That part of England where Danish conquest and colonization in the late 9th-c left an imprint not only on legal and administrative practices, but on place-names, language, and culture. Danish-derived customs survived even the Norman Conquest, and in the 12th-c all E England from the Thames to the Tees was so designated.
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. 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.
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 covering the area now called the East Midlands.
History of the Danelaw
From about 800 AD on, waves of Danish assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles were gradually followed by a succession of Danish settlers.
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.
The Danes under Ivar the Boneless continued their invasion in 870 by defeating King Edmund at Hoxne and thereby conquering East Anglia. Once again, the brothers Æthelred and Alfred attempted to stop Ivar by attacking the Danes, this time at Reading. The Danes pursued, and on January 7, 871, Æthelred and Alfred defeated the Danes at Ashdown.
Shortly thereafter, on April 23, 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded him as King of Wessex.
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. 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).
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.
The reasons for these waves of immigrations are complex and bound to the political situation in Scandinavia at that time;
The Danelaw was gradually eroded by Anglo-Saxon raids in later years.
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.
Many of the legalistic concepts were very compatible;
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.
Four of the five boroughs became county towns — of the counties of Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
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.
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.
User Comments Add a comment…