Ecclesiastical and Secular Aristocracy.
Ecclesiastical and Secular Aristocracy.
Ecclesiastical and Secular Aristocracy.
The supposition that the Danes in England devoted themselves to study both earlier, and to a greater extent, than the Normans in France, is not founded only on loose conjectures. The English chronicles of the earlier middle ages contain traces of the Danes having not unfrequently entered into the English Church, in which they sometimes obtained the highest preferment. On this point we still possess an important source of information, which has, besides, the advantage of being for the most part contemporary with the events and circumstances which it elucidates. This consists of a considerable quantity of letters and diplomas issued by kings, bishops, and other leading men in England, from about the year 600 to 1066. These documents, which have lately been collected and published by a gentleman celebrated for historical research, Mr. J. M. Kemble, (under the title of “Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici,” vol. i.-vi., London, 1839-1848, 8vo.) more especially regard the southern and midland parts of England, as unfortunately the greater part of the letters relating to the north of England are lost. Nevertheless, those that remain, taken in conjunction with the chronicles, afford valuable information, both respecting the Danish clergy in the south-east of England, and their diffusion throughout that country.
In the centre of the east coast of England, in Lincolnshire, and near the Wash, stood in the Anglo-Saxon times the large and famous convent of Croyland, or Crowland, dedicated to St. Guthlac. It was built upon an island, and so protected on the land side by the vast morasses which in those times covered the districts nearest the Wash, that it was a sort of natural fortress. According to the chronicles of the convent, compiled by one of the abbots in the eleventh century, it was governed, shortly after the year 800, by an abbot of the name of Sivard; in whose time there is also mentioned in the convent a priest (presbyter) named “Turstan,” and a monk “Eskil” (Askillus monachus). In the same ancient chronicle are also recorded several deeds of gift, which possibly, with regard to the rights conveyed to the convent, may have been forgeries of the times, but which, at all events, so far as regards the names of persons and places mentioned in them, must be perfectly correct and trustworthy; since incorrectness in these particulars would have easily led to the discovery of the intended frauds. These deeds mention, between the years 800 and 868, amongst the benefactors of the convent, three viscounts in Lincolnshire, “Thorold” (or Thurold), “Norman,” and “Sivard;” and also “Grymketil” and “Asketellus” (or Asketil), who was cook to the Mercian king Viglaf. Lastly there appear (particularly in the year 833) the following names of places:—Langtoft, Asuuiktoft, Gernthorp, Holbeck, Pyncebek, Laithorp, Badby, and Kyrkeby.
The names of persons in the convent, and of places about it, here cited are all, perhaps, or at most with a single exception, of undoubted Danish or Scandinavian origin. They not only prove that, even long before the treaty between Alfred the Great and the Viking King Gudrum or Gorm, which in the year 879 secured to the Danes their conquests on the south-east coast of England, and therefore, more than one hundred and fifty years before Canute the Great’s time, the Danes really had such a footing round the Wash that they could give their villages Danish names, and were governed by their own chiefs; but they likewise indicate the remarkable fact, that at least a great number of these Danes must have been already Christians, since they had villages with churches (Kyrkeby) and gave landed property to a convent, in which we find both Danish monks (Eskil and Thurstan), and a Danish abbot (Sivard.) It was about the same time that the Jutland king, Harald Klag, was baptized, together with his whole suite, during a sojourn with the Emperor Ludvig, at Ingelheim, near Mayence, in the year 826. This christening of Danish men abroad, in Germany and England, was the beginning of the subsequent introduction of Christianity into the Scandinavian North.
The genuineness of the above-mentioned Scandinavian names is placed beyond all doubt by the circumstance that similar names appear in other documents connected with the history of Croyland at the same period, or the ninth century. In the year 867, swarms of Danish-Norwegian Vikings landed on the east coast of England, and the Christians who then lived there, whether Danes or Anglo-Saxons, as well as their churches and convents, suffered from the ferocity of these heathens. After a great battle in Lincolnshire, in which, however, the heathens lost three of their kings, whom they buried in a place afterwards called “Trekyngham” (the three kings’ home), they marched against Croyland. In vain did the Christians seek to arrest their progress. In a battle near the convent many of the Christians fell, and amongst them “Toli” or “Tule,” who had previously been a knight, but who had now entered the cloisters of Croyland. The Vikings stormed the convent, and committed a terrible massacre. Their king, “Oskytyl,” cut down the abbot before the altar; after which the convent was plundered and destroyed. The Danish Viking Jarl Sidroc, or Sigtryg, saved a boy called Turgar (Thorgeir) from this massacre, who afterwards escaped to the neighbouring convent of Ely, and gave an account, which is still preserved, of this terrible devastation. Meanwhile, however, the convent of Ely, as well as that of Medehamstede (Peterborough), was plundered and destroyed by the Vikings.
