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111-557: The Anglo-Saxon rulers paid large sums, Danegelds , to Scandinavian Vikings who arrived to the English shores during the 990s and the first decades of the 11th century. Some runestones relate of these Danegelds, such as the Yttergärde runestone, U 344 , which tells of Ulf of Borresta who received the danegeld three times, and the last one he received from Canute the Great . Canute sent home most of

222-620: A |anklanti Ænglandi. '   kuþ Guð hialbi hialpi hons hans ant and. al|i| |l|it raisa stain þino| |oftiʀ sik sialfan ' hon tuk| |knuts kialt a| |anklanti ' kuþ hialbi hons ant Ali/Alli let ræisa stæin þenna æftiʀ sik sialfan. {} Hann tok Knuts giald a Ænglandi. {} Guð hialpi hans and. "Áli/Alli had this stone raised in memory of himself. He took Knútr's payment in England. May God help his spirit." Danegeld Danegeld ( / ˈ d eɪ n ɡ ɛ l d / ; "Danish tax", literally "Dane yield" or tribute)

333-652: A campaign of conquest in Western Frisia ( Frisia Citerior ) and defeated the Frisian king Radbod near Dorestad , an important trading centre. All the land between the Scheldt and the Vlie was incorporated into Francia. Then, circa 690, Pepin attacked central Frisia and took Utrecht . In 695 Pepin could even sponsor the foundation of the Archdiocese of Utrecht and the beginning of

444-635: A large tribute from the conquered. Soon after, a report was sent to Charlemagne , then at Aachen contemplating a campaign against the Danish king, Godfred , stating that the Frisians had already collected through taxation and paid a sum of one hundred pounds of silver. These events are recorded in the Annales regni Francorum and the Vita Karoli Magni , both works of Charlemagne's court historian, Einhard , and in

555-429: A matter of royal favour, and were adjusted to meet changing circumstances ... in this way Danegeld was a more flexible instrument of taxation than most historians have been prepared to allow." Henry I granted tax liberties to London in 1133, and exempted the city from taxes such as scot , Danegeld, and murdrum . From the late twelfth century, a levy on moveables, which required the consent of parliament, replaced

666-624: A stipendiary Danegeld of an undisclosed amount to hire as mercenaries some Vikings with which to harass his opponent for the ducal throne of Brittany, Vurfand , Count of Rennes . The most important Danegeld raised in East Francia was that used by Charles the Fat to end the Siege of Elsloo and convert the Viking leader Godfrid into a Christian and a Duke of Frisia (882). Local Danegeld may have been raised in

777-522: A suis eos sedibus amovit. A smaller group of Danes left Gaul intending to settle among the Bretons. Thrice doing battle with the same, they overcame them. The vanquished Nominoe fled with his own, then through messengers bearing gifts removed the same Danes from their settlements. The possibility that the Danes were bought off by methods other than the raising of cash is raised by an incident in 869, recorded in

888-584: A tribute from the population of the region before leaving. This event is recorded in the Annales Fuldenses , Annales Bertiniani , Annales Xantenses , and the Vita Hludowici imperatoris of Thegan of Trier . In 846, during the reign of Louis's son Lothair I , the Vikings compelled the Frisians to collect a census to pay them off. The Bertiniani and Xantenses annals record how Lothair, though aware of

999-537: A year: in 863 Salomon made peace and the Vikings, deprived of an enemy, ravaged Neustria. In Kievan Rus during the rule of the Swedish Rus (from where the name Russia derives), the Slavs had to pay an annual tribute to the Vikings known as the dan from at least 859 onward. Prince Oleg , who was a relative of Rurik the Viking, after moving to Kiev, imposed a dan on the people of Novgorod of 300 griveni / per year "for

1110-616: Is already released" ( Danosque victores tributum victis inposuisse, et vectigalis nomine centum libras argenti a Frisionibus iam esse solutas ). No further Danegeld was collected in Frisia until late in the reign of Louis the Pious (died 840). In 836 some Northmen, having burnt Antwerp and the marketplace at Wintla , agreed to leave on the payment of some tribute, the amount of which the Annales Fuldenses do not specify. In 837, either because

1221-781: Is also a runestone in Norway and a Swedish one in Schleswig , Germany . Some Vikings, such as Guðvér did not only attack England, but also Saxony , as reported by the Grinda Runestone Sö 166 in Södermanland: Below follows a presentation of the England Runestones based on information collected from the Rundata project, organized according to location. The transcriptions from runic inscriptions into standardized Old Norse are in

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1332-515: Is founding making royal judgements against the interests of his supposed masters, the Arnulfings. When Pepin died in 714, however, the Frankish realm plunged into civil war and the dukes of the outlying provinces became de facto independent. Pepin's appointed successor, Theudoald , under his widow, Plectrude , initially opposed an attempt by the king, Dagobert III , to appoint Ragenfrid as mayor of

1443-467: Is located in a grove near Väsby, Uppland , Sweden . It was raised by a Viking in commemoration of his receiving one danegeld in England. It is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr3 and, together with U 344 , it has been said to be the earliest example of an Urnes style inscription in Uppland. The runic text follows a common rule to only carve a single rune for two consecutive letters, even when

