Section XIII.

The Danelag.—Holmgang, or Duel.—Jury.—The Feeling of

Freedom.

The Anglo-Saxons were the teachers of the Danes in several ways; above all they made them Christians, and thus communicated to them a new and higher civilization. The Danes in England reaped advantage from the civilization of the Anglo-Saxons, just as the Anglo-Saxons themselves had once begun their own, by building on that refinement which their predecessors, the Romans, had disseminated in England.

But as the Anglo-Saxons did not become Romans, because they adopted and remodelled the Roman civilization; nor the Normans in Normandy Frenchmen, because after their settlement in France they soon assumed many of the French manners and customs; so neither did the Danes in England become Anglo-Saxons, however much they might have been indebted to them for their civilization. The Normans in France retained, in spite of their Christianity and French refinement, the characteristic stamp of their Scandinavian origin, which afterwards caused them to play quite a peculiar part in history. In like manner the Danes in England, amidst the refinements of the Anglo-Saxons, undoubtedly preserved many of their Scandinavian characteristics, which did not disappear without leaving visible and very remarkable traces. But the Scandinavian spirit stamped itself, though perhaps only apparently, in a somewhat different manner on the Norman race in Normandy, and on the Danes in England.

Among the Normans in France the Scandinavian spirit worked, so to speak, only outwardly, in magnificent conquests, of which the chief theatres were England, Italy, and Sicily. Chivalry and feudalism, with their crusades, communicated a new impulse to it; but, internally, it effected comparatively little for France. It did not manifest itself in Normandy by forming political institutions capable of supplanting the oldest and most essential French laws and constitutions; nor, indeed, are we able to point out with exactness what really Scandinavian customs the Normans established in that country. Yet it can scarcely be doubted that they introduced there trial by jury, as well as trial by battle, and other Scandinavian legal institutions.

In England, on the other hand, the northern character showed itself so far outwardly active as to exercise a vast and unmistakable influence on her commerce and navigation, and on the bold and adventurous spirit of enterprise among her people; which, though at a much later period than the conquests of the Normans, has nevertheless extended her dominion over every sea. But in England it has also been internally a living and guiding spirit, in the formation of her judicial and political institutions. It is an incontrovertible and notorious fact, which has, however, hardly been sufficiently insisted upon, that about half of England—the so-called “Danelag,” or community of the Danes—was for centuries subject to Danish laws; that these laws existed even after the Norman conquest; and that they did not pass into the general or common law of England, till the successors of William the Conqueror at last united into a whole the various discordant parts into which England had been previously divided. When we remember that the Normans long retained a predilection for old Scandinavian institutions and forms of judicature, it seems highly probable that the Danish laws, which had for so long a period prevailed in England, did not disappear under their sway without the new laws, which they established, deriving from the old a particular colour, and certain Scandinavian stamp. A further examination of this point will scarcely be superfluous, as it will enable us to judge how far those are right who, in company with one of England’s most celebrated statesmen (Sir R. Peel, in a speech in Parliament), are proud that “the Danes tried in vain to overthrow the institutions of England, instead of securing them;” and then reproach the Danes that, on the whole, they did not, after all their devastating expeditions, establish anything new, great, and durable.

The population of the heathen North, as was the case everywhere else at that period, was divided into serfs and freemen. Even after the introduction of Christianity, many centuries elapsed in all countries before thraldom was abolished, and the worth of man, as man, generally recognised. The serf was always regarded more as an animal than as a human being. The freeman, on the contrary, enjoyed a high degree of civil liberty. He was not only uncontrolled master in his own house, and among his nearest dependents, but likewise exercised an important influence on the management of the public concerns of his own district and of his country. He took part in the decision of law cases in the “Thing,” and gave his vote at the great “Thing,” where the election of a monarch, war, treaties of peace, and other important matters, came under consideration. Scandinavia was, besides, in ancient times, divided into a number of small kingdoms; and the smaller these were, so much the greater was the individual freeman’s power and importance.

The old inhabitants of the North entertained, therefore, a sincere affection for those institutions which gratified their proud feeling of freedom. Personal participation in the administration of justice, at a time when written laws did not exist, must have made every freeman a lawyer and a zealous defender of existing institutions, especially so far as regarded the main point, namely, the freedom they ensured. A general knowledge of the laws was still further promoted by the innate love of the Northmen for disputes and law-suits. Respect for the law was speedily carried to such an extent, and in the administration of justice at the Things old established customs and usages were so strictly observed, that the slightest formal flaw was sufficient to ensure the rejection even of the most important cause. How deeply rooted the old national law was, is best shown by the fact that the Roman law, which had been adopted in the greater part of Europe, could never gain the supremacy in the countries of Scandinavia. The present Scandinavian law is by no means the offspring of any foreign code, but is founded on, and independently developed from, the law which already existed in the North in the days of heathenism.

The powerful warriors, who in those remote times emigrated from the North, were, for the most part, men no less high-spirited and fond of freedom than their fathers before them. The old chronicles state, that among the warriors who came over to England with the conquerors Svend and Canute, there was not a single serf. The history of Iceland shows, even at an earlier period, that most of the colonists who went thither were descendants of kings, jarls, and other of the most powerful freemen of the North. These emigrants did not leave their paternal home because they were dissatisfied with their ancient hereditary rights and liberties, but because those rights and liberties were gradually threatened with restriction, and even annihilation, by ambitious and absolute monarchs. It was this that led them to undertake the conquest of foreign lands, and thus to acquire a freedom which might indemnify them for what they had been compelled to relinquish.