Amongst the monks then killed in Croyland, we may cite from the chronicle, the prior, Asker, and the friars Grimketulus (Grimketil) and Agamundus (Amund); and among the few saved, Sveinus or Svend:—names which, not less than Tule and Thorgeir, indicate a Danish origin. Men of Danish extraction continued in the following centuries to play a considerable part in the history of this and of the neighbouring convents. A Dane named “Thurstan” is said to have rebuilt that of Ely; and another man of Danish family, “Turketul” (Thorketil), certainly rebuilt Croyland. Thorketil, who (it is stated) was nearly related to the royal Saxon family, had previously distinguished himself both as a warrior and statesman. In the battle of Brunanborg he commanded the citizens of London who were in Athelstane’s army, and during a long series of years was chancellor to several kings. Subsequently, however, he took the vows of the convent, and governed Croyland with honour, as abbot, till his death in the year 975.
It is, indeed, very striking to observe how many abbots of Danish origin governed the convent of Croyland from the ninth to the twelfth century. Sivard and Thorketil have been already mentioned. Thorketil was succeeded by two of his relations, both named Egelrik; and after the death of the last of these in 992, followed an abbot with the pure Danish or Scandinavian name of “Oscytel.” This Asketil had long been prior of Croyland before he became its abbot, which he continued to be till his death in the year 1005. To what extent Asketil’s immediate successors were Danes is at least very uncertain, as they have Anglo-Saxon names. During the invasions of the Danish kings, however, the convent was at times suspected of being in league with the Danes. Canute the Great is said to have presented a chalice, and his son Hardicanute his coronation mantle, to Croyland. Other Danes also made similar gifts to that convent. In the year 1053 it again had an abbot with the Danish name of Ulfketil (Wulketulus); and, what is very significant, after the Norman conquest, the swampy districts round it became places of refuge for the Danes and Anglo-Saxons who had in vain fought the last battle for freedom against the victorious and advancing Norman conquerors. One of the chief leaders in this battle was the Jarl Valthiof, a son of the far-famed Danish Jarl, Sivard Digre (Eng.Sivard the Stout) of Northumberland. Valthiof, it is expressly stated, was one of Croyland’s best benefactors and protectors. Subsequently he made his peace with William, but was at last executed by that monarch’s directions, and immediately buried at Winchester. Nevertheless the abbot Ulfketil, together with his monks, obtained permission to convey Valthiof’s body to Croyland, where many miracles were soon performed at the shrine of the innocent and murdered martyr of freedom. Exasperated probably by this, as well as by the refuge which their opponents found in and about Croyland, the Normans inflicted many calamities on it, and at length deposed the abbot Ulfketil. He was succeeded by an Englishman with the Scandinavian name of “Ingulf,” to whom we are indebted for having indited the ancient chronicles of the convent.
The close connection of Croyland with the Danes, as well as its Danish monks and abbots, was a natural consequence of the convent’s being situated in Lincolnshire, a part of England which was pretty nearly the earliest and most numerously occupied by them. Satisfactory reasons certainly exist even to justify us in calling this convent peculiarly a Danish one. In consequence of its size and importance, it is highly probable that it was one of the principal places whence the Danish settlers in England derived their civilization. In this manner Croyland answers in England to the convent of Bec in Normandy (from the Danish Bæk, a small rivulet), founded by the Northmen, and afterwards very celebrated; which also seems to have been one of the most important nurseries for the diffusion of a higher Christian and intellectual cultivation among the Scandinavian colonists in Normandy.
The very remarkable evidence which the history of Croyland affords of the Christianity of the Danes in England so early as the ninth century, is, however, by no means solitary. Before the treaty concluded between Gorm (Gudrum) and Alfred in the year 879, the former had already been converted, and received at his baptism the name of Athelstane. In a somewhat later treaty concluded by the same King Gorm with Alfred’s successor Edward, it is assumed that there must long have been Christians among the Danes settled in East Anglia, and that they had at all events allowed the ecclesiastical institutions to exist unmolested among them. In the year 890 there was in Northumberland a king called Guthred (Gutfred, Godfred?), a son of the Danish king Hardicanute, of whom it is stated that he extended the bishopric of Durham, and conferred on it considerable rights and privileges, which even at the present day distinguish that see above all others in England. The coins of Danish-Norwegian kings minted in the north of England in the ninth and first half of the tenth century (as mentioned at p. 49), also indicate an early conversion to Christianity; as they show both the cross, and frequently also parts of the Christian legend: “Dominus, dominus, omnipotens rex mirabilia fecit;” or, “The Lord, the Lord, the Almighty King, hath performed wonderful things.”
About the year 940, Christianity must, on the whole, have had a firm footing among the Northumbrian Danes. It would otherwise be inexplicable how, in the wars which Edmund waged at that time with the Danish king Anlaf, or Olaf, in Northumberland, even the Archbishop of York, “Wulfstan,” should have sided with the Danes against the Anglo-Saxons. Wulfstan subsequently, in the year 943, negotiated a peace between Olaf and Edmund, whereby the latter ceded the country east of Watlinga-Stræt to Olaf. In this treaty a great man, of Danish extraction, took part on the Anglo-Saxon side; namely, Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose father was a Dane who had fought in the host of the Vikings against Alfred the Great. One might almost be led to believe that Wulfstan himself was of Danish origin, and that his name was only the Anglo-Saxon form of the Scandinavian “Ulfsteen.” For under King Edmund’s successor, Edred, we again find the Archbishop, together with his clergy, paying homage to the Danish king’s son, Erik (son of Harald Blaatand?), although he had shortly before, in common with the Northumbrians, taken an oath of fidelity to the Anglo-Saxon king. After the murder of Erik, King Edred caused the Archbishop to be deposed and thrown into prison; but afterwards gave him the bishopric of Dorchester, though far removed from the Danish possessions.