1554-644: Is not recorded in the sources, although it is possible that some monies were raised this way. It is more likely that purely local Danegeld were raised in times of emergency. In 847 the Breton leader Nominoe was defeated three times by some Danish Vikings before finally opening negotiations with their leaders and enticing them to leave by offering them gifts, as recorded in the contemporary Annales Bertiniani : Dani partem inferioris Galliae quam Brittones incolunt adeuntes, ter cum eisdem bellantes, superant; Nomenogiusque victus cum suis fugit, dein [per] legatos muneribus

1665-458: Is securely dated to 507. One year after this battle, Clovis made Paris his capital, and in the Christmas Day of the same year he converted to Catholicism , and some time later he orchestrated the murders of Frankish kings Sigobert and Ragnachar , uniting all Franks under his rule. The sole source for this early period is Gregory of Tours , who wrote around the year 590. His chronology for

1776-757: The News Chronicle , reported that Robert Hudson of the Department of Overseas Trade had visited the German Embassy in London two days before, to meet the German Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen and Helmuth Wohlthat of the Four Year Plan organisation, to offer Germany a huge loan worth hundreds of millions of pound sterling in exchange for not attacking Poland. The media reaction to Hudson's proposed loan

1887-668: The Alemanni ( Battle of Tolbiac in 496) and established Frankish hegemony over them. Clovis defeated the Visigoths ( Battle of Vouillé in 507) and conquered all of their territory north of the Pyrenees save Septimania , and conquered the Bretons (according to Gregory of Tours ) and made them vassals of the Franks. He also incorporated the various Roman military settlements ( laeti ) scattered over Gaul:

1998-473: The Auvergne , and eastern Aquitaine were assigned to the third son, Sigebert I , who also inherited Austrasia with its chief cities of Reims and Metz . The smallest kingdom was that of Soissons, which went to the youngest son, Chilperic I . The kingdom Chilperic ruled at his death (584) became the nucleus of later Neustria . This second fourfold division was quickly ruined by fratricidal wars, waged largely over

2109-566: The Battle of Wogastisburg in 631, made all the far eastern peoples subject to the court of Neustria and not of Austrasia. This, first and foremost, incited the Austrasians to request a king of their own from the royal household. The subkingdom of Aquitaine corresponded to the southern half of the old Roman province of Aquitania and its capital was at Toulouse . The other cities of his kingdom were Cahors , Agen , Périgueux , Bordeaux , and Saintes ;

2220-607: The Capetian dynasty , becoming the Kingdom of France , while East Francia and Lotharingia came under the control of the non-Frankish Ottonian dynasty , becoming the Kingdom of Germany , which would conquer Burgundy and Italy to then form the medieval Holy Roman Empire . Competing French and German nationalisms in later centuries would claim succession from Charlemagne and the original kingdom, but nowadays both have become seen by many as Pan-European symbols. The term "Franks" emerged in

2331-550: The Carolingian Empire . During the reign of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, the Frankish realm was one large polity , generally subdivided into several smaller kingdoms ruled by different members of the ruling dynasties. Whilst these kingdoms coordinated, they also regularly came into conflict with one another. The old Frankish lands, for example, were initially contained within the kingdom of Austrasia , centred on

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2442-463: The Dentelin , but they then fell foul of each other and the remainder of their time on the thrones was spent in infighting, often incited by their grandmother Brunhilda, who, angered over her expulsion from Theudebert's court, convinced Theuderic to unseat him and kill him. In 612 he did and the whole realm of his father Childebert was once again ruled by one man. This was short-lived, however, as he died on

2553-731: The Frankish Empire (Latin: Imperium Francorum ) or Francia , was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe . It was ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages . Francia was among the last surviving Germanic kingdoms from the Migration Period era. Originally, the core Frankish territories inside the former Western Roman Empire were located close to

2664-586: The Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths , receiving the provinces of Raetia , Noricum , and part of Veneto . His son and successor, Theudebald , was unable to retain them and on his death all of his vast kingdom passed to Chlothar, under whom, with the death of Childebert in 558, the entire Frankish realm was reunited under the rule of one king. In 561 Chlothar died and his realm

2775-514: The Miracula sancti Bavonis , a life of Saint Bavo . That these various Viking impositions were paid by the taxation of the Frisians is made evident in a record of events in 873. In that year, according to the annals Fuldenses , Bertiniani , and Xantenses , the Viking leader Rodulf sent messengers to the Ostergau calling for tribute. The Frisians replied that they owed taxes only to their king, Louis

2886-588: The Rhine and Meuse rivers in the north, but Frankish chiefs such as Chlodio would eventually expand their influence within Roman territory as far as the Somme river in the 5th century. Childeric I , a Salian Frankish king, was one of several military leaders commanding Roman forces of various ethnic affiliations in the northern part of what is now France. His son, Clovis I , succeeded in unifying most of Gaul under his rule in

2997-472: The Rhine and Meuse , roughly corresponding to later Lower Lotharingia . The bulk of the Gallo-Roman territory to its south and west was called Neustria . The exact borders and number of these subkingdoms varied over time, until a basic split between eastern and western domains became persistent. After various treaties and conflicts in the late-9th and early-10th centuries, West Francia came under control of

3108-556: The Somme river . Though Sidonius Apollinaris relates that Flavius Aetius defeated a wedding party of his people (c. 431), this period marks the beginning of a situation that would endure for many centuries: the Germanic Franks ruled over an increasing number of Gallo-Roman subjects . The Merovingians , believed by some in the latter half of the 6th century to be relatives of Chlodio as reported by Gregory of Tours (although, he himself did not share this belief), arose from within

