as the wergild had varied greatly before, leading to contentiousness and bloodfeud. Other clauses dealt with trial procedures, trading before a witness, and forbidding normal trading between Saxons and Danes.

Of interest is that in other histories, such as Kirby's The Making of Early England, (1967), there is no mention of this treaty. Kirby's only mention of the year 886 is at most a lull between large conflicts between the Danish and English populations, with London being retaken and Aetheflaed being married. 7 And the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the main primary source for the history of the time, also omits the treaty, merely mentioning the occupying of London. 8

While Hodgkin and others see the Viking invasions from the shores of England - even, in the case of Hodgkin, referring to it as "Our England" several times, and the Vikings as "the heathen," some have taken the opposite approach, and examined the history of those who came to England, raiding, then settling: the Vikings.

H. R. Loyn is among those who take this approach. He does much as Hodgkin does, in examining the origins of the Viking attacks and migrations during the four hundred years following 700 AD in his 1977 text, The Vikings in Britain. However, his analysis goes beyond that of Hodgkin, in explaining not only the raiding urges that would see destruction visited upon England and the Continent, but also the colonizing efforts in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the Faeroe Islands, and Iceland. Another interesting note is the description of slave labour, and of its importance in the various Viking colonies, especially the Norwegian colony in Iceland.

Loyn's tale continues in linear fashion, splitting the era of the Scandinavian invasions into two sections. The first part he lays between the beginning of the eighth century down to 954, the year of the death of Eric Bloodaxe of Norway. This era is characterized by Loyn as a period of raids for bounty and slaves, then intensifying with the taking of Northumbria, the Five Boroughs, and East Anglia. Alfred figures prominently in the narrative, but as the major opponent of the Vikings, not as the central character. Where Hodgkin spends the majority of his second volume of his history on Alfred, Loyn only spends a few pages, not nearly the amount of Hodgkin or the other chroniclers of the Anglo-Saxon side of the times.

The second part of Loyn's book mirrors the first. Scandinavia is examined, this time in the period after 954. Rather than nascent national bodies, just beginning to form, this later period sees the rise of true monarchies in Scandanavia, and the introduction and spread of Christianity within Scandanavia. While a great deal of raiding still occurred, trade had increased, and the traders that carried the goods were accepted throughout Europe. Rather than unlearned, unwashed barbarians, the Vikings were becoming known quantities upon the European scene.

Of importance for Loyn is the emergence of national armies in Scandinavia. Not for being less destructive - they often were as bad or worse - but for the character of the force, and its goals. Rather than independent raiders, the fleets that would see England's shores were now led by kings, not by freebooting sea captains

For this latter period, marked by Aethelred the Unready's dismal reign over Wessex, the choice of Loyn is not to concentrate upon him, but rather upon Sweyn Forkbeard and his son, Cnut the Great of Denmark. Cnut's life, especially, is given in great detail, discussing his change from a youngling prince into a savvy monarch. He was a zealot in his faith; as Loyn puts it, "more Christian than the Christians." 9

Loyn's book ends with a consideration of what effects the invasions truly had on England. As with others, he deplores the lack of written records in Old Norse, but notes the relative ease with which speakers of Old Norse and Old English were able to communicate with each other. He also points out that a number of runic inscriptions do exist in England, showing that the Scandinavian portion of the population was not totally illiterate. Detail is given as to the effects of Old Norse in shaping Middle English, especially in the north and east of England, giving such examples as "husband," "window," "knife," and "fellow." 10

A more unusual third approach is to examine the conflict between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings, and the fortunes of the Danelaw, as a presentiment, a foreboding of the Conquest, the taking of England by William the Conqueror in 1066. This is the approach that Eric Linklater takes in his book, The Conquest of England written in 1966.

While the Conquest of England is commonly seen as starting a new era for England, its roots lie elsewhere, in the movements of the Scandinavians beforehand and the creation of the duchy of Normandy by a Norwegian noble, Rolf, and his raiders. With Linklater's style of storytelling - along with his history works, he had written over fifteen novels at the time of this book's publishing - the tale takes an almost lyrical approach, seeing the events in England from more of a neutral party's view of events, rather than the deeply involved viewpoint of either the Anglo-Saxons or the Vikings personally engaged in the raiding. The emphasis also shows a great deal of difference. As 1066 approaches, events are fleshed out with greater detail, highlighting the relative importance of Alfred's campaigns in the tenth century as compared to the goings on in the time of Edward the Confessor, in the years immediately preceding the actual invasion by Norman forces.