Another argument in favour of the Danish extraction of Bishop Wulfstan (or Ulfsteen) is, that several of his successors in the archbishopric were undoubtedly Danish; which shows that in those days such men were chiefly elevated to that dignity, as, through their common descent and kinsmanship, possessed an influence over the Danish population in Northumberland; where, also, there was doubtless a great body of Danish clergy. Contemporary with Abbot Thorketil, a certain “Oscetel,” or Osketil, is also named as churchwarden (circeværd) in the King’s letters-patent in the year 949; probably the same Osketil who, between the years 955 and 970, constantly signed the King’s letters as Archbishop of York. As Odo, the Danish Archbishop of Canterbury, lived long after Osketil had become Archbishop of York, we are thus presented, half a century before the reign of Canute the Great, with the singular spectacle of the two chief ecclesiastics of England, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, being both of Danish extraction. Oscytel’s successor in the archiepiscopal see of York was also a Danish man, although he bore the Anglo-Saxon name of Oswald. He was both nearly related to Oscytel (his “nepos”), and, moreover, a brother’s son of Archbishop Odo; consequently descended in a direct line from the Danish Viking, Odo’s father. This Archbishop Oswald published some laws for the Northumbrian clergy which are still extant, and in which, according to Danish custom, fines are computed inmarksandöre; whilst in the rest of England they were reckoned in pounds and shillings.
As these facts lead us to suppose that, at that time, a great part of the inferior clergy in England must have been of Danish extraction, and particularly in Danish North and East England; it thus becomes still clearer that the English priests or missionaries, with Scandinavian names—as, for instance, Eskild, Grimkild, and Sigurd—who went over to Scandinavia in the tenth century for the purpose of converting the heathens, were, as their names show, of Danish origin, and undoubtedly natives of the Danish part of England. Sprung from Scandinavian families, which, though settled in a foreign land, could scarcely have so soon forgotten their mother tongue, or the customs which they had inherited, they could enter with greater safety than other priests on their dangerous proselytizing travels in the heathen North; where, also, from their familiarity with the Scandinavian language, they were manifestly best suited successfully to prepare the entrance of Christianity.
The rapid accession of the Danes to the highest ecclesiastical offices in England must satisfactorily convince every impartial person how carefully we should discriminate between the Danish or Scandinavian Vikings, who, only for a certain period, robbed and plundered, and the Danish colonists, who, from the beginning of the ninth century were settled down—particularly in the east and north of England—as peaceful Christian citizens; and whose sons soon became sufficiently accomplished and respected to fill the highest places among the already powerful ecclesiastical aristocracy of England. Nor should it be forgotten, that the Danes in England, who, though fewer in number than the natives, yet aimed at the supreme authority, were early obliged to apply themselves to study, and to permit their sons to enter the clerical order; for, the greater the influence they could acquire among the clergy, who at that time held a very large share of power, the stronger and more secure would their position become in the land of their adoption.
After having had, at least, three archbishops of Danish family during the tenth century, it is not surprising that in the following one the English clergy had lost a great deal of their horror for the Danes, and were so willing to do homage to the Danish conqueror, Canute the Great, in preference to any prince of Anglo-Saxon descent. Nor did Canute betray their confidence. He conformed to their manners, and built churches and convents, whilst his followers imitated his example. Under such a state of things the English clergy must have become still more mixed with Danes. In Canute’s time the royal letters are signed by the abbots “Oscytel” (1020-1023) and “Siuuard” (in Abingdon, Berkshire); as also by “Grimkytel,” bishop in Essex; and under Hardicanute, by “Sivard” and “Grimkytel” as well as by thediaconusThurkil. Even long after the fall of the Danish power, as, for instance, in Edward the Confessor’s time, we still meet with many high dignitaries of the church, with Scandinavian names; such as the abbots Sivard, Sihtric, Uvi or Ove, abbot of St. Edmundsbury, in East Anglia, and Brand; who was also abbot of a convent on the east coast, namely Peterborough, close to Croyland. We further have Sitric, chaplain to the Bishop of Dorchester, and lastly the Kentish bishop, Siward. William the Conqueror’s Doomsday Book likewise mentions several such Danish clergymen; for instance, in the old Danish city of Lincoln, the priests “Siuuard” and Aldene or Haldan. In St. Edmundsbury there was still later (1157) a Danish abbot named Hugo.
The secular nobility, or chiefs, were closely connected with the high church dignitaries of that time. The royal letters before mentioned also show, that whilst the Danes succeeded in placing men of their own race amongst the highest clergy in England, they likewise procured admittance into the ranks of the nobility, and even into the suite that surrounded the Anglo-Saxon kings themselves. This happened not only from the Danish chiefs frequently entering the service of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and often marrying among the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy; but still more from the circumstance, that certain districts became in time so strongly occupied by the Danes, as to fall under Danish chieftains; and consequently the Anglo-Saxon kings, inasmuch as they held dominion over such districts, were compelled to take these chiefs into their court and councils. History informs us that the Danish kings Halvdan and Gudrum divided the districts they had conquered in Northumbria and East Anglia among their followers, and thus formed there, at an early period, a resident and wealthy Danish aristocracy.