3219-602: The Swedish and Danish dialect to facilitate comparison with the inscriptions, while the English translation provided by Rundata give the names in standard dialect (the Icelandic and Norwegian dialect). There are eight runestones in Uppland that mention voyages to England. Several of them were raised in memory of men who had partaken in the Danegeld in England. This secluded runestone

3330-458: The Thuringii (532), Burgundes (534), and Saxons and Frisians (c. 560) were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom. The outlying trans-Rhenish tribes were loosely attached to Frankish sovereignty, and though they could be forced to contribute to Frankish military efforts, in times of weak kings they were uncontrollable and liable to attempt independence. The Romanised Burgundian kingdom, however,

3441-575: The taifa kingdoms. It is estimated that the total amount of money paid by the Anglo-Saxons amounted to some sixty million pence , and at the farm where the runestone Sö 260 talks of a voyage in the West, a hoard of several hundred English coins was found. In southern England the Danegeld was based on hidages , an area of agricultural land sufficient to support a family, with the exception of Kent, where

England runestones - Misplaced Pages Continue

3552-650: The 3rd century AD as a term for several Germanic tribes who settled on the northern Rhine frontier of the Roman Empire , including the Bructeri , Ampsivarii , Chamavi , Chattuarii and Salians . While all of them had a tradition of participating in the Roman military, the Salians were allowed to settle within the Roman Empire. In 358, having already been living in the civitas of Batavia for some time, Emperor Julian defeated

3663-520: The 6th century by notably conquering Soissons in 486 and Aquitaine in 507 following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, as well as establishing leadership over all the Frankish kingdoms on or near the Rhine frontier; thus founding what would come to be known as the Merovingian dynasty. The dynasty subsequently gained control over a significant part of what is now western and southern Germany. It

3774-469: The Alemanni were, for the time being, restored to the Frankish fold. However, in southern Gaul, which was not under Arnulfing influence, the regions were pulling away from the royal court under leaders such as Savaric of Auxerre , Antenor of Provence , and Odo of Aquitaine . The reigns of Clovis IV and Childebert III from 691 until 711 have all the hallmarks of those of rois fainéants , though Childebert

3885-515: The Austrasian who had installed Dagobert II , Sigebert III's son, in their kingdom (briefly in opposition to Clovis III ). In 687 he was defeated by Pepin of Herstal , the Arnulfing mayor of Austrasia and the real power in that kingdom, at the Battle of Tertry and was forced to accept Pepin as sole mayor and dux et princeps Francorum : " Duke and Prince of the Franks ", a title which signifies, to

3996-483: The Austrasians demanded a king of their own again and Chlothar installed his younger brother Childeric II . During Chlothar's reign, the Franks had made an attack on northwestern Italy, but were driven off by Grimoald, King of the Lombards , near Rivoli . In 673, Chlothar III died and some Neustrian and Burgundian magnates invited Childeric to become king of the whole realm, but he soon upset some Neustrian magnates and he

4107-548: The Austrasians, who had been seen as a distinct people within the realm since the time of Gregory of Tours, who were to make the most strident moves for independence. The young Sigebert was dominated during his minority by the mayor, Grimoald the Elder , who convinced the childless king to adopt his own Merovingian-named son Childebert as his son and heir. After Dagobert's death in 639, the duke of Thuringia , Radulf , rebelled and tried to make himself king. He defeated Sigebert in what

4218-458: The Belfast agreement might be built on sand, but I hoped otherwise. But as we have seen, Danegeld has been paid, and the thing about Danegeld is that one keeps on having to pay it. Concession after concession has been made. What will be the next one? To emphasise the point, people often quote Kipling's poem "Dane-Geld", especially its two most famous lines. For example, journalist Tony Parsons quoted

4329-586: The Chamavi and Salians, allowing the latter to settle further away from the border, in Toxandria . Some of the early Frankish leaders, such as Flavius Bauto and Arbogast , were committed to the cause of the Romans, but other Frankish rulers, such as Mallobaudes , were active on Roman soil for other reasons. After the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after

4440-605: The Danegeld to the Exchequer may be assessed by its return of about £2400 in 1129–1130, which was about ten per cent of the total (about £23,000) paid that year. Judged by an absolute rather than a contemporary standard, there is much to criticise in the collection of the Danegeld by the early 12th century: it was based on ancient assessments of land productivity, and there were numerous privileged reductions or exemptions, granted as marks of favour that served to cast those left paying it in an "unfavoured" light: "Exemptions were very much

4551-548: The Danegeld to the Vikings in West Francia took place in 845 when, under Ragnar Lothbrok , they tried to attack Paris . The Viking army was bought off from destroying the city by a massive payment of nearly six tons of silver and gold bullion. In November 858 a Danegeld was being collected, probably to pay off Bjørn (Berno) , who had ravaged the Seine and its district for the whole previous year (857). In 862 two groups of Vikings—one

England runestones - Misplaced Pages Continue

4662-503: The Danegeld/ You never get rid of the Dane." The poem ends thus: It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray; So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: – "We never pay any -one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost; For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And

