Global InformationDanelaw information
Danelaw Danelagen (Danish) Dena lagu (Old English) | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 878–954 | |||||||||||||||
 England, 878 | |||||||||||||||
| Common languages | Old Norse Old English | ||||||||||||||
| Religion |
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| History | |||||||||||||||
• Treaty of Wedmore | 878 | ||||||||||||||
• Scandinavian York merges with Wessex[1][2] | 927 | ||||||||||||||
• Fully conquered | 954 | ||||||||||||||
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| Today part of | England | ||||||||||||||
The Danelaw (/ˈdeɪnˌlɔː/, also known as the Danelagh; Danish: Danelagen; Old English: Dena lagu)[3] was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway[4] and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian law. The term is first recorded in the early 11th century as Dena lage.[5] The areas that constituted the Danelaw lie in northern and eastern England, long occupied by Danes and other Norsemen.
The Danelaw originated from the invasion of the Great Heathen Army into England in 865, but the term was not used to describe a geographic area until the 11th century. With the increase in population and productivity in Scandinavia, Viking warriors, having sought treasure and glory in the nearby British Isles, "proceeded to plough and support themselves", in the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 876.[6]
Danelaw can describe the set of legal terms and definitions created in the treaties between Alfred the Great, the king of Wessex, and Guthrum, the Danish warlord, written following Guthrum's defeat at the Battle of Edington in 878.
In 886, the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum was formalised, defining the boundaries of their kingdoms, with provisions for peaceful relations between the English and the Vikings. The language spoken in England was affected by this clash of cultures, with the emergence of Anglo-Norse dialects.[7]
The Danelaw roughly comprised these contemporary 15 shires: Leicester, York, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, Essex, Cambridge, Suffolk, Norfolk, Northampton, Huntingdon, Bedford, Hertford, Middlesex, and Buckingham.[8][9][10]
- ^ Green, Adrian (2007). Regional Identities in North-East England, 1300–2000. Boydell & Brewer, Boydell Press. p. 223. ISBN 9781843833352. JSTOR 10.7722/j.ctt9qdh4m. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
- ^ Starkey, Monarchy, p. 71
- ^ M. Pons-Sanz (2007). Norse-derived Vocabulary in late Old English Texts: Wulfstan's Works. A Case Study. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 71. ISBN 978-87-7674-196-9.
- ^ "The Old English word Dene ("Danes") usually refers to Scandinavians of any kind; most of the invaders were indeed Danish (East Norse speakers), but there were Norwegians (West Norse [speakers]) among them as well." Lass, Roger, Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion, p. 187, n. 12. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
- ^ Abrams, Lesley (2001). "Edward the Elder's Danelaw". In Higham, N. J.; Hill, D. H. (eds.). Edward the Elder 899–924. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. p. 128. ISBN 0-415-21497-1.
- ^ Quoted by Richard Hall, Viking Age Archaeology (series Shire Archaeology), 2010:22; Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings. Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984: 221.
- ^ "Danelaw Heritage". The Viking Network. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
- ^ K. Holman, The Northern Conquest: Vikings in Britain and Ireland, p. 157
- ^ S. Thomason, T. Kaufman, Language Contact, Creolisation and Genetic Linguistics, p. 362
- ^ The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge (2008), p. 136