Toward the close of the eighth century the vikings appeared in large numbers on the coasts of Northern England. Two generations later they had destroyed three of the four English kingdoms and were organising the Danelaw on their ruins. Still later Rolf appeared with his host of Northmen in the Seine Valley and founded the Norman duchy.
It must not be assumed that in these colonies the population was exclusively Scandinavian. The native elements persisted and seem, as a rule, to have lived on fairly good terms with the invaders. It is likely that wherever these energetic Northerners settled they became the dominant social force; but no feeling of contempt or aloofness appears to have been felt on either side after the races had learned to know each other. Intermarriage was frequent, not only between Dane and Angle, but between Celt and Norseman as well. In time the alien was wholly absorbed into the native population; but in the process the victorious element underwent a profound transformation which extended to social conventions as well as to race.[26]
The largest of these colonies was the Danelaw, a series of Danish and Norse settlements extending from the Thames to the north of England. According to an English writer of the twelfth century, it comprised York and fourteen shires to the south.[27] The area controlled was evidently considerably larger than the region actually settled; and in some of the shires the Scandinavian population was probably not numerous. Five cities in the Danelaw enjoyed a peculiar pre-eminence. These were Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Stamford. It has been conjectured that these were garrison towns held and organised with a view to securing the obedience of the surrounding country.[28] If this be correct, we should infer that the population beyond the walls was largely Anglian. The Five Boroughs seem to have had a common organisation of a republican type: they formed "the first federation of boroughs known in this island, and in fact the earliest federation of towns known outside of Italy."[29] Part of the Danelaw must have contained a large Scandinavian element, especially the shires of Lincoln and York.[30] There were also Danish and Norwegian settlements in England outside the Danelaw in its narrower sense: in the north-western shires and in the Severn Valley, perhaps as high up as Worcestershire.[31]
Danish power in England seems to have centered about the ancient city of York. It would be more nearly correct to speak of Northumbria in the ninth and tenth centuries as a Norse than as a Danish colony; but the Angles made no such distinction. The population must also have contained a large English element. A native ecclesiastic who wrote toward the close of the tenth century speaks with enthusiasm of the wealth and grandeur of York.
The city rejoices in a multitude of inhabitants; not fewer than 30,000 men and women (children and youths not counted) are numbered in this city. It is also filled with the riches of merchants who come from everywhere, especially from the Danish nation.[32]
In some respects the Danelaw is the most important fact in the history of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy: it was the rock on which Old English nationality foundered. By the middle of the tenth century, Saxon England was practically confined to the country south of the Thames River and the western half of the Midlands, a comparatively small area surrounded by Scandinavian and Celtic settlements. If this fact is fully appreciated, there should be little difficulty in understanding the loss of English national freedom in the days of Sweyn and Canute. The English kings did, indeed, exercise some sort of suzerain authority over most of the neighbouring colonies, but this authority was probably never so complete as historians would have us believe.
It is worth noting that the scribe whom we have quoted above speaks of the Danes, not as pirates but as merchants. The tenth century was, on the whole, so far as piratical expeditions are concerned, an age of peace in the North. The word viking is old in the mediæval dialects, and Scandinavian pirates doubtless visited the shores of Christian Europe at a very early date. But the great viking age was the ninth century, when the field of piratical operations covered nearly half of Europe and extended from Iceland to Byzantium. The movement culminated in the last quarter of the century and was followed by a constructive period of nearly one hundred years, when society was being reorganised or built anew in the conquered lands. The Icelandic republic was taking form. The Norman duchy was being organised. The Northmen in the Danelaw were being forced into political relations with the Saxon kings. Trade began to follow new routes and find new harbours. The older Scandinavian cities acquired an added fame and importance, while new towns were being founded both in the home lands and in the western islands.