It is therefore no wonder that the Scandinavian colonists introduced their national laws, which had always proved the surest defence of their liberties, at once and completely both into countries previously uninhabited, and into those from which the ancient inhabitants were expelled by their invasions. This was the case, for instance, in Greenland, the Faroe Isles, the Shetland Isles, and the Orkneys. But with regard to freedom they even went still further than in Scandinavia, and sometimes abolished the regal power, whose caprices and dangers they had learned to appreciate and fear, and founded republics in its place. Even in countries like France and England, where a large and civilized population, possessing a complete system of national law, previously existed—and where the Scandinavian colonists, till they became strong enough to assume the authority of masters, were for a long time inferior both in numbers and power—they adhered immovably to their ancient legal customs, and caused them to be observed, in spite of Christianity, and of that foreign civilization which they themselves soon adopted. But it was at the same time a natural result of this state of things, that they were neither able to introduce into such countries all the ancient legal usages of Scandinavia, nor, generally speaking, any law of a comprehensive character, without adapting it to the peculiar situation which they, as conquerors and strangers, now occupied in regard to the natives and their existing institutions.

A strong proof, not only of the affection of the Danes for their Scandinavian institutions, but of the complete settlement of that people in England at a very early period, is, that in the beginning of the tenth century, and consequently more than a hundred years before the time of Canute the Great, they had already established their own laws on the east coast of England, notwithstanding that Christianity, as before stated, had gained a footing amongst them. It appears, from the remarkable treaty concluded at that time between Kings Edward and Gudrum, that the Danes settled in East Anglia, and on the eastern coast of England, were not only placed on an equal footing with the English with regard to legal rights, but that it was also determined how disputes between the English and Danes should be decided, and what fine each people should pay for certain crimes. Thus the English were to pay “wite,” or fines, according to the English law, in pounds and shillings; whilst the Danes were to make compensation for “lah-slit” (i. e., infraction of the law, from the old Norsk, lög, law, and slita, to rend in two, break), according to the Danish law, in “marks” and “ores.”

About the same time the chronicles testify that the “five burghs” occupied by the Danes in the heart of England, together with large districts both in the east and north, were subject to Danish laws. The Anglo-Saxon king Edgar (959-975) says, in a passage of his laws (cap. 12), which shows his partiality for the Danes, “Then will I that with the Danes such good laws stand as they may best choose, and as I have ever permitted to them, and will permit so long as life shall last me, for their fidelity, which they have ever shown me.” He likewise says in the next chapter, where mention is made of a fixed punishment: “Let the Danes chuse, according to their laws, what punishment they will adopt.”

From this state of things, it happened that four different sorts of law were in force in four different parts of the kingdom. Farthest towards the west, where the remnant of the ancient Britons dwelt, the Welsh law was in force; among the West Saxons, the West-Saxon law; in Mercia, the Mercian law; and in the so-called Danelag, or country to the north-east of Watlinga-Stræt, the Danish law. Of these four systems of law, the Danish, beyond comparison, most prevailed. Its decrees were in later times constantly recognised, not only by Ethelred (not to speak of the Danish kings), but by Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, whose laws usually treat of the “Danes-law” (Dene-lahe), with its fines, or “lah-slit,” in marks and ores. Even in the laws promulgated by Henry the First (1100-1135), it is stated (vi. § 1), that England is divided into three parts, Wessex, Mercia, and the province of the Danes. (“Regnum Anglie trifariam dividitur in regno Britannie, in Westsexiam, et Mircenos, et Danorum provinciam.”) And it is further said (§ 2), that the law of England falls into three parts, according to the above division, viz., the West Saxon, the Mercian, and the Danish law, or Denelaga. (“Legis eciam Anglice trina est particio, ad superiorem modum; alia enim Westsexie, alia Mircena, alia Denelaga est.”)

A cursory view of these different laws will soon show, both that Scandinavian words and juridical terms were employed in the Danelag, and that by degrees, but mostly in the time of Canute the Great and William the Conqueror, they were introduced into the common laws of England: as, for instance, “hor-qwene” (Hoerquinde; Eng., adultress), “nam,” “halsfang,” “heimillborch,” (Hjemmelborg), “husting,” and others. For the rest, it is natural that most traces of the old Scandinavian institutions should be found in the districts to the north-east of Watlinga-Stræt.

The Danes settled there had from the beginning several chiefs with the title of king, who were for the most part independent of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and reigned by means of their jarls and the chiefs to whom they had portioned out the conquered land. These numerous small kingdoms were afterwards subdued by the Anglo-Saxons, and converted into Earldoms. A peculiar sort of Danish chiefs or Udallers (“holdas,” from the old Norsk hölldr), is mentioned in East Anglia, who, like the Norwegian “Höldar,” or “Odelsmænd,” held their properties by a perfectly free tenure. It is probable that the original Udallers were the chief leaders, or generals, of the Danish conquerors settled in East Anglia. From the fines fixed for the murder of such “holdas,” it is plain that they held a very high rank. The old Scandinavian name for a peasant, “Bonda,” was also disseminated in the north of England. There, as in Scandinavia, the peasants undoubtedly constituted the pith of the landed proprietary. The names of places in the north of England beginning or ending with garth (or Gaard), such as Watgarth (Vadegaard, on the river Tees), Grassgarth, Hall Garth, Garthorpe, Garthwaite, and others, show that the peasants, as in Scandinavia, were settled in Gaarde, or farms, which belonged indeed to the before-mentioned “holdas” (“Odelsmænd”), or other feudal lords; but which nevertheless seem, in some degree, to have been the property of the peasants, on condition of their paying certain rents to their feudal lords, and binding themselves to contribute to the defence of the country. Other landed proprietors, or agriculturists, with pure Scandinavian names, appear in Cheshire under the appellation of “drenghs” or Drenge.

