Danegeld

Danegeld is the name of the tribute, which was demanded by the Normans of England and France. Contemporaries do not use that expression. Only Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) speaks of the liberation from Danegeld.

The term refers to a tax, which the Danes should be persuaded to take of their raids distance. It has its origins in Æthelred in the Treaty of 991 by Ealdorman Brihtnoths death in the Battle of Maldon. The chronicles report that this was the occasion to pay a tribute of 10,000 pounds of silver to the Danes. The driving force was Archbishop Sigerich, so that it was called by later authors Siricius - Danegeld. This Danegeld payments were a distinct feature of Æthelreds reign. 994 were paid 16,000 pounds of silver, 1002, there were 24,000 pounds, 1012, there were already 48,000 pounds. Þorkell Havi came there with 45 ships to collect the tribute, then he placed himself under Æthelred. With this payment changed the character of the tribute. From now on, was the delivery of entertainment of the Norman army to defend the country. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle now referred to as the delivery gyld, stang gyld in individual cases heregyld (payment, schrere control, military control ). 1018 raised Knut the Great tribute of a total of 82,500 pounds of silver, with which he paid his troops. The mass of the coins from the time Æthelreds in Scandinavian Horten confirmed these reports.

We do not know on what basis the first English tributes were levied. Only for 1040 can be seen that Mark 4 = 8 pounds of silver was to be paid for each ship's rudder, but that says nothing about the distribution among the inhabitants.

In France, the rates for the tribute of 866 varied 1-6 pence for the various types of land owned by the unfree. For this, the militia came in the amount of 60 Solidos that had to be paid instead of the army service. Merchants paid 1/10 of their assets and clergy were secundum quod unusquisque habuit estimated. To what extent this applies key for all subsequent charges, can not be found.

The fact that in the 12th century was the origin of this levy in awareness, show the names in the Leges Henrici primi and the Leges Edwardi confessoris. 1130 it is known as a fixed annual fee. The English historian Henry of Huntingdon (1080-1160) summarized the contemporary attitude to royal control together as Danegeld: modo ... ex consuetudine, quod Dacis persolvebatur ex ineffabili terrore. Henry II rose in the second and eighth year of the reign an annual tax with this name Danegeld, but in reality it was now a hidagium ( control for a hide = English hooves ), which was randomly assigned with that name. The actual Danegeld was completely "disappeared " from the payments. Within one and a half centuries, the term content of Danegeld developed by a tribute to the Danes to a tax to fight the Danes, then an army control par excellence to a normal delivery.