Danegeld

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Danegeld

The Danegeld was an English tribute raised to pay off Viking raiders (usually led by the Danish king) to save the land from being ravaged by the raiders.

Danegeld was continued later under the name tallage.The term has come to be used as a warning and a criticism of paying any coercive payment whether in money or kind (see also appeasement, the policy toward Nazi Germany prior to World War II).

Contemporary usage

The term has come to be used as a warning and a criticism of paying any coercive payment whether in money or kind. For example as mentioned in the House of Commons during the debate on the Belfast Agreement:

I feared that 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?Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con) House of Commons Hansard Debates for 23 Nov 2005 Column 1610

In Britain the phrase is often coupled from the experience of Chamberlain's Appeasement of HitlerMr Brady House of Commons Hansard Debates for 25 Jan 2000 (pt 30) Column 233.

To emphasise the point, people often quote two or more lines from the poem "Dane Geld" by Kipling as did Tony Parsons in The Daily Mirror when criticising the Rome daily La Repubblica for writing "Ransom was paid and that is nothing to be ashamed of," which was written by La Repubblica in response to the announcement that the Italian government paid $1 million for the release of two hostages in Iraq in October 2004. Tony Parsons ''We'll all pay for ransom in the Daily Mirror 4 October 2004

That if once you have paid him the Danegeld,
You never get rid of the Dane.

History

This kind of payment was not unique for England. According to Snorri Sturluson and Rimbert, Finland and the Baltic states paid 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 Finnish and Slavic tribes rebelled, fell into disarray and invited Rurik. Similarly, the Sami peoples were frequently forced to pay tribute in the form of pelts.

The first payment of the Danegeld to the vikings took place in the ninth century in 856. English payment, of 10,000 pounds (3,732 kg) of silver, was also made in 991 following the Viking victory at the Battle of Maldon in Essex, when King Aethelred "The Unready" was advised by Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury and the aldermen of the south-western provinces to buy off the Vikings rather than continue the armed struggle.

In 994 the Danes, under King Sweyn Forkbeard and Olaf Trygvason, 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 the English than to take whatever booty they could plunder.

Further payments were made in 1002, and especially in 1007 when Aethelred bought two years peace with the Danes for 36,000 pounds (13,436 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 pounds (17,916 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 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 pounds (26,873 kg) of silver collected nationally, plus a further 10,500 pounds (3,919 kg) of silver collected from London.

The total cost

It is estimated that the total amount of money paid amounted to some sixty million pence — more Anglo-Saxon pence of this period have been found in Denmark than in England.

Danegeld in a runestone

A runestone near Stockholm (U344) relates of a Swede who took three Danegelds under three different leaders:

in ulfr hafir onklati * Þru kialtakat Þit uas fursta Þis tursti * Þa — Þurktil * Þa kalt knutr

Translation: "But Ulf has taken three danegelds in England. The first one was with Toste, the second one with Thorkel and the third one with Canute the Great".