The Danes and Norwegians in North England settled their disputes and arranged their public affairs at the Things, according to Scandinavian custom. The present village of Thingwall (or the Thing-fields), in Cheshire, was a place of meeting for the Thing; and not only bore the same name as the old chief Thing place in Iceland, but also as the old Scandinavian Thing places, “Dingwall,” in the north of Scotland; “Tingwall,” in the Shetland Isles; and “Tynewald,” or “Tingwall,” in the Isle of Man. There were incontestably in the Danish parts of England certain larger or common Thing-meetings for the several districts, which were superior to the Things of separate ones; and it may even be a question whether traces of them are not to be found in the division into Ridings, at present used only in Yorkshire, but which formerly prevailed also in Lincolnshire. Originally these divisions had not the name of reding or riding, which they did not obtain till later, and undoubtedly through a misconception. Yorkshire is at the present time divided into the North, East, and West Ridings; and, according to Domesday-Book, Lincolnshire also was (about the year 1080) divided into Nort-treding, Westreding, and Sudtreding; consequently, like Yorkshire, into three parts. These divisions were called by the Anglo-Saxons “Þriding,” or “Thriting.” Now, as they were foreign to the Anglo-Saxons, whose historians did not even know how to explain their origin, and as they also appear exclusively in the two most Danish districts in England, it is surely not unreasonable to seek their origin in Scandinavian institutions, in which a simple and natural explanation of them may certainly be found. In Scandinavia, and particularly in the south of Norway, provinces or Fylker (petty kingdoms), were not only divided into halves (hálfur) and fourths (fjórðjungar), but also into thirds, or Tredinger (Þriðjungar), which completely answer to the North-English “thrithing.” It was, moreover, precisely to the Tredings-things that all disputed causes were referred from the smaller district Things.

It is more doubtful whether we may ascribe to the Danes alone the introduction of the word “Wapentake” (Vaabentag), as the peculiar designation for a district. In the northern counties of England, viz., Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, this term is still used instead of the customary one of “Hundred.” Yet there is some probability that it may have been derived from the circumstance that the Danes, like the ancient inhabitants of the North in general, elected their chiefs, and signified their assent to any proposition at the Things, by Vaabentag, or Vaabenlarm (sound, or clang of arms). Vaabentag (Wapentake) might thus have become the name of a small district, having its own chief and its own Thing. A law of King Ethelred’s (see Thorpe, Leges et Instit. Anglo-Sax., Glossary, Lahman), which seems to have been promulgated only for the five Danish burghs, and the rest of the Danish part of England, orders that there shall be in every Wapentake a Gemot or Thing. It is at all events very remarkable, that the division into Wapentakes should exist only in old Danish North England.

In the towns occupied by the Danes, as in the five burghs—or, if Chester and York be included, in the “seven cities”—there was certainly a Danish Thing, as well as in the rural districts. The English word by-law—still used to denote municipal or corporate law, which is neither more nor less than the Danish “By-Lov,” and which, consequently, must have retained its name ever since the times of the Danes—shows at once that they must at least have had some share in developing the system of judicature in the English cities. It is, besides, well known that there was in remote times a Scandinavian “husting” in Sheppey, London, and Winchester, as well as York and Lincoln, and consequently in places south of Watlinga-Stræt. Of the seven cities before mentioned, only York and Lincoln are with certainty known to have had “hustings;” but nevertheless, it can scarcely be doubted that there must have been similar Things in the other five cities. I may add, that the tribunals existing in them are called, in the Anglo-Saxon text of Ethelred’s laws for the five burghs just alluded to, “Gethingd”—a word which bears an undeniable resemblance to the Scandinavian Thing; whilst in Anglo-Saxon such courts were called “Gemot.”

According to old English records, the Danish laws in force in the Danish part of England, though in several respects strikingly similar to the Anglo-Saxon laws, differed from them in many points. It is not, indeed, clearly determined in what these differences and resemblances consisted; but it is at all events certain that the dissimilarity cannot have been confined merely to the difference before mentioned in the amount of the fines, nor to the mode of calculating them; which, as previously stated, was in marks and ores in the Danish part of England, and in pounds and shillings in the Anglo-Saxon districts.

In law-suits among the Anglo-Saxons, the usual kinds of proof were by oath, by witnesses, by cojurors, and by the ordeal of hot iron, or the judgment of God. It was at an early period also customary, in the heathen North, to use by way of proof oaths, cojurors, and witnesses; but instead of the ordeal by hot iron, which was first introduced under Christianity, the old Northmen had quite a different way of deciding their legal disputes, and one which agreed better with their martial spirit, namely, by duel. By some this method was also considered a peculiar kind of God’s judgment; but it should rather, perhaps, be regarded as the subjecting of the original feud, or quarrel, to certain settled forms. This sort of combat was called “holmgang,” because the duel generally took place on a small island, or holm, where it was conducted according to fixed laws. Both plaintiff and defendant had the right of challenging their adversary. Although this mode of deciding legal disputes might easily be, and indeed sometimes was, abused by evildoers—who did not scruple to take advantage of the weakness and want of warlike skill in others, in order to obtain possession of their estates—still it was far more in favour in the North than the proofs by oath and cojurors. The Normans carried it with them into Normandy; and there can scarcely be a doubt that the Danes and Normans, long before the Norman conquest of England—nay, long before Canute the Great’s time—introduced it into the Danelag in the north of England; where, at least, the word “Holmgang,” in its pure Scandinavian meaning, was in use for many generations.