4773-437: The Eastern kingdom as needed, such as by one Evesa to ransom her son, Count Eberhard, at a "very great price" in 880, according to Regino of Prüm . The first Danegeld ever raised was collected in Frisia in 810. In that year a Danish fleet of some two hundred vessels landed in Frisia, harassing first all the coastal islands and then the mainland before defeating the Frisians in three battles. The victorious Danes then demanded

4884-539: The English than to take whatever booty they could plunder. Further payments were made in 1002, and in 1007 Æthelred bought two years peace with the Danes for 36,000 troy pounds (13,400 kg) of silver. In 1012, following the capture and murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the sack of Canterbury , the Danes were bought off with another 48,000 troy pounds (17,900 kg) of silver. In 1016 Sweyn Forkbeard's son, Canute , became King of England. After two years he felt sufficiently in control of his new kingdom to

4995-413: The Frankish kingdom later came to be known as Austrasia (the "eastern lands"), while the large Romanised Frankish kingdom in the west came to be known as Neustria . Chlodio's successors are obscure figures, but what can be certain is that Childeric I , possibly his grandson, ruled a Salian kingdom from Tournai as a foederatus of the Romans. Childeric is chiefly important to history for bequeathing

5106-423: The Franks to his son Clovis , who began an effort to extend his authority over the other Frankish tribes and to expand their territorium south and west into Gaul . Clovis converted to Christianity and put himself on good terms with the powerful Church and with his Gallo-Roman subjects. In a thirty-year reign (481–511) Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and conquered the Kingdom of Soissons , defeated

5217-420: The Frisians were unprepared or defected from their Frankish overlords, some Vikings managed to land on Walcheren , capture several counts and other leading men and kill them or hold them for ransom. They then proceeded to exact a census wherever they could, funnelling an "infinite" amount of money "of diverse kinds" into their coffers. They then moved to the mainland, where they assaulted Dorestad and extorted

5328-457: The Gallo-Roman military, with Childeric and his son Clovis being called "King of the Franks" in the Gallo-Roman military, even before having any Frankish territorial kingdom. Once Clovis defeated his Roman competitor for power in northern Gaul, Syagrius , he turned to the kings of the Franks to the north and east, as well as other post-Roman kingdoms already existing in Gaul: Visigoths , Burgundians , and Alemanni . The original core territory of

5439-416: The German , and his sons ( Carloman , Louis , and Charles ), and a battle ensued, in which Rodulf was killed and his troops routed. One later, tenth-century source, Dudo of Saint-Quentin 's De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum , records that Rollo forced the Frisians to pay tribute, but this is unlikely. All the various Frisian Danegeld was purely local in nature, raised by the local leaders and

5550-487: The Saxons again, and in 724 he defeated Ragenfrid and the rebellious Neustrians, ending the civil war phase of his rule. In 720, when Chilperic II died, he had appointed Theuderic IV king, but this last was a mere puppet of his. In 724 he forced his choice of Hugbert for the ducal succession upon the Bavarians and forced the Alemanni to assist him in his campaigns in Bavaria (725 and 726), where laws were promulgated in Theuderic's name. In 730 Alemannia had to be subjugated by

5661-417: The Saxons of Bessin , the Britons and the Alans of Armorica and Loire valley or the Taifals of Poitou to name a few prominent ones. By the end of his life, Clovis ruled all of Gaul save the Gothic province of Septimania and the Burgundian kingdom in the southeast. The exact date on which Clovis became "king of all Franks" is not known, but it happened sometime after the Battle of Vouillé , which

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5772-412: The Vikings who had helped him conquer England, but he kept a strong bodyguard, the Thingmen , and its members are also mentioned on several runestones. The vast majority of the runestones, 27, were raised in modern-day Sweden and 17 in the Swedish provinces around lake Mälaren . In contrast, modern-day Denmark has no such runestones, but there is a runestone in Scania which mentions London . There

5883-420: The Visigoths in 612. On the opposite end of his realm, the Alemanni had defeated Theuderic in a rebellion and the Franks were losing their hold on the trans-Rhenish tribes. In 610 Theudebert had extorted the Duchy of Alsace from Theuderic, beginning a long period of conflict over which kingdom was to have the region of Alsace, Burgundy or Austrasia, which was only terminated in the late seventh century. During

5994-423: The aforementioned Annales and by Regino of Prüm . In that year Salomon, King of Brittany , put an end to some pagan raids by payment of five hundred heads of cattle. The more local type of Danegeld is exemplified by two chronologically close events in the County of Vannes . According to a record in the cartulary of Redon Abbey , the bishop Courantgenus was ransomed from Viking captivity in 854. His ransom

6105-579: The ancient Germanic practice of electing a war-leader at an assembly of the warriors. At the death of Clovis, his kingdom was divided territorially by his four adult sons in such a way that each son was granted a comparable portion of fiscal land , which was probably land once part of the Roman fisc, now seized by the Frankish government. Clovis's sons made their capitals near the Frankish heartland in northeastern Gaul. Theuderic I made his capital at Reims , Chlodomer at Orléans , Childebert I at Paris , and Chlothar I at Soissons . During their reigns,

6216-449: The assassinated Sigebert (575). Together the territory of Guntram and Childebert was well over thrice as large as the small realm of Chilperic's successor, Chlothar II . During this period Francia took on the tripartite character it was to have throughout the rest of its history, being composed of Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy. When Guntram died in 592, Burgundy went to Childebert in its entirety, but he died in 595. His two sons divided