It has been before shown that, so early as the ninth century, Lincolnshire had had at least three Shire-greves (Sheriffs), or earls of the shire, of Danish or Scandinavian extraction; viz., Thurold, Norman, and Sivard. In the ninth century, indeed, as well as in the first part of the tenth, the Danish possessions in England were almost entirely independent of the Anglo-Saxon kings. It was at this period that the Danish-Norwegian kings in the districts north-east of Watlinga-Stræt minted, as independent sovereigns, the many coins before described. There could not, consequently, have then existed in the courts of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs so many Danish chiefs, or vassals, as when those monarchs subsequently began to acquire dominion over the previously more independent Danish kingdoms. Thus, among the regular followers of King Athelstane (925-941), who subdued the Danish kingdoms in England, we find, even before his successful expeditions into the North, not a few Danish-Norwegian chiefs, who signed diplomas in conjunction with him, and particularly during the years 929 to 931; namely, besides the Thane “Syeweard” (his minister), the Jarls Urm, Gudrum, Healden or Halfdene, Inhwær (Ingvard), Rengwald, Hadder, Haward, Scule, and Gunner. This may, perhaps, partly confirm the statement of the chronicles, that Athelstane availed himself of Danish warriors to suppress rebellion in his kingdom. It is expressly stated that, at the battle of Brunanborg (treated of at p. 34), there were Scandinavian warriors in his army; and, among the rest, two Iceland brothers, namely, Thorolf, who fell in the battle, and the bard, or scald, Egil Skallegrimsen, who stayed for some time with King Athelstane, by whom he was presented with rich gifts for his lays. It is by no means improbable that Egil entertained, with his songs, the Scandinavian chiefs then at King Athelstane’s court.
Between the years 940 and 960, several of the above-named Jarls, as Gunner, Scule, Haldan, and Urm, together with Grim and the chiefs, or ministers, Thurkytel and Thurmod, continued to sign the Anglo-Saxon letters-patent, in conjunction with their countrymen or relatives, the Abbot Thurcytel, and Oscytel, Archbishop of York. At this time the Latin title “dux” varies alternately with the Scandinavian title of Jarl, which the Anglo-Saxons called “Eorl.”
With King Edgar’s reign (959-975) began a fortunate epoch for the Danish dominion in England. Edgar himself was educated among the Danes in East Anglia, under the care of his relative, Alfwena, dowager queen of the converted Viking king, Gudrum, or Gorm. Hence he had early conceived such a partiality for the Danes, that during his reign he was accused of showing too much favour to those foreigners at the expense of the natives. It was in his time that the two highest ecclesiastics in England, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, were men of Danish extraction; and to judge from the diplomas issued by him, he must certainly have been served by several Scandinavians; for instance (959), by the Jarl Oscytel, and by the Thanes (or ministers) Ulfkytel, Rold, and Thurkytel. Thored, or Thured, a son of the before-mentioned Danish jarl, Gunner, is likewise named in the chronicles as one of Edgar’s most trusted chiefs.
The Scandinavian, or Danish aristocracy had now gradually taken such deep root in England, that Ethelred the Second, who can scarcely have favoured the Danes, since he was repeatedly forced by their kings, Svend and Canute, to fly his kingdom, was even unable to remove the Danish chiefs from about his person, and to put in their places Anglo-Saxons of unmixed descent. In the first years of his reign there were in his suite, as the letters-patent show, several chiefs with Scandinavian names; as the Jarl Nordman, and the thanes Ulfkytel, Siweard, Wolfeby, and Styr, as well as the knights (milites) Ulfkytel and Thurcytel; whence it is clear that there must have been several chiefs of the same name at one and the same time in his court, and particularly of the names of Ulfkytel and Siweard. Nay, Ethelred himself was united, in first marriage, with a queen of Danish descent; namely, Elfleda, a daughter of the Danish chief Thured, Jarl Gunner’s son. By this at least semi-Danish queen, he had several children, and amongst them a son, who afterwards became the renowned Edmund Ironsides. According to the chronicles, many powerful Danes had now obtained large fiefs even in the southern and western parts of England; as, for instance, the Jarl Paling, who was married to Gunhilde, a sister of the Danish king, Svend Tveskjæg, and who had extensive fiefs in Devonshire. This Paling, or Palne, however, to judge from the name, was probably the celebrated Scandinavian hero Palnetoke, whose possessions are said to have lain in that district.
The Danes were now so spread over the whole of England, that the Danish invaders were sure of finding support in almost every corner of it; and Ethelred consequently saw that, if their power was not crushed at once, the Anglo-Saxon dominion was threatened with imminent ruin. But it was too late. The secret massacre planned by him in the year 1002 was far from sufficing to annihilate, even in South England, the numerous traces of Danish influence; and to North England, as is well known, it did not extend. Even after the slaughter, we continue to find in the royal letters-patent nearly the same Scandinavian names of chiefs as before: such as Siward, Styr, Ulfkytel, Nordman, and the knights Ulfkytel and Thurkytel. The Icelandic scald, or bard, Gunlaug Ormstunge, also remained some time afterwards with Ethelred, just as Egil Skallegrimsen had before resided at the court of King Edgar, a monarch favourably disposed towards the Danes. The old chronicles also mention a powerful chief of Danish extraction who was in Ethelred’s army after the massacre. This was Thorketil, surnamed Myrehoved (Ant-head); and, according to the same chronicles, a Dane named Ulfketil Snilling, sheriff or earl in East Anglia, was even married to Ethelred’s own daughter Ulfhilde!