But a peculiar, and in its results highly important, judicial institution prevailed in the North, namely “Næfn,” “Næfninger” (Nævninger); or, as it has been called in later times in English, “Jury.” According to the most ancient Danish laws the accuser had a right, particularly in important criminal causes, to select from among the people a certain number of jurors (Nævninger), who, after taking an oath, were to condemn or acquit the accused; and judgment was not pronounced till they had given their verdict. The accuser’s choice of jurors was limited by law to owners of landed property who were not related to him; neither were they to be inimically disposed towards the accused, who had the right of challenging any of them. The decision of the jury was declared according to the majority of votes. In some districts at least, as for instance in Scania (Skaane), the accused was allowed, if the decision of the jury was against him, to appeal to the ordeal by red-hot iron, which, after the introduction of Christianity, became an important mode of proof in the North. But after the abolition of that ordeal in Denmark (in 1218), and after the heathen mode of duelling, or holmgang, had been abolished by Christianity, and superseded by the institution of juries, this last method of trial played an important part, and became popular with the people because it afforded them a participation in the administration of justice, and at the same time secured their civil liberties. Nevertheless trial by jury was at length obliged to yield to newer forms of law in Scandinavia; and just in proportion as the ancient freedom of the people was lost, the political institutions which had originated from it also disappeared.

England, as is well known, is the only country that, in spite of all commotions, has preserved trial by jury down to modern times. But it is a matter of much dispute to what people may be more particularly ascribed the honour of introducing an institution which has not only for many centuries been of much service to freedom in England, but which has also been transplanted in later times into many other countries, and is now on the point of being disseminated over all that part of Europe which may be called free. Many learned men assert that trial by jury was unknown to the Anglo-Saxons, and maintain that its proper home was the Scandinavian North, whence it was carried by the Northmen into Normandy, and from that country into England by means of the conquest. Others again assert almost the direct contrary; maintaining, that the tradition which ascribes the introduction of juries to the Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred the Great, though it does not speak the literal truth in deriving the institution merely from that monarch, is still thus far deserving of credence, that trial by jury was known and used by the Anglo-Saxons long before the Norman conquest. These persons are of opinion, that the Danes and Normans even set aside the jury for the barbarous Holmgang, or duel, until in the course of time that venerable relic of ancient Saxon freedom again obtained the ascendancy. In order to prove this, they point especially to a passage in one of Ethelred’s laws (Ethelred, iii. § 3), which ordains “that every Wapentake shall have its Thing;” and “that a 'Gemot’ be held in every Wapentake, and the XII senior Thanes go out, and the reeve with them, and swear on the relic that is given to them in hand, that they will accuse no innocent man, nor conceal any guilty one.” Further (§ 13): “And let doom stand where Thanes are of one voice; if they disagree let that stand which VIII of them say; and let those who are outvoted pay, each of them, VI half-marks.” To these passages may be added another, also of Ethelred’s time (Ordinance respecting the Dun-Setas, § 3), wherein it is ordered that: “XII lahmen shall explain the law to the Wealas and English, VI English, and VI Wealas. Let them forfeit all they possess if they explain it wrongly; or clear themselves that they knew no better.”

That a jury is here spoken of is beyond all doubt. But a highly remarkable circumstance has been too much overlooked, namely, that Ethelred’s above-mentioned regulation as to the composition of the jury is contained only in the law just cited; which, according to the opinion of its latest English editor, was intended only for the Five Burghs and the surrounding Danish districts. (“The document of Ethelred, above referred to, seems, in a great measure, to have been published for the sake of the Five Burgs.”—Thorpe.) That it cannot have been intended for the Anglo-Saxon part of England may be immediately seen from the circumstance that all the fines mentioned in it are, without exception, fixed, according to Danish custom, in marks and ores, or öre, and not, after the Anglo-Saxon custom, in pounds and shillings. In this concise law, moreover, we find several Danish legal terms which were not in use in the south of England; for instance, “lahcop” (Old Norsk, “lögkaup”); “wit-word” (Old N., “vitorð”); and “thrinna XII,” or “trende Tylvter Eed” (i. e. three twelves oath). With respect also to the “XII lahmen,” or, as they are called in Latin, “lagemanni” (Old Norsk, lögmaðr), mentioned in Ethelred’s time, it has long been agreed in England that they must have been originally instituted by the Danes. (Thorpe says: “The institution was most probably of Danish origin, as we generally meet with them in the Danish portion of the country.”) They were constantly twelve in number, and it can scarcely admit of a doubt that their functions were the same as those of “the twelve eldest Thanes” before mentioned, and that consequently they were regular jurymen. We see, moreover, from Domesday-Book, which mentions “Lagemanni” only in the Danish portion of North England, viz., in Cambridge, Stamford, Lincoln, and Chester, that they were Thanes, or at least equal to Thanes in rank and privileges. Among other things, jurisdiction (sacam and socam) was conceded to them over their inferiors, or subjects. In the old Danish city of Lincoln the names are recited of those who were previously Lahmen, and of those who remained so when Domesday-Book was compiled. These names, which are partly pure Danish—as, for instance, Hardecnut, Ulf, son of Suertebrand, Walrauen, Siuuard, Aldene (Haldan), and others—prove that sons frequently succeeded their fathers in the office of Lah-man (for instance, “Suardinc loco Hardecnut patris sui. Sortebrand loco Ulf patris sui. Agemund loco Walrauen patris sui. Godvinus fil. Brictric”).