6327-406: The author of the Liber Historiae Francorum , the beginning of Pepin's "reign". Thereafter the Merovingian monarchs showed only sporadically, in our surviving records, any activities of a non-symbolic and self-willed nature. During the period of confusion in the 670s and 680s, attempts had been made to re-assert Frankish suzerainty over the Frisians, but to no avail. In 689, however, Pepin launched

6438-404: The brief minority of Sigebert II, the office of the Mayor of the Palace , which had for sometime been visible in the kingdoms of the Franks, came to the fore in its internal politics, with a faction of nobles coalescing around the persons of Warnachar II , Rado , and Pepin of Landen , to give the kingdom over to Chlothar in order to remove Brunhilda, the young king's regent, from power. Warnachar

6549-464: The conversion of the Frisians under Willibrord . However, Eastern Frisia ( Frisia Ulterior ) remained outside of Frankish suzerainty. Having achieved great successes against the Frisians, Pepin turned towards the Alemanni. In 709 he launched a war against Willehari , duke of the Ortenau , probably in an effort to force the succession of the young sons of the deceased Gotfrid on the ducal throne. This outside interference led to another war in 712 and

6660-424: The costs of conquest, rather than for buying-off the Viking menace. He and his successors levied the geld more frequently than the Anglo-Saxon kings, and at higher rates; the six-shilling geld of 1084 is infamous, and the geld in Ely of 1096, for example, was double its normal rate. Judith Green states that from 1110, war and the White Ship calamity led to further increases in taxation efforts. By 1130 Henry I

6771-493: The duchy of Vasconia was also part of his allotment. Charibert campaigned successfully against the Basques, but after his death they revolted again (632). At the same time the Bretons rose up against Frankish suzerainty. In 635 an army sent by Dagobert subdued the Basques, while threats of military action induced the Breton leader Judicael to relent, make peace with the Franks, and pay tribute. Meanwhile, Dagobert had Charibert's infant successor Chilperic assassinated and reunited

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6882-430: The emperor to pay 1 grivna to every man on Oleg's ships in exchange for going away. According to the Russian chronicles, the followers of Prince Igor in 945 : ... said to him "The servants of Sveiald are adorned with weapons and fine raiment, but we are naked. Go forth with us, oh Prince, that you and we may profit thereby.” Igor heeded their words and attacked Dereva in search of tribute ( dan ). He demanded

6993-417: The entire Frankish realm again (632), though he was forced by the strong Austrasian aristocracy to grant his own son Sigebert III to them as a subking in 633. This act was precipitated largely by the Austrasians' desire to be self-governing at a time when Neustrians dominated at the royal court. Chlothar had been the king at Paris for decades before becoming the king at Metz as well and the Merovingian monarchy

7104-408: The eve of preparing an expedition against Chlothar in 613, leaving a young son named Sigebert II . During their reigns, Theudebert and Theuderic campaigned successfully in Gascony , where they had established the Duchy of Gascony and brought the Basques to submission (602). This original Gascon conquest included lands south of the Pyrenees , namely Biscay and Gipuzkoa , but these were lost to

7215-468: The extent of being able to pay off all but 40 ships of his invasion fleet, which were retained as a personal bodyguard, with a huge Danegeld of 72,000 troy pounds (26,900 kg) of silver collected nationally, plus a further 10,500 pounds (3,900 kg) of silver collected from London. This kind of extorted tribute was not unique to England: according to Snorri Sturluson and Rimbert , Finland , Estonia and Latvia (see also Grobin, now Grobiņa ) paid

7326-499: The fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus (411). Jovinus was dead by 413, but the Romans found it increasingly difficult to manage the Franks within their borders. The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, in c. 422. Around 428, the king Chlodio , whose kingdom may have been in the civitas Tungrorum (with its capital in Tongeren ), launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum ( Cambrai ) and

7437-403: The former Seine Vikings, and hired them against Salomon for 6,000 pounds of silver. The purpose of this was doubtless to prevent them from entering the service of Salomon. Probably Robert had to collect a large amount in taxes to finance what was effectively a non- tributary Danegeld designed to keep the Vikings out of Neustria. The treaty between the Franks and the Vikings did not last more than

7548-402: The geld. The principle of "no consent, but exemption", gave way to that of "consent, but no exemption". That a country-wide Danegeld was ever collected in the Duchy of Brittany is uncertain. Certainly they were paid off on more than one occasion, and such payouts may have included money (besides other valuables), but the imposition of a tax on the people to pay either a stipend or a tribute

7659-411: The king back on the condition that he receive his father's positions (718). There were no more active Merovingian kings after that point and Charles and his Carolingian heirs ruled the Franks. After 718 Charles Martel embarked on a series of wars intended to strengthen the Franks' hegemony in western Europe. In 718 he defeated the rebellious Saxons, in 719 he overran Western Frisia, in 723 he suppressed

7770-466: The kingdom by the joint action of father and son. When Chlothar died in 628, Dagobert, in accordance with his father's wishes, granted a subkingdom to his younger brother Charibert II . This subkingdom, commonly called Aquitaine, was a new creation. Dagobert, in his dealings with the Saxons, Alemans, and Thuringii, as well as the Slavs beyond the borders of Francia, upon whom he tried to force tribute but who instead defeated him under their king Samo at