Thus, even before the conquest by Canute the Great, Danish families had frequently ingrafted themselves on the families of the Anglo-Saxon nobility; nay, even on the royal family itself. After that conquest the line of demarcation between the Danes and Anglo-Saxons cannot have been so strongly drawn as is generally imagined. Thus the descriptions given in the Sagas of the bold chiefs of the heathen North, as being also shrewd, amiable, and eloquent men, gain more and more credibility; and we cannot help admiring the ability and manliness which enabled the heathen Danish chiefs, and their immediate Christian successors, to maintain their difficult position against a hostile aristocracy, and, in spite of it, gradually to extend their power in the very midst of Anglo-Saxon England. Nay, they not only maintained their ground as the equals of the Anglo-Saxons, but soon became their superiors. The weakness and depravity of the Anglo-Saxon nobles under the reign of Ethelred were the best proof that their day was past. Faintheartedness, bordering very closely on cowardice, want of union, treachery, and every other vice, reigned no less among the chiefs than among their dependents. Luxury and effeminacy had usurped the place of the old Anglo-Saxon simplicity and vigour. Scarcely any great men appeared among them, notwithstanding the urgent need that there was for such characters. Even the greatest of their few warriors, Edmund Ironsides, was, as we have seen, of Danish descent on the mother’s side.
We may almost say that England was the spoil of the Danes before Canute came over and seized the sceptre. What a contrast does Canute the Great, with his proud jarls and chiefs, present to the weak Anglo-Saxons! What vigour was at once developed in the government! What bravery was displayed in the field!
Canute the conqueror must, from motives of gratitude alone, if not for other reasons, have rewarded his Danes, and especially his chiefs, with landed estates, large fiefs, and lucrative posts of honour. He divided all England into four earldoms (Jarledömmer):—Wessex, the most Saxon part of England, he himself took, as being the most dangerous and hostile district. Mercia, or the middle part of England, which was half Saxon and half Danish, he gave to Edrik Streon, who was in favour with the mixed population there, possibly because, as the proverb runs, he wore his cloak on both shoulders. The Danish districts of Northumbria and East Anglia he assigned to his companion in arms, the Norwegian jarl, Erik, and the Danish jarl, Thorkil the Tall. Thorkil, meanwhile, had married King Ethelred’s daughter, Ulfhilde, after her first husband, Ulfkytel, had fallen in the battle of Ashingdon. A number of smaller fiefs in different parts of England were made over, in a similar way, to Danish warriors of lower rank. Canute increased, moreover, the number of his guards of Scandinavian Huskarle, orThingmen, of whom his forefathers had already availed themselves; and drew up for them a special code of laws, of such severity, that even the king himself could not infringe them with impunity. These Huskarle, or body-guards, being thus totally separated from the English by a peculiar system of law, became, in consequence, a really firm support for the kings. This Huskarle law, called Witherlagsretten, remained in force in the Danish court long after Canute’s time.
The letters-patent issued by Canute show him surrounded by a great number of Danish or Norwegian chieftains. Among the signatures we find the names of men celebrated in history, such as “Thurkil hoga,” “Yric,” or “Iric,” jarls in East Anglia and Northumberland; Ulf, Canute’s brother-in-law, and father of King Svend Estridsen of Denmark; and also Hacun, a sister’s son of Canute, and for a long time jarl in Worcestershire. All of these met a tragical fate. Thorkil and Erik had to wander in exile; Ulf was killed by Canute’s order in Roeskilde; and Hagen, after many vicissitudes of fortune, perished on a voyage to Norway, where Canute had appointed him Stadtholder. Besides these we find named the jarl Eglaf or Ælaf (probably the leader of theThingmen), Eilif Thorgilson, the jarls Haldenne (“princeps regis”), Ranig (Rane), Thrym, Siuard, Suuegen, Svend (1026), Tosti (1026), Sihtric, and others. Among the Thanes (ministri), appear Aslac, Tobi, Acun (Hagen), Boui (Bue), Toui, Siward, Haldan, Thurstan, Thord, Hastin(g), Broðor, Tofig, and several others; and among the knights (milites), Thord, Thirkil, Thrim, Broðor, Tokig, Ulf, and Siward. Several of Canute’s chieftains, according to the genuine old Scandinavian custom, had surnames, mostly taken from their personal appearance; as, besides “Thurcyl hoga,” we find Thurcyl hwita (white), Thurcyl blaca (black), Thoui hwita, Toui reada (red), and Haldan scarpæ (Halfdan the Sharp). A letter dated in the year 1033, is signed among others, by the chiefs: Jarl Siward, Osgod Clapa, Toui Pruda, Thurcyl, Harald, Thord, Halfden, Rold, Swane, Orm, Ulfkitel, Ketel, Gamal, and Orm; and as the document relates to some land in Yorkshire, it is probable that many of these Danish chieftains dwelt in that old Danish district. A powerful Dane, named Ulf, a son of Thorald, is named as of York in Canute’s time. He gave many estates to the cathedral there, together with a carved horn, by way of conveyance or title-deed, which is still preserved in the cathedral under the name of “Ulph’s horn,” or “the Danish horn.” This Ulf is possibly the knight of that name before mentioned. A similar horn is said to have been given by Canute the Great, with some landed property, to the family of Pusey, of Berkshire.