For the rest, since we might search the old Saxon laws in vain for any other certain traces of jurymen besides these, and as special care must be taken not to confound jurymen with cojurors, it becomes quite clear, first, that those authors who conclude, from the above often-quoted passages of Ethelred’s law, that the English jury is of Anglo-Saxon origin, are in error; and secondly, that their opponents have not taken a quite impartial view of the matter when they ascribe the introduction of the jury into England to the conquest by William of Normandy. For it must now be regarded as a point quite decided that the earliest positive traces of a jury in England appear in the Danelag, among the Danes established there, and that, long before William the Conqueror’s time, they had brought over from their old home the Scandinavian Nævn, or jury, into the districts north-east of Watlinga-Stræt, colonized by them, just as their kinsmen and brothers introduced that powerful safeguard of popular freedom into Iceland and Normandy. It would, indeed, have been quite inexplicable that the Danes should have given up their peculiar Scandinavian Nævn in a country like England, where the Danish law obtained by degrees so extensive a footing that, during the reign of the first Norman kings, it was still in force in one-half of the kingdom.

The provisions in Ethelred’s law, so frequently cited, respecting the force of the majority of votes in the verdict of the jury, also betray a likeness, which can scarcely have been accidental, to the regulations of the Nævn, or jury, at that time observed in Denmark. According to the most ancient Danish laws, the outvoted jurymen were also to pay fines. For the rest, there is this peculiarity in the jury of the Danish part of England, that from the time of Ethelred it was no longer chosen by the complainant, as was originally the case in Denmark, but by the court, or by the sheriff of the district (“gerefa”); which was a considerable step gained towards security against partiality. The choice of jurymen was, besides, still more limited in England than in Denmark. Instead of landed proprietors in general, the twelve eldest Thanes alone were eligible; whence it followed that the jurymen were not only fixed, but also obtained, as a reward for their labour, a certain rank, with the rights and income attached to it. This more aristocratical form of the jury undoubtedly sprang from the circumstance that the Danes had entered the northern and eastern districts of England as lords and conquerors. They could not, consequently, appoint as jurors native Anglo-Saxons, unacquainted with the customs of the Danish law courts; nor would they, assuredly, have permitted a conquered people to take a part in verdicts affecting themselves and their Scandinavian brethern. The consequence was, that they chose from among themselves men of consideration, and acquainted with the law, to conduct the administration of justice. It is very remarkable that a later development of the law in Denmark produced a similar change in the jury, the jurors not being chosen for a single cause, but for a period. In Jutland even “Sandemænd,” or jurors appointed by the crown, were instituted, who seem to have answered to the before-mentioned Lag-men, or Lahmen, in the north of England. Eight landed proprietors were selected in every district by the king, and discharged the office of jurymen for life, unless they forfeited it by some misdemeanour.

Not the least trace is to be found in the old English laws and chronicles that the Danish laws in force in the Danelag were more barbarous than the contemporary Anglo-Saxon ones in the south of England. On the contrary, the fact lately mentioned, that the beneficial change in the composition and working powers of the jury, which had long been in force in Danish North England, was in far later times adopted in Norman England, seems rather to attest, in no slight degree, the superiority of the laws of the Danelag. On the whole, the Danish kings in England, and particularly Canute the Great, seem to have been excellent lawgivers. Canute’s laws respecting the limitation of capital punishment, the right of every man to hunt on his own land, and others, evince a mildness and humanity scarcely to be expected in those rude times.

From what has been said, it appears that the Danish part of England must, in William the Conqueror’s time, have had just as many old Danish popular institutions as Normandy, nay, doubtless still more. It is, therefore, no wonder that William and his Normans were highly partial to the Danish laws then in force in England. Immediately after he assumed the reins of government, he commanded that these laws should be in force throughout the kingdom, and consequently even in the purely Anglo-Saxon districts, as both his own forefathers, and those of almost all his barons, had been Northmen, who had formerly emigrated from Norway. But in an assembly held at London in the fourth year of his reign, he suffered himself to be persuaded, by the urgent entreaties of the leading men among the Anglo-Saxons, to restore the laws of Edward the Confessor in the districts in which they had before prevailed. Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxon laws gradually gave place to the Scandinavian institutions in force in the north of England. Thus duel, under the name of “trial by battle,” came to be considered throughout England as lawful proof in judicial suits; an evident result of the bold and chivalrous spirit of the new Norman lords. This kind of proof caused, however, much disturbance in England, and at length, though tardily, grew out of use. It was not formally abolished by law till the year 1818, after a prosecutor had challenged his adversary to trial by battle; a proceeding which even the legal tribunals were obliged to acknowledge that the law, taken in its strictest sense, fully authorised him in adopting. It is, however, remarkable enough that the proof by duel, which in Scandinavia itself was abolished on the introduction of Christianity, should have maintained its ground for several centuries in England, which had long been Christianized. We might even say that down to the present times it has everywhere left perceptible traces in Europe. For what are duels but trials by battle, or sort of judgment of God? They were, however, much disseminated by chivalry, in the development of which the warlike Normans took so considerable a part. The ancient holmgang was, as we have seen, called, both in Normandy and England, “duel.”