7881-449: The kingdom, with the elder Theudebert II taking Austrasia plus Childebert's portion of Aquitaine, while his younger brother Theuderic II inherited Burgundy and Guntram's Aquitaine. United, the brothers sought to remove their father's cousin Chlothar II from power and they did succeed in conquering most of his kingdom, reducing him to only a few cities, but they failed to capture him. In 599 they routed his forces at Dormelles and seized

7992-426: The kingdom—not unlike the late Roman Empire —was conceived of as a single realm ruled collectively by several kings and the turn of events could result in the reunification of the whole realm under a single king. The Merovingian kings ruled by divine right and their kingship was symbolised daily by their long hair and initially by their acclamation, which was carried out by raising the king on a shield in accordance with

8103-673: The larger of two fleets recently forced out of the Seine by Charles the Bald , the other a fleet returning from a Mediterranean expedition—converged on Brittany , where one (the Mediterranean group) was hired by the Breton duke Salomon to ravage the Loire valley . Robert the Strong , Margrave of Neustria , captured twelve of their ships, killing all on board save a few who fled. He then opened negotiations with

8214-419: The late eleventh century. In Anglo-Saxon England tribute payments to the Danes was known as gafol and the levy raised to support the standing army, for the defence of the realm, was known as heregeld (army-tax). In England, a hide was notionally an area of land sufficient to support one family; however their true size and economic value varied enormously. The hide's purpose was as a unit of assessment and

8325-579: The letters were at the end of one word and the beginning of a second word. When the text shown as Latin characters, the transliterated runes are doubled and separate words are shown. For U 194 has three examples where this occurred, þinoftiʀ is transliterated as þino| |oftiʀ , tuknuts as tuk| |knuts , and anklanti as a| |anklanti . al|i| Ali/Alli |l|it let raisa ræisa stain stæin þino| þenna |oftiʀ æftiʀ sik sik sialfan sialfan. '   hon Hann tuk| tok |knuts Knuts kialt giald a|

8436-453: The murder of Galswintha , the wife of Chilperic, allegedly by his mistress (and second wife) Fredegund . Galswintha's sister, the wife of Sigebert, Brunhilda , incited her husband to war and the conflict between the two queens continued to plague relations until the next century. Guntram sought to keep the peace, though he also attempted twice (585 and 589) to conquer Septimania from the Goths, but

8547-592: The nation that plays it is lost!" Kipling's poem was set to music by filk musician Leslie Fish on her 1991 album, The Undertaker's Horse . In the United Kingdom , the term "Danegeld" has come to refer to a general warning and a criticism of any coercive payment, whether in money or kind. For example, as mentioned in the British House of Commons during the debate on the Belfast Agreement : I feared that

8658-524: The outrage, was unable to stop it, and the Vikings left Frisia laden with booty and captives. The last recorded Danegeld raised by the Frisians was paid in 852. In that year 252 Viking ships laid anchor off the Frisian coast and demanded tribute (of what kind we do not know), which was procured. Their demands met, the Vikings left without devastating the territory, as recorded in the Annales Bertiniani and

8769-505: The palace in all the realms, but soon there was a third candidate for the mayoralty of Austrasia in Pepin's illegitimate adult son, Charles Martel . After the defeat of Plectrude and Theudoald by the king (now Chilperic II ) and Ragenfrid, Charles briefly raised a king of his own, Chlothar IV , in opposition to Chilperic. Finally, at a battle near Soisson , Charles definitively defeated his rivals and forced them into hiding, eventually accepting

8880-429: The people without royal aid or approval. In Lotharingia the Danegeld was only collected once. In 864 Lothair II exacted four denarii from every mansus in the kingdom, as well as large number of cattle and much flour, wine, and beer. The whole amount is not recorded, nor whether it was paid as a stipend or as a tribute , but it was paid to a Viking band led by one Rodulf . It has been suggested that Lothair

8991-713: The poem in The Daily Mirror , when criticising the Rome daily La Repubblica for writing "Ransom was paid and that is nothing to be ashamed of", in response to the announcement that the Italian government paid $ 1 million for the release of two hostages in Iraq in October 2004. In Britain the phrase is often coupled with the experience of Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler . On 22 July 1939, two British newspapers, The Daily Telegraph and

9102-514: The preservation of peace". The payments to Kiev continued until 1054 with the death of Prince Jaroslav of Kiev. When Prince Oleg made his expedition against Constantinople in 907, he demanded that the Romans "pay tribute to his men on his 2,000 ships at the rate of 12 griveni per man, 40 men reckoned to a ship". The treaty negotiated between Oleg and the Roman Emperor Leo VI the Wise committed

9213-524: The previous tribute and collected by violence from the people with the assistance of his followers.... William Shakespeare made reference to Danish tribute in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark , Act 3, scene 1 ( King Claudius is talking of Prince Hamlet 's insanity): ... he shall with speed to England, For the demand of our neglected tribute Danegeld is the subject of the poem " Dane-geld " by Rudyard Kipling , whose most famous lines are "once you have paid him

9324-438: The regional differences between the three kingdoms of Francia and probably granted the nobles more control over judicial appointments. By 623 the Austrasians had begun to clamour for a king of their own, since Chlothar was so often absent from the kingdom and, because of his upbringing and previous rule in the Seine basin, was more or less an outsider there. Chlothar thus granted that his son Dagobert I would be their king and he