Under Canute’s immediate successor, Harald Harefoot, as well as under Hardicanute, the power and grandeur of the Danish chieftains continued steadily to increase. Many besides those just mentioned are spoken of in letters of Hardicanute’s reign; and above all the celebrated Danish jarl Siward, surnamed Digre, who in the year 1040 became jarl in Northumberland. We also meet with the jarl Thuri; the thanes Urki, Atsere (Adzer), and Thurgils; the knight Ækig (Aage); and, in the chronicles, Styr and Thrand. Lastly, Osgod Clapa, and Toui Pruda are mentioned in the history of Hardicanute, but on a mournful occasion. It was at the marriage festival which Osgod Clapa made for his daughter and Toui Pruda, that Hardicanute had a stroke of apoplexy, from which he never recovered. Some, therefore, are of opinion that the marriage did not take place at Lambeth (see p. 20,) but at Clapham (Clapa-ham, or Clapa’s home), in Surrey, to the south of Kennington, which now forms part of London.
As long as their supremacy lasted, the Danes must naturally have behaved as conquerors in the land which they had subdued. Their innate love of splendour and profusion found ample nourishment, whilst at the same time their pride was flattered, by the subjugation of the Anglo-Saxons. The old English chroniclers complain bitterly of the severe humiliations which the natives were compelled to endure. If, for instance, Anglo-Saxons met a Dane upon a bridge, they were obliged to stand still, and make low bows; nay, even if they were on horseback, they must dismount, and wait till the Dane had passed. At the same time the Anglo-Saxon nobility gradually lost the many fiefs and lucrative posts of honour which had formerly been in their possession, but which were now transferred to their powerful conquerors. But what really injured the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy more than anything else, was the wise and conciliatory policy of Canute the Great, which, by extinguishing the hatred between the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, amalgamated the aristocracy of the two nations to such a degree that the Anglo-Saxon nobility at length existed only in name, having become by imperceptible degrees more than half Danish. A contrary method of proceeding, a violent and sanguinary oppression of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, would, perhaps, in some respects, have been more serviceable to them, as it would have inflamed their hatred, and provoked them to a desperate resistance; and would thus have incited them to keep themselves free from the intrusion of all foreign admixture.
As the matter stood, the Danish power apparently gave way to the Anglo-Saxon dominion; but, in reality, it was little more than the name that was changed. It is said, indeed, that the new Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, some years after his accession (in 1048), expelled the great Danish chiefs and their descendants from his court, and drove them into exile; as, for instance, Osgod Clapa, sheriff of Middlesex, and Asbjörn, a brother of King Svend Estridsen of Denmark, whose second brother Björn, a jarl in the west of England, had shortly before been killed by the jarl Svend Godvinsön. He also banished Canute the Great’s niece, Gunhilde. By her first marriage with her cousin, Hagen Jarl, Stadtholder of Norway, Gunhilde had a daughter named Bothilde; by her second with Harald, a son of Thorkil the Tall, who also succeeded to the Stadtholdership, she had two sons, Hemming and Thorkil. Gunhilde went into exile with her sons by way of Bruges in Flanders, and thence to her relatives in Denmark.
