Paying off the dane

From the early tenth century the Norsemen had established an independent state in the north of France, with its capital at Rouen. Still conscious of their Nordic origins, the Normans allowed their ports to be used by the raiders into England. This caused deep resentment and hostility in England, and in 990-91, the Pope felt compelled to mediate. The diplomatic settlement did not affect the raids, which became heavier, and Aethelred's treasury was depleted by vast sums paid to buy them off. In 1009 a new onslaught came, of Danes and Norsemen from the great war-camp at Jomsburg at the mouth of the Vistula. In 1011 they took Canterbury and Archbishop Aelfheah (St Alphege), refusing to sanction a separate ransom for himself, was killed by their troops in 1012. The Council found £48,000 from a country sliding fast towards economic ruin to pay off the invaders once more. Nine hundred years later Rudyard Kipling made the point in 'What Dane-geld Means':

... we've proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld,

You never get rid of the Dane.

Norman England the imposition of norman rule

The closest parallel in history to William's invasion was that of the Romans a thousand years before: a small group imposing government on a much larger one. But much had changed in that time. His army was smaller, but he was familiar with the people, the southern part of the country, and its methods of government.

The remains of Colchester Castle as they appeared in the nineteenth century. The largest Norman castle in Europe, Colchester Castle was constructed over the massive vaults of the ruined Roman Temple of Claudius.

His aims and his methods were quite different. The Romans needed no justification or sanction for their assumption of control; William had already secured the support of the Pope and hastened to have himself formally crowned and consecrated with the Anglo-Saxon ceremonial. Edward the Confessor's promise and Harold's oath-breaking were vital elements in Norman propaganda. The new king had no ancestral claim, and was not of any royal descent himself. His rule might have been a transient thing, lasting only his own lifetime, or less. Anglo-Saxon England became, irreversibly, Norman England.

This was made possible by a combination of policy, advanced military skill, and the social system evolved by the Normans. The policy was for the king to establish his own men at all strategic places in the country. Land and wealth was what they had supported him for, and they seized their chance readily. Without delay they built castles for themselves, at first only timber structures on artificial or natural mounds, with a wooden outer fence. In time, stone castles, such as Colchester above, would replace them on an ever-more substantial scale.

The castle was scarcely known in England until the advent of the Normans, and such as already existed were probably built by Normans invited in by Edward the Confessor. English magnates had lived in relatively unprotected halls. From the castle, the new lord could dominate his tract of land, with his own detachment of mounted soldiers and archers to ensure his security. Like the Romans before him, William, finding the north a restive and dangerous province, carried out a campaign of devastation and terror in 1069. Even the Danelaw, always ready to acknowledge a Scandinavian overlord, did not welcome the Normans, whose speech was now Old French rather than Old Norse. The form of social organization which underlay Norman government was what later generations called the 'feudal system'. Already the structure of English society had been moving towards the concentrated power of landowners and regional magnates at the expense of the free ceorls and the lower ranks of thegns.