9435-401: The reigns of the early kings is almost certainly fabricated, often contradicting itself and other sources. Clovis' baptism, traditionally dated to 496, is now believed to have taken place in 508. The Merovingians were a hereditary monarchy . The Frankish kings adhered to the practice of partible inheritance : dividing their lands among their sons. Even when multiple Merovingian kings ruled,

9546-762: The same kind of tribute to the Swedes . In fact, the Primary Chronicle relates that the regions paying protection money extended east towards Moscow , until the Finnic and Slavic tribes rebelled and drove the Varangians overseas . Similarly, the Sami peoples were frequently forced to pay tribute in the form of pelts. A similar procedure also existed in Iberia , where the contemporary Christian states were largely supported on tribute gold from

9657-519: The separate Reichsannalen called the Annales Mettenses and the Annales Maximiniani , as well as the work of the so-called " Poeta Saxo ". The total sum paid out is unknown, but it was without doubt raised through taxes, as Einhard in his Vita explicitly says: "And the victorious Danes imposed a tribute on the vanquished, by means of taxes one hundred pounds of silver from the Frisians

9768-502: The south-western provinces to buy off the Vikings rather than continue the armed struggle. One manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle said Olav Tryggvason led the Viking forces. In 994 the Danes, under King Sweyn Forkbeard and Olav Tryggvason, returned and laid siege to London. They were once more bought off, and the amount of silver paid impressed the Danes with the idea that it was more profitable to extort payments from

9879-514: The sum of the denarii with a great payment of flour and cattle and even wine and beer to the Northman Rodulf, son of Heriold, and to his hirelings. There is also a story told by Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum of how Reginar Langhals was ransomed by his wife in 880 for all the gold in Hainault , but this is probably a legend. The first payment of

9990-644: The surviving brothers. Theuderic died in 534, but his adult son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia . Theudebert was the first Frankish king to formally sever his ties to the Roman Emperor in Constantinople by striking gold coins with his own image on them and calling himself magnus rex (great king) because of his supposed suzerainty over peoples as far away as Pannonia . Theudebert interfered in

10101-522: The sword and its duke, Lantfrid , was killed. In 734 Charles fought against Eastern Frisia and finally subdued it. In the 730s the Umayyad conquerors of Spain , who had also subjugated Septimania , began advancing northwards into central Francia and the Loire valley . It was at this time (circa 736) that Maurontus , the dux of Provence, called in the Umayyads to aid him in resisting the expanding influence of

10212-622: The tribute payments made to the Vikings, prior to the Norman Conquest, are commonly known as Danegeld, the payments were at the time actually called gafol , meaning "tax" or "tribute". In 1012 Æthelred the Unready introduced an annual land tax to pay for a force of Scandinavian mercenaries, led by Thorkell the Tall , to help defend the realm. Following Æthelred the kings of England used the same tax collection method to fund their own standing armies; this

10323-536: The unit was a sulung of four yokes, the amount of land that could be ploughed in a season by a team of oxen; in the north the typical unit was the carucate, or ploughland, equivalent to Kent's sulung; and East Anglia was assessed by the hundred . Everywhere the tax was farmed (collected) by local sheriffs. Records of assessment and income pre-date the Norman conquest, indicating a system which James Campbell describes as "old, but not unchanging". According to David Bates, it

10434-508: Was "a national tax of a kind unknown in western Europe"; indeed, J. A. Green asserts that the national system of land taxation developed to raise the Danegeld was the first to reappear in Western Europe since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It was used by William the Conqueror as the principal tool for underwriting continental wars, as well as providing for royal appetites and

10545-495: Was a tax raised to pay tribute or protection money to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the geld or gafol in eleventh-century sources. It was characteristic of royal policy in both England and Francia during the ninth through eleventh centuries, collected both as tributary , to buy off the attackers, and as stipendiary , to pay the defensive forces. The term Danegeld did not appear until

10656-628: Was a minor for almost the whole of his reign. He was dominated by his mother Nanthild and the mayor of the Neustrian palace, Erchinoald . Erchinoald's successor, Ebroin , dominated the kingdom for the next fifteen years of near-constant civil war. On his death (656), Sigbert's son was shipped off to Ireland, while Grimoald's son Childebert reigned in Austrasia. Ebroin eventually reunited the entire Frankish kingdom for Clovis's successor Chlothar III by killing Grimoald and removing Childebert in 661. However,

10767-678: Was a serious reversal for the ruling dynasty (640). The king lost the support of many magnates while on campaign and the weakness of the monarchic institutions by that time are evident in his inability to effectively make war without the support of the magnates; in fact, he could not even provide his own bodyguard without the loyal aid of Grimoald and Adalgisel . He is often regarded as the first roi fainéant : "do-nothing king", not insofar as he "did nothing", but insofar as he accomplished little. Clovis II , Dagobert's successor in Neustria and Burgundy, which were thereafter attached yet ruled separately,

10878-496: Was assassinated (675). The reign of Theuderic III was to prove the end of the Merovingian dynasty's power. Theuderic III succeeded his brother Chlothar III in Neustria in 673, but Childeric II of Austrasia displaced him soon thereafter—until he died in 675, and Theuderic III retook his throne. When Dagobert II died in 679, Theuderic received Austrasia as well and became king of the whole Frankish realm. Thoroughly Neustrian in outlook, he allied with his mayor Berchar and made war on