The book is unusual in another fashion: it takes time to address not only the Viking trips to North America, but also the Norman capture of Sicily. Even in the book, the consideration of these two seems to be an addition that detracts from both the story we are interested in, that of the Danelaw of England, but also from the main goal of the author - an explanation of the events surrounding the invasion of England.

Sir Frank Stenton goes a step beyond the political histories in his treatment of the Danelaw, studying the land and the social structures of the inhabitants themselves. In his book, Anglo-Saxon England, written in 1943, he takes much the same approach as does Hodgkin, in approaching the invasion from the Anglo-Saxon view. However, his interest in the land and the people of the Danelaw is greater than it is for Hodgkin, whose overriding interest is not the social forms, but rather the effects upon the politics of the island.

Sir Frank Stenton's narrative of Anglo-Saxon history explains, unlike many of the histories, certain of the institutions of the Danelaw, equating them, where possible, with institutions in Wessex. A classic example of this is the wapentake, the classic standard for land division in the Danelaw. Stenton draws the parallel between the wapentake and the Anglo-Saxon "hundred," and notes that the terms were essentially interchangeable - the determiner between which one was used was the relative sizes of the Danish and Anglo-Saxon populations in the area. He even gives us the origin of the word wapentake: "the word vapnatak, from which the Old English wapentac is derived, denoted the symbolic flourishing of weapons by which a public assembly confirmed its decisions." 11 Gwyn Jones in his 1984 text on the Vikings points out that this word was never used in Scandinavia for any sort of legal or administrative unit. 12

Stenton, as do others, points to the emphasis upon the individual in Danish law. For instance, he says it is not a "mere technicality" that the wergild for a man's slaying is by the man's rank in the Danelaw and by the man's lord's rank in Mercia and Wessex. 13

The Wantage Code of Aethelred II is said by Stenton to not be a rewriting of the legal code in the Five Boroughs. Rather, it is the assent of the king that the local customary laws of the area should remain in force - a recognition that the Danelaw codes, developed from the customary laws in Scandinavia, were a major component of the life of these boroughs. Even the terms used in the Wantage Code to express the laws used a great number of Scandinavian loan words, some anglicized, some not.

Both Stenton and Lyon mention the Danish method of measuring out lands in terms of dividing fields. The "ploughland" was the standard unit, split into eight "ox-gangs." One ox-gang was the land allotted to a man who could contribute one ox to an eight-ox ploughteam. This was instead of the Saxon system of hidage, which was based on the amount of land required to feed a peasant household. The degree to which one was used over the other depended upon location - the farther north and east one got, the more oxgangs were used over hides.

Another major institution laid out by Stenton is that of the "soke". Both in his , and his much earlier essay, "Types of Manorial Structure in the Northern Danelaw," he discusses the soke, independently owned property by peasants, which, while owing service and taxes to the lord of the area, were not under his direct ownership, allowing the peasants some autonomy, and freedom from the rents of the lord given to those tenants on his personal land. Unfortunately, in his essay on manorial structures, Stenton often fails to give translations in his text of the Latin entries from the Domesday book that he uses, leaving those without skills in Latin to either depend upon the words of Stenton, or seek out other sources for translation.

Stenton bases a good deal of his work upon Domesday Book and also upon the Descriptio Terrarum of Peterborough Abbey, a listing similar to that of the Domesday Book, but restricted to the domains of the Abbey. The Domesday Book provides the main information, while the Descriptio is used as an example of more localized, and to provide some further detail on how these more local documents related to the Domesday Book. David Raffe in his work on the Descriptio states that Stenton was the first to really use this document, but did not attempt any in-depth analysis of its comments. 14

While both Stenton's works on the broad Anglo-Saxon history and his essay on the manorial structures of the northern Danelaw are of great help in learning about the social aspects of the area, they are meant for quite distinct audiences. The history is a broad history, meant for the familiarization with the time period, while providing detailed information. The essay, however, is for those already familiar with Anglo-Saxon studies, and who are assumed to have certain skills, such as reading Latin without recourse to translation by the quoting author or another text.