Nevertheless the signatures to Edward’s letters-patent prove that this king, alleged to have been so favourably disposed towards the Anglo-Saxons, must have had many chiefs of Danish extraction about his person, even after this expulsion of the Danes; nay, even to the day of his death. We need not look for them among the “Huskarle,” or body-guards, alone, amongst whom are named Thurstan and Urk; for Huskarle with Scandinavian names are mentioned at a still later period in England; and we find, under William the Conqueror (1071), Eylif Huscarl, and, even in 1230, Roger Huscarl. Even in King Edward’s suite, and occupying considerable offices, were such men as “Atsere Swerte (Adser the black), Atsur röda (Adser the red), Eiglaf (Eylif), Guðmund, Ulfketil, Thord, Siward, Thurstan, Harold, Turi, Yrc (Erik), Anschitil (Osketil), Tofi, Neuetofig, Esgar, Ingold, Tosti, Thorgils, Wagen, Ulf Tofis sune, Askyl Toke’s sune, Jaulf Malte’s sune.” Also the knights Esbern (Asbjörn) and Siward, together with several others, the greater part of whose names appear in letters that were issued after the expulsion of the Danes in 1048. Many of the royal fiefs were still in the hands of Danes. Jarl Siward Digre governed the extensive district of Northumberland with the same power and influence as before, till his death in the year 1055. Somersetshire, lying far towards the west in the Saxon part of England, had a sheriff (vice-comes) named “Touid,” or “Tofig,” who can scarcely have been an Anglo-Saxon. We find a person named “Toli” filling the same high office in East Anglia; as well as in Huntingdonshire a “Tuli;” in Hamptonshire, a “Norman;” in Lincolnshire a “Marlesuuein.” Northmen, or at least chiefs of Scandinavian origin, filled the highest posts at Edward’s court. Between the years 1060 and 1066, a letter mentions the following royal chiefs, or “Hofsinder:” “Jaulf, Agamund, Ulf, Wegga (Viggo), Locar (Loke), and Hacun.” In one of Edward’s letters, dated 1062, the following names appear:—“Esgarus, regiæ procurator aulæ;” “Bundinus, regis palatinus;” “Adzurus, regis dapifer;” “Esbernus princeps;” “Siwardus princeps;” “Hesbernus regis consanguineus.” These are all pure Danish names, viz., Esgar, or Asgier, Bonde, Adser, Asbjörn, and Sivard. The different Latin titles here given to Esgar, Bonde, and Adser, are translated in contemporary letters by one and the same word, “steallere” or “stalre.” The dignity of “Staller” was also, as is well known, an established one in the courts of the Scandinavian kings, at all events after the time of Canute the Great. The Staller was superintendent of the court, or a sort of High Steward, and attended the “Thing” meetings for the king, but more particularly in cases which concerned the court. From an English diploma, dated 1060-1066, and signed by “Esegar steallere,” “Bondig steallere,” and “Roulf steallere,” we see that there were several “Stallers” at the same time in England; which certainly arose from the Stallers being also the king’s commissaries.
The last-named, “Roulf steallere,” is probably the Ralph so much in favour with King Edward, and who was a son of Edward’s sister and a Norman nobleman. Another Staller of Norman descent is mentioned in letters of the years 1044 and 1065, namely, Roldburtus, or Rodbertus, son of Winwarc. Indeed Norman names begin to be frequent in Edward’s letters-patent; for, as a consequence of the favour which he bore towards the Normans, many of whom he gradually placed in the highest posts of honour in England, there quickly grew up by the side of the pure Danish elements, what may be called a half-Danish or half-Scandinavian influence from Normandy, which was soon to supplant the Danish power, as well as annihilate once for all the apparent dominion of the Anglo-Saxons in England. Thus Edward’s reign was clearly only a state of transition from the Danish to the Norman dominion; a national Anglo-Saxon reign it could not well be called.
How, indeed, should Edward have been able to maintain, or rather to reinstate upon the throne of England a purely national Anglo-Saxon line, after it had long been broken by the Danes? Edward’s own race may, in a manner, be said to show how weak and irretrievably declining was the Anglo-Saxon element. Edward himself was a son of the Norman princess, Emma, and thus brother-in-law to the Danish jarl, Thorkil the Tall, who had married his sister Ulfhilde, widow of the Danish jarl Ulfketil Snilling; he was half-brother to his predecessor on the throne, the Danish king Hardicanute; and he was married to Editha, daughter of Jarl Godwin, by his second wife, Gyda, who, being a daughter of the Jarl Thorkil Sprakaleg, nephew of the Danish king Harald Blaatand, was of Danish descent. Godwin, moreover, in his first marriage, is said to have espoused a Danish woman, a daughter of Svend Tveskjsæg, and sister to Canute the Great. Thus Edward the Confessor’s queen, Editha, and her well-known brothers Svend, Harald, Gurth, and Toste, who, both during and after Edward’s reign, played a highly remarkable part in English history, were on the mother’s side of Danish extraction, of which the Scandinavian names of Godwin’s sons bear sufficient evidence. It was partly also in consideration of this Scandinavian kinsmanship that Toste sought assistance in Denmark and Norway against his brother, King Harald; and that afterwards (in the year 1066), both Toste’s son, Skule, and Harald’s son, Edmund, fled to Scandinavia—the former through Orkney to Norway, the latter straight to Denmark—after their fathers had fallen, within a short period, in the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings. It is remarkable enough that Godwin’s race should return to, and even flourish in, that same Scandinavian North whence, on the mother’s side, it had sprung. Toste’s son, Skule, married in Norway Gudrun, a daughter of Harald Haardraade’s sister, and became by her the progenitor of so mighty a race, both of jarls and kings, that their branches extended over the whole of Scandinavia.
[++] Gravestone: Magnus
[++] Gravestone: Magnus
[++] Gravestone: Magnus
During the last period of the declining house of the Anglo-Saxon kings, we further meet with the Scandinavian names of Guttorm, Hagen, and Magnus. The name of Magnus, borne by King Harald Godvinsön’s youngest son, was introduced into Norway through a mistake. It is related that a son having been born one night to King Olaf (Saint Olaf), no one dared to awake the King and inform him of it. The child, however, being very weakly, the priest Sighvat Skjaldt took upon himself to baptize it, and called it Magnus, after “the best man in the world,” Karl Magnus, or Charlemagne; probably in the belief that the Latin wordmagnus, which was only the Emperor Charles’ surname, was a real name. The boy grew up, and afterwards became king of Norway, where he was usually called “Magnus the Good.” Magnus’s grave is said to have been discovered in St. John’s Church, in the town of Lewes, in Sussex. In the new church, which has lately been built on the site of the old one, has been preserved, and built into the wall, the monumental stone, which bears the following inscription:—
“Clauditur hic miles Danorum regia proles; Mangnus nome(n) ei Mangne nota progeniei. Deponens Mangnum, se moribus induit agnum P(re)pete p(ro) vita fit parvulus arnacorita.”