10989-458: Was by building upon the basis of these Merovingian deeds that the subsequent Carolingian dynasty— through the nearly continuous campaigns of Pepin of Herstal , his son Charles Martel , grandson Pepin the Short , great-grandson Charlemagne , and great-great-grandson Louis the Pious — secured the greatest expansion of the Frankish empire by the early 9th century, which was by this point referred to as

11100-540: Was defeated both times. All the surviving brothers benefited at the death of Charibert, but Chilperic was also able to extend his authority during the period of war by bringing the Bretons to heel again. After his death, Guntram had to again force the Bretons to submit. In 587, the Treaty of Andelot — the text of which explicitly refers to the entire Frankish realm as Francia — between Brunhilda and Guntram secured his protection of her young son Childebert II , who had succeeded

11211-518: Was divided, in a replay of the events of fifty years prior, between his four sons, with the chief cities remaining the same. The eldest son, Charibert I , inherited the kingdom with its capital at Paris and ruled all of western Gaul. The second eldest, Guntram , inherited the old kingdom of the Burgundians, augmented by the lands of central France around the old capital of Orléans, which became his chief city, and most of Provence . The rest of Provence,

11322-524: Was duly acclaimed by the Austrasian warriors in the traditional fashion. Nonetheless, though Dagobert exercised true authority in his realm, Chlothar maintained ultimate control over the whole Frankish kingdom. During the joint reign of Chlothar and Dagobert, who have been called "the last ruling Merovingians", the Saxons, who had been loosely attached to Francia since the late 550s, rebelled under Berthoald, Duke of Saxony , and were defeated and reincorporated into

11433-400: Was ever after him to be a Neustrian monarchy first and foremost. Indeed, it is in the 640s that "Neustria" first appears in writing, its late appearance relative to "Austrasia" probably due to the fact that Neustrians (who formed the bulk of the authors of the time) called their region simply "Francia". Burgundia too defined itself in opposition to Neustria at about this time. However, it was

11544-569: Was himself already the mayor of the palace of Austrasia, while Rado and Pepin were to find themselves rewarded with mayoral offices after Chlothar's coup succeeded and Brunhilda and the ten-year-old king were killed. Immediately after his victory, Chlothar II promulgated the Edict of Paris (614), which has generally been viewed as a concession to the nobility, though this view has come under recent criticism. The Edict primarily sought to guarantee justice and end corruption in government, but it also entrenched

11655-655: Was imitating the example set by Charles the Bald in 860, when he hired the Vikings of Weland to attack those encamped on the island of Oscellus in the Seine . Neither the reason for Lothair's payment nor the result is recorded in the only source to mention it, the contemporary Annales Bertiniani : Hlotharius, Hlotharii filius, de omni regno suo quattuor denarios ex omni manso colligens, summam denariorum cum multa pensione farinae atque pecorum necnon vini ac sicerae Rodulfo Normanno, Herioldi filio, ac suis locarii nomine tribuit. Lothair, son of Lothair, collecting from his whole kingdom four denarii from every mansus , allotted

11766-504: Was known as heregeld (army-tax). Heregeld was abolished by Edward the Confessor in 1051. It was the Norman administration who called the tax Danegeld. An English payment of 10,000 Roman pounds (3,300 kg) of silver was first made in 991 following the Viking victory at the Battle of Maldon in Essex, when Æthelred was advised by Sigeric , Archbishop of Canterbury , and the aldermen of

11877-567: Was overwhelmingly negative with the newspapers calling Hudson's plan "paying the Danegeld". Much to Hudson's humiliation, Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons that Hudson was acting on his own, and Britain would not offer Germany any such loan as a solution to the Danzig crisis. Francia The Kingdom of the Franks ( Latin : Regnum Francorum ), also known as the Frankish Kingdom ,

11988-465: Was preserved in its territoriality by the Franks and converted into one of their primary divisions, incorporating the central Gallic heartland of Chlodomer's realm with its capital at Orléans. The fraternal kings showed only intermittent signs of friendship and were often in rivalry. On the early death of Chlodomer, his brother Chlothar had his young sons murdered in order to take a share of his kingdom, which was, in accordance with custom, divided between

12099-433: Was quite probably raised on a local level. In 855 the monks of Redon had to ransom the count, Pascwet , from a similar captivity by handing over a chalice and a paten , weighing together sixty-seven solidi in gold. Sometime later Pascwet managed to redeem the sacred vessels from the pagans, and this payment too may have been raised as a sort of Danegeld. Certainly, according to Regino of Prüm, Pascwet later (in 873) paid

12210-442: Was taxing the Danegeld annually, at two shillings on the hide . That year, according to the chronicle of John of Worcester the king promised to suspend the Danegeld for seven years, a promise renewed by Stephen at his coronation but which was afterwards broken. Henry II revived the Danegeld in 1155–1156, but 1161–1162 marks the last year the Danegeld was recorded on a pipe roll , and the tax fell into disuse. The importance of

12321-562: Was the basis for the land-tax that became known as Danegeld. Initially it was levied as a tribute to buy off Viking invaders but after the Danish Conquest of 1016 it was retained as a permanent land-tax to pay for the realm's defence. The Viking expeditions to England were usually led by the Danish kings , but they were composed of warriors from all over Scandinavia , and they eventually brought home more than 100 tonnes of silver . Although

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