The Danelaw reconsidered : colonization and conflict in Viking-Age England

The purpose of this study is to address long-standing interpretative frameworks for the discussion of the ‘Danelaw’, a term that has been applied since the medieval period to a large area of eastern and northern England that was occupied by viking raiding groups and other immigrant settlers during the ninth and tenth centuries ad. The article highlights several potential issues concerning widely held perceptions of the Danelaw and its main subsidiary element — the ‘Five Boroughs’ — as geopolitical and cultural entities. On the basis of a lack of historical and archaeological evidence for coordinated territorial defence and cooperation between the groups occupying the landscape, the study calls the concepts of the Danelaw and Five Boroughs into question. I argue that a shift in scholarly focus to more local and regional processes of consolidation and social development would provide fresh insights into political and military organization in Viking-Age England, while also shedding light on processes of violence, colonization, and creