Danegeld

views updated May 29 2018

Danegeld. The term is often applied to tribute payments made to the Vikings in the reign of Æthelred II (978–1016); these payments are known as gafol in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In 1012 Æthelred introduced an annual land tax, levied throughout the country, to pay for a Scandinavian force led by Thorkell the Tall which he had recruited to fight for him. The levy was continued by Cnut and his sons to pay for their own standing forces and was only abolished by Edward the Confessor in 1051. It was this tax which Norman administrative documents called ‘Danegeld’, though the Anglo-Saxons knew it as heregeld (‘army tax’).

Barbara Yorke