The other major method that we see in dealing with the Danelaw is an examination that for the most part, does not involve itself with the large sweep of historical events. Rather, it narrows its intended sight, looking at the social aspects of an area, the microhistory rather than the macrohistory. While losing some of the connections outside of the area being studied, this approach allows a more thorough examination of the minutiae of the social, legal, and language aspects of the countryside.

R. A. Hall, in his essay on the Five Boroughs of Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, and Stamford, takes a methodical, mechanistic approach to his treatment of each. His work is not meant for those studying the Five Borough's history for the first time, but rather is meant for those with a reasonable familiarty of the subject, or those who are about to embark on a detailed study of the area after familiarizing themselves with the basic history of the area. The concept is to give an overview of the work done on the history and social aspects of the specific area in question.

Hall begins his essay by mentioning the depth of work done in other areas of England, specifically that the only area that has received large amounts of archeological attention has been that of the burhs of Wessex. 15 He continues by giving a generalized reference list for studies in other areas of England, before narrowing his discussion to the reasons behind the historic grouping of the five into a single entity.

After the introduction of the material, a case-by-case study is made of each borough, summarizing the research done before. Each borough is examined in the same methodical way, working chronologically through their existence, beginning with Roman times, if possible, through the Anglo-Scandinavian period, covering the existent defenses at each period, then examining the more social aspects of trade and industry.

Throughout the essay, Hall emphasizes the dearth of actual information available about the social customs at the time of the Scandinavian occupation of the five Boroughs. The main evidence for what populations, commerce, and industry that occurred in the area are archeological finds, not written records or laws.

Another, later consideration in much the same vein is Cyril Hart's book, entitled The Danelaw. This book is not a single entity. Instead, it is a collection of essays and works by Dr. Hart addressing the various portions of the Danelaw, from legal wills and charters to battles to examinations of what areas the Danelaw is.

Hart splits the Danelaw into five main areas. The Northern Danelaw is the area surrounding York, in the old Anglian kingdom of Deira. The Five Boroughs of Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby are his second division, and are the areas annexed from the kingdom of Mercia in the time of Guthrum. The southern Danelaw includes Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, and Essex, controlled by the Danes for only a short period of time, even when compared with the length of control that the Danes had over most of England - in most areas, under a century of actual rule. The outer Danelaw includes the shires between the southern Danelaw and the Five Boroughs, occupied by the army of Guthrum, and treated as satellites of the last area, the Eastern Danelaw, consisting of Norfolk and Suffolk.

The main thrust of Hart's book is in studying the Eastern Danelaw. The majority of the material is in that area, especially the new material that was not to be found in other texts, such as Stenton's. Of course, one must consider that Stenton's works (1910, 1943) were done decades before Hart's volume came off the press (1992), though most of his essays were written in one form or another quite a lot earlier.

Great detail is given in enumerating data and sources, providing plenty of evidence for the points that Hart wishes to make. Numerous charts and tables put forth information gleaned from the Domesday book and other sources on the number and values of caracatures and hundreds in various shires and sokelands.

Though addressing a number of broad issues, Hart's book is a collection "essentially local in nature," as Ted Johnston-South put it in his review of the book. Except in the case of the Eastern Danelaw, and the battles listed, the history narrative tends to be limited in scope, with the text focusing down more upon the institutions of the land, rather than the politics that swept across it.

While received favourably in general, J. Campbell takes minor exception on certain points to Hart's book. In certain cases, such as the method of ruling in the "outer Danelaw," he faults Hart for tending to leap from supposition to fact, using imperfect evidence as a springboard. Dating is another fault Campbell notes, stating that ". . . all such attempts at dating can be no more than tempting guesses." 16

F.T. Wainright is remarkably similar to Hart, in that his essays tend to be focused upon one area of England and the occurrences there. He concentrates upon the northwest of England, where the majority of settlement was by Norwegian stock emigrating from their colonies in Ireland, rather than Danish settlers moving westward from York. The timeframe considered is also much longer than the timeframe Hart used in his area, including essays on the initial Anglian penetration of Lancastershire, four centuries before the beginnings of the Norse expansion into the area.

Wainright is more like Hall in his essays than is Hart, in that much more historiography is given in covering the various topics of his essays. Certain essays, in fact, like "Ingimund's Essay", have for large tracts more footnotes than actual text, for all the footnotes referring to other works and authors. Place names also are of great importance, being relied upon extensively for tracing the population patterns, both in the initial Anglian incursions into the northwest of England and in the following Norse settlement.