The institution of the jury (“Nævninger,” or “Nævn”), before mentioned as originally Scandinavian, was established throughout England by the Normans in such a manner that it has maintained its place to our times. Under the first Norman kings we find traces of a more general employment of the jury, which was previously confined to the Danish part of England, where it continued to exist after the conquest by William. When, in the following century, holmgang or trial by battle, began, in spite of the limitations it had undergone, to become too grievous in England, a law was published in 1164, that a jury of twelve knights, chosen by four knights of the district, should be substituted in its place. Thus at its first general establishment in England the jury had much the same form as it possessed in earlier times in the Danish part of the kingdom. The provision that the jury should be composed of knights soon fell to the ground. Subsequently, after the ordeal by red-hot iron, or the judgment of God, had been abolished (in the year 1219), it was appointed, in the reign of Henry the Third, that the accused, who might previously have liberated himself by that ordeal, should submit his case to the decision of twelve Nævninger, or jurymen. In this manner an influence was secured to the jury in England, which has since been continually increasing; trial by jury having become, as it were, the central point of the judicial system in that country. The English themselves, with just reason, regard the jury as a wise and happy institution, which has much contributed to develope the excellence of the national character, and to maintain the free constitution of their country. What is more, foreigners pass the same judgment on it; and it especially deserves to be remembered, that at the present moment, after the introduction of popular freedom into the Scandinavian North, its people are seeking to re-establish the native Nævn, or jury, which formerly crossed the seas with the conquerors of England and Normandy, and which has victoriously stood the trial of centuries in those countries.

We have already seen it proved, from contemporary laws, that the germ of at least one of England’s freest and most important institutions was to be found, as early as the ninth century, among the numerous Danes and Norwegians settled in that country, to whose successors and kinsmen may be justly ascribed the honour of further developing the institution of trial by jury. In like manner contemporary chronicles bear witness that these Danish and Norwegian settlements in many ways essentially contributed to promote political liberty and the spirit of freedom. According to that remarkable document, Domesday-Book, there was, about twenty years after the Norman conquest, a greater number of independent landed proprietors, if not, in the strictest sense of the word, freeholders, in the districts occupied by the Danes, and under the Danelag, than in the other, or Anglo-Saxon, part of England. The smaller Anglo-Saxon agriculturists were frequently serfs, though, for the most part, perhaps, leaseholders, or holding other subordinate situations; whilst the Danish settlers, being conquerors, were mostly freemen, and, in general, proprietors of the soil. Domesday-Book mentions, under the name of “Sochmanni,” a numerous class of landowners, or peasants, in the Danish districts north-east of Watlinga-Stræt, who, to the south of that line, and even then only just upon the borders of it, are rarely to be found, (viz., in Buckinghamshire, 19, and in Surrey, 9). It also mentions a great number of freemen in those districts, or, as they are called in Latin, “liberi homines.” Neither Sochmanni nor liberi homines seem, however, to have been freeholders, in the present sense of that term. They certainly stood in a sort of feudal relation to a superior lord; but in such a manner that the “Sochmanni” may be best compared with our present hereditary lessees. Their farms passed by inheritance to their sons, they paying certain rents, and performing certain feudal duties; but the feudal lord had no power to dispose of the property as he pleased.

The counties occupied by the Danes and Norwegians, viz., Northumberland, Durham, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire, are not mentioned in Domesday-Book. In the other fifteen counties to the north and east of Watlinga-Stræt, the “Sochmanni” and “liberi homines” are summed up as follows (see Turner’s “History of the Anglo-Saxons”):—

EssexSochmanni343
liberi homines306
SuffolkSochmanni1,014
liberi homines8,012
NorfolkSochmanni5,521
liberi homines4,981
CambridgeSochmanni245
Hertford"57
Bedford"88
Northampton"915
Huntingdon"23
Rutland"2
Leicester"1,716
Derby"127
Nottingham"1,565
Lincoln"11,322
Yorkshire"438
Cheshire, drenches"54
——————
Total36,729
——————

The so-called “freemen” (liberi homines), who, it may be assumed, most resembled our freeholders, seem from this to have been principally confined to Essex (306) and the ancient East Anglia, or Norfolk and Suffolk (together, 12,993). “Sochmanni” were also very numerous in these three counties (together, 6878); yet they appear in the greatest numbers in the old Danish Lincolnshire, which alone had 11,322. In the other districts round the Danish five burghs, they were also pretty numerous: in Leicestershire, 1716; and in Nottinghamshire, 1565. The number of these independent landowners was consequently greatest in the districts earliest occupied by the Danes, where they naturally sprung up from the Danish chiefs’ parcelling out the soil to their victorious warriors. That the large county of York had not more than about 440 Sochmanni can hardly be used by way of counter-proof; partly because Yorkshire had been terribly exhausted in the wars of William the Conqueror, which took place before Domesday-Book was compiled; and partly because it is clear that Yorkshire is not so fully described in that document as the more southern counties. Lastly, it is remarkable that extremely few serfs are mentioned in the districts north-east of Watlinga-Stræt, in comparison of the many that are recorded in the south and south-west of England.

English authors admit that the Danish settlers in England bestowed a great benefit on the country, in a political point of view, by the introduction of a numerous class of independent peasantry, who formed a striking contrast to the oppressed Anglo-Saxon commonalty. (“The Danes seem to have planted in the colonies they occupied a numerous race of freemen, and their counties seem to have been well peopled.”—Turner.) But unfortunately the number of Danish-Norwegian freeholders and freemen at that time in England cannot now be given more closely than by the above sum of 36,729, which is evidently too low, and in every respect highly inaccurate.

It is, however, large enough to strengthen and throw light upon the statements of the chronicles, that the descendants of the Danes and Norwegians in the country to the north-east of Watlinga-Stræt, especially distinguished themselves by a lively feeling of freedom and independence. From the time of their very first settlement, they desperately resisted every chief who attempted to deprive them of their rights as free and independent men. It was, indeed, but reasonable that they should, with persevering boldness, defend in a foreign land that freedom for the sake of which they had abandoned their Scandinavian homes. Their severest and most perilous struggle for liberty naturally took place after the destruction of the Danish power under Hardicanute (1042): although the extensive Danish tract north of the Humber still retained its Danish jarl, Siward.