Or, “Here lies a warrior (or knight) of the royal Danish race; his name, Mangnus, is the mark of his great descent. Laying aside his greatness he adopted the habits of a lamb, and exchanged his busy life for that of a simple hermit.”
That this Magnus, “of the royal Danish race,” was the son of the Harald Godvinsön lately mentioned (whose mother Gyda, it is true, was of the Danish royal family) is, however, a mere conjecture. An older legend states that he was a Danish chief, or commander, taken prisoner by the English in a sanguinary battle near Lewes, and who, being well treated, afterwards laid aside his sword, and became a hermit at that place. (See Lower, in “Transactions of the British Archæological Association at its second Congress at Winchester,” pp. 307-310.) It may, perhaps, be most probable that he was one of those scions of the Danish aristocracy that remained in the south of England after the Norman conquest had overthrown the supremacy of the Danish chiefs in that part.
It was in the south of England, where William the Conqueror first established his power, that the Norman nobility obtained their earliest possessions. In the midland and northern districts, on the contrary, it was neither easy to subdue the country, nor to annihilate entirely the Danish aristocracy, which had completely coalesced with the essentially Danish population. Long after the conquest, therefore, the Danish chiefs continued to preserve their independence, or at least their influence, in those parts. A remarkable instance of this, though taken only from a single district, is afforded by William’s own “Domesday-Book,” drawn up about twenty years after the conquest. In this, under the head of Lincolnshire, are mentioned the great persons who possessed the right of administering justice on their estates, together with other privileges belonging to noblemen, such as sacam and socam, and Tol and Thiam; and among them are found “Harald Jarl; the Jarl Waltef (Valthjof); Radulf Jarl; Merlesuen; Turgot; Tochi, son of Outi; Stori (Styr); Radulf “stalre;” Rolf, son of Sceldeware; Harold ”stalre;“ “Siuuard barn;” Achi (Aage), son of Sivard; Azer, son of Sualena; Outi, son of Azer; Tori, son of Rold; Toli, son of Alsi; Azer, son of Burg; “Uluuard uuite;” Ulf; Haminc (Hemming); Bardt; Suan, son of Suane.” Now even if it be certain that several of these chiefs were Normans, particularly since the Norman names at that time still preserved their primitive Scandinavian form, yet it is clear that most of them were Danish-English. It is to be regretted that Domesday-Book does not comprise the ancient Northumberland, as that district would certainly have afforded more names of Danish chieftains than even the old Danish Lincolnshire; for the Danish aristocracy were never driven out or entirely subdued in those parts; but rather must have amalgamated in the course of time with their countrymen, the Norman nobility, until the latter by degrees gained the ascendancy. This is at once shown by the notorious fact that neither William the Conqueror, nor his immediate successors, obtained such mastery over the north of England and its Danish population, as over the rest of that country; since the inhabitants of the north fought, with the bravery inherited from their forefathers, for their Danish chiefs, and for their peculiar, and partly Danish, institutions, manners, and customs.
The Danelag.—Holmgang, or Duel.—Jury.—The Feeling ofFreedom.
The Danelag.—Holmgang, or Duel.—Jury.—The Feeling ofFreedom.
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 theThingsold 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 countriesallthe ancient legal usages of Scandinavia, nor, generally speaking,anylaw 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, andslita, 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 theDanelag, 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 Norskhölldr), 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 withgarth(orGaard), such as Watgarth (Vadegaard, on the river Tees), Grassgarth, Hall Garth, Garthorpe, Garthwaite, and others, show that the peasants, as in Scandinavia, were settled inGaarde, 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” orDrenge.
The Danes and Norwegians in North England settled their disputes and arranged their public affairs at theThings, according to Scandinavian custom. The present village of Thingwall (or theThing-fields), in Cheshire, was a place of meeting for theThing; and not only bore the same name as the old chiefThingplace in Iceland, but also as the old ScandinavianThingplaces, “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 theThingsof separate ones; and it may even be a question whether traces of them are not to be found in the division intoRidings, at present used only in Yorkshire, but which formerly prevailed also in Lincolnshire. Originally these divisions had not the name ofredingorriding, 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, orTredinger(Þriðjungar), which completely answer to the North-English “thrithing.” It was, moreover, precisely to theTredings-thingsthat all disputed causes were referred from the smaller districtThings.
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 theThings, 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 ownThing. 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 aGemotorThing. 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 DanishThing, as well as in the rural districts. The English wordby-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 similarThingsin 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 ScandinavianThing; 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, orholm, 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 theDanelagin 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, orholmgang, 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 barbarousHolmgang, 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 itsThing;” 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, inmarksandores, oröre, 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 thatthe 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 ScandinavianNævn, 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 ScandinavianNævnin 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 theNævn, 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-mentionedLag-men, orLahmen, 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.