Hart's essays, while each covering a separate topic, are blended together to form a unified whole. Rather than being a book of totally separate works, they have become melded and merged, flowing into one another more than if they had been merely put together in a collection. Wainwright's essays see none of this - each one is utterly separate, with only the most parenthetical references to other portions of the essays. The topics are even more widely varied, going from settlement patterns to battles to biographical sketches, in no specific order. For instance, the essay "The Scandinavians in Lancastershire", which makes heavy mention of Aethelflaed, the Lady of the Mercians, has two essays on entirely different subjects between it and the essay devoted the Aethelflaed.

Of major importance to Wainright, a point that comes up repeatedly through multiple essays, is how the settlement of the northwest of England by the various Aglian and Norse peoples was directly related to the elevation of the land. The Anglian population had settled between one hundred and five hundred feet in elevation, disdaining the lowland marshes and the higher hills. 17 The Norse, four centuries later, did not have this dislike for the lowland areas. They settled heavily below the one- hundred-foot line, along with settling in amongst the Anglian villages in existence. 18

The Danelaw itself, as an independent topic, tends to not see the literature that many areas and topics in history have written about them come about. Much of this, as we have seen, is due to the relative dearth of information that is available to us. There are few written records regarding the Danelaw, and how the various institutions within it were set up. The main surviving indications of the Danish presence in that fashion are place-names, some runic inscriptions scattered about, and coinage from the various mints of the time. And our other major possible source, the Anglo-Saxons with whom the Danes of our Danelaw were in conflict for such a long time, can be annoyingly terse in their entries into their annals such as the Anglo- Saxon Chronicles, leaving us frustrated and baffled while attempting to decipher what events or institutions they describe.

Not until Domesday Book do we find a large-scale survey done of the Danelaw, helping to outline what economic and political structures were in place. And even with such a picture, at the end of the independent political life of the Danelaw as a separate entity, we have difficulties in being sure of what the social and judicial structures were like earlier on in the history of the Danelaw, back during the formative years and those years without record before the Normans set their foot upon the shore.

Over time, the study of the Danelaw has not changed much in the overall outlook of the historians examining it. The great differences in how the matter has been approached, not in when the approach was taken. Hodgkin's book from 1935 reads much the same as does Kirby's, over four decades later, but for some relatively minor additions and omissions. Wainright's essays are in essence from the same mold as are Stenton's or Hart's, except for stylistic differences.

Most of the literature is instead wrapped up within the wider cloth of two different tales. One is a more native tale, that of the Anglo-Saxons, who found themselves defending their homes and lands, from attackers and invaders who acted much like they themselves had, three centuries before. This tale tended towards a more homebound view, keeping its gaze relatiely fixed upon the home isle and the homelands of the invaders that were coming to make their home anew.

The other is a tale of wanderers, the tale of the Vikings, beginning in their homelands, then tracing their path across the highways of the sea, and their effects wherever they landed, whether it be England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Iceland, Russia, Frisia, France, Spain, or the Mediterranean. The struggle we see here for the Danelaw, while of great importance, is part of a grander scale of movements and attempts to gain new lands.

Other pictures on the political front are there for the telling. As we have seen, the tale of the Danelaw can be swept up in that of the coming conquering to end all conquerings, that of the Normans. Such a story becomes a tale of setting the stage, moving the various actors into place for the events that would see the victory of Stamford Bridge, so soon followed by defeat and disaster at Hastings. Another picture can be painted, one tinted wth ecclesiaistical overtones and mouthed in Latin, the story of abbeys sacked and Danes converted to the new faith.

Other stories are more intimate, small stories of sokemen and villiens on a parcel of land here, a hundred there, a wapentake up in the next shire, how places were named, the importance of such Danish suffixes as - by or -thorp in naming, how people lived, how much the emphasis came to be on the individual rather than the lord.

As many of the authors named in this paper have stated in their own works, the amount of work done so far is small. A great deal more work can be done, both by archeologists and historians. More evidence is unearthed everyday - in fact, R.A Hall and Cyril Hart both include caveats in their works, due to the work that was ongoing at the time of their writing. With the new information that is coming to light, an even better picture should be accessible soon, to continue on the work that those such as Stenton started decades and centuries ago.