But on Siward’s death (1055), his son, Valthjof (Waltheof), was too young to govern that important district, which was therefore made over to Toste Godvinsön, who afterwards fell at Stamford Bridge. Toste ruled with despotic power, set aside the laws of Canute the Great, and levied taxes which were contrary to the people’s ancient rights. The Northumbrians therefore deposed him at a Thing, and expelled him in 1064. When Toste’s brother, Harald, afterwards endeavoured to effect a reconciliation, on the condition that Toste should be reinstated in the earldom, the Northumbrians unanimously rejected the proposal. “We were born and bred up in freedom,” they exclaimed; “a proud and ambitious chief we will not endure, for we have learnt from our fathers either to live like freemen or to die.”

When, two years afterwards, William began to conquer England, and to parcel it out among his warriors, it was chiefly the inhabitants of the old Danish districts who opposed him with all the energy of despair. The successors of the Danes and Norwegians, under ordinary circumstances, would have joined their kinsmen the Normans; especially as they gave out that one of their objects in coming to England was to avenge their Danish and Norwegian relatives, secretly massacred by Ethelred. But the Normans aimed at nothing less than the abolition of the free tenure of estates, and the complete establishment of a feudal constitution; a mode of proceeding which, by depriving the previously independent man of his right to house and land, and transferring it to powerful nobles, shook the very foundation of freedom. The descendants of the Danes turned from them, therefore, with disgust, and now no longer hesitated to enter into an alliance with the equally oppressed Anglo-Saxons; for the common danger made both races forget their ancient animosities. Many of the Anglo-Saxon chiefs and warriors who had been defeated by William in the west and south-west of England, fled towards the north, and prepared, in conjunction with the inhabitants of that district, to venture everything in self-defence.

It was not till the year 1068 that the Normans succeeded, after a severe contest, in taking Oxford, Warwick, and the old Danish burghs Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, and York. In these places, but especially in Lincoln and York, the Normans were obliged to build strong fortifications, for fear of the people of Scandinavian descent, who abounded both in the towns and in the adjacent rural districts. But what the Normans chiefly apprehended was, attacks from the Danes who, there was good reason to suppose, might come over with their fleets to the assistance of their countrymen in the north of England.

Meantime, whilst the remains of the united Anglo-Saxon and Danish-Norwegian armies had withdrawn to the mountains of Northumberland, where they often surprised and killed whole detachments of Norman troops, numerous fugitives and messengers repaired to King Svend in Denmark, to implore him, in the name of his English friends, and in that of freedom, to assist them against William the Conqueror. Svend sent his brother Asbjörn, and his sons Harald and Canute, over with a fleet, who, after a vain attempt to land at Sandwich, entered the Humber, in the year 1069. The Northumbrians, and the rest of the aggrieved inhabitants, both Northmen and Anglo-Saxons, flocked gladly together under the Danish banner. Edgar, who had been chosen king by the Anglo-Saxons, Valthjof (Waltheof), a son of the old Northumbrian jarl Siward, and many other fugitives, joined the Danish host. York was taken, the Normans put to flight, and their fortifications levelled with the ground. In these encounters Waltheof gained great honour for courage and bravery.

But the joy of victory was only of short duration. William, who had sworn in his anger to lay all Northumberland waste, knew how to avert by persuasion, cunning, and bribery, the danger that threatened him from Denmark. The Danish fleet went home in the spring; and William retook York, and extended his dominion in Northumberland; where his progress was marked by slaughter, incendiarism, and rapine. The unfortunate inhabitants fled to the forests and morasses; their last place of refuge was the marshes near the Wash. Moved by the cries of complaint which continually reached him from England, the Danish king Svend again sent a number of vessels, which appeared in the Humber in the year 1074. But these were not able to render any effectual assistance. Waltheof, whom William, in order to conciliate the Northumbrians, had appointed Jarl in his father’s earldom, fell under the axe of the executioner on suspicion of being concerned in this naval expedition; and fresh devastations promoted William’s dominion over Northumberland, which was so terribly harassed that large districts were left without houses or human inhabitants.

The forests of the north of England now became the last refuge of numberless outlaws, who would not submit to the ferocious conqueror, preferring a free and merry life in the green woods; where they united together, and defied William’s powerful armies and severe laws. They had secret connections among the people, who saw in them the last defenders of their ancient freedom. Among the leaders of these outlaws, who, long after William’s time, continued to wander about in the English forests, but who were most numerous in the north of England, we meet with Scandinavian names, such as Sweyn, and Sihtrik; and in the legends and songs which have preserved the remembrance of them, are found Scandinavian traits of character, such as the story of William of Cloudesley, who shot the apple from his son’s head. It is the identical legend related in our old Sagas of the Scandinavian hero, Palnatoke.

The last gleam of any well-founded hope of deliverance shone upon the successors of the Anglo-Saxons and Danish-Norwegians in the north of England, when, in the year 1085, the Danish king Canute, afterwards called the Saint, assembled a powerful fleet in the Liimfjord, in order to release England from the Conqueror’s yoke, and if possible to seat himself on the throne. Sixty Norwegian vessels had joined Canute’s fleet. William, on his side, made great preparations in order to resist the expected attack. Danegelt was again collected for the defence of the kingdom against the Danes. The inhabitants of Scandinavian descent in the north of England were compelled to alter their dress, and to cut off their long beards, that the Danes might not thereby recognise their kinsmen. The coasts were occupied by soldiers, who erected strong defences; whilst William at the same time endeavoured, by means of secret envoys and bribery, to sow disunion in the Danish fleet. Canute’s progress was impeded by unfortunate circumstances; the fleet separated, and a mutiny broke out, which ended in the murder of Canute at Odensee, in the year 1086. No further attempt was made by Denmark to conquer England; for the expedition said to have been prepared by King Erik Lam in the year 1138 was, at all events, a very poor and unsuccessful one. Thus the Northmen in England, being no longer able to obtain support from Denmark or Norway, were forced to submit to the Norman dominion.

Nevertheless, in spite of the terrible devastations by which William coerced the north of England, “the half-Saxon half-Danish population of these districts” (says the French historian, Thierry) “long continued to preserve their old feeling of independence and their ancient indomitable pride. The Norman kings who succeeded the Conqueror dwelt with perfect safety in the southern districts, but did not venture north of the Humber without some fear; and a chronicler, who lived at the close of the twelfth century, assures us that they never visited that part of the kingdom without being accompanied by a strong army.”

Although no very great number of Northmen, or men of Scandinavian extraction, could have remained in Normandy after William’s conquest of England, and after the Norman expeditions into Italy, yet even these few, as we have before stated, were subsequently able to impart to the popular spirit in Normandy a peculiar Scandinavian colouring. The Norman knights distinguished themselves from the effeminate, dreaming, and excitable knights of the south of France, not only by a greater inclination for adventures and a bolder martial spirit, but also by a genuine Scandinavian sedateness and an all-subduing perseverance. The old Scandinavian feeling of freedom revealed itself, even in the middle ages, in the cities of Normandy, which were long the seats of a democratic spirit and of republican movements. According to William the Conqueror’s own statement, the ancient Normans, and, above all, their Scandinavian forefathers, were, in a high degree, quarrelsome and litigious; and, even to this day, Normandy is remarkable, above all other provinces of France, for the great number of law-suits which annually take place in it. Frenchmen themselves have remarked that their most skilful and persevering seamen are to be found among the inhabitants of Dieppe, and that the most celebrated admirals of France have been natives of Normandy.

If such was the influence of the Normans in France, were not the Danes and Norwegians, who had been settled for centuries in England, in a still better position to fix a lasting stamp upon the life and character of the people; more particularly as the Danish-Norwegian elements continued, long after the Norman conquest, to exercise a very considerable influence in England? We may truly assert that the Scandinavian spirit is still clearly to be discerned, not merely in separate districts, but throughout England. The love of the English for bold adventures, especially at sea, their unshaken calmness in the greatest dangers, their apparent coolness during the most violent emotions, and their proud feeling of freedom, are surely not to be ascribed exclusively to the Normans. These qualities must, in a great degree, be attributed to the English, as the descendants of those Danish and Norwegian warriors who sought dangers on unknown seas; who looked death steadily in the face, come in whatever shape it might; who gloried in the feeling that their countenances should not betray the passions which fermented in their breasts; and who prized liberty far more than life.

It deserves at least to be mentioned, as affording a remarkable analogy to Normandy, that England’s most celebrated and successful admiral, Nelson, bore a genuine Scandinavian name (Nielsen, with the characteristic Scandinavian termination of son, or sön). He was, besides, a native of one of the districts early colonized by the Danes, having been born in the town of Burnham-thorpe, in Norfolk, or East Anglia. In fact, the perceptible difference of character still actually found between the people in old Saxon South England and in the more northern old Danish districts, is very remarkable. The southern Englishman is softer and more compliant. The northern Englishman is of a firmness of character, bordering on the hard and severe, and possesses an unusually strong feeling of freedom. The Yorkshireman is well known in England as a hasty and touchy, but determined and independent, character. Great political movements have therefore not only found reception and encouragement among the population of the north of England; but this population, from the interest it takes in the progress of public affairs, and from its love of freedom, has played a leading part in the great internal revolutions which mark the recent political history of England. Public men regard it as a great honour to represent the northern districts of England in Parliament (for instance, the West Riding of Yorkshire), merely from the intelligent political character of the voters; and it is certainly through the adherence of the lovers of freedom in the north, that Cobden has been able to struggle so successfully for the promotion of free trade, for financial reform, and for similar liberal measures. That this spirit of liberty in the north of England is chiefly derived from the old Scandinavian colonists is by no means merely the partial assertion of a Dane. The celebrated English writer, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, who, in his “Harold,” has successfully begun to awaken the attention of his countrymen to a juster view of the Danish conquest, says in a note appended to that work: “It might be easy to show, were this the place, that though the Anglo-Saxons never lost their love of liberty, yet that the victories which gradually regained liberty from the gripe of the Anglo-Norman kings were achieved by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. And even to this day, the few rare descendants of that race (whatever their political faction) will generally exhibit that impatience of despotic influence, and that disdain of corruption, which characterize the homely bonders of Norway, in whom we may still recognise the sturdy likeness of our fathers; while it is also remarkable that the modern inhabitants of those portions of the kingdom originally peopled by the Danes, are, irrespectively of mere party divisions, noted for their intolerance of all oppression, and their resolute independence of character; to wit, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Cumberland, and large districts in the Scottish lowlands.”

It would be impossible to deny that the Danes and Norwegians settled in England before the arrival of the Normans not only essentially contributed to the preservation of popular liberty—which, through the weakness and effeminacy of the Anglo-Saxons, was threatened with destruction—but that they also laid the foundation of its further development, and powerfully contributed to its complete establishment. We need, therefore, be no longer surprised that memorials of the Danes are mixed up with England’s freest and most liberal institutions; and that to the present day, for instance, the place whence the candidates for a seat in Parliament address the electors, bears, throughout England, the pure Danish name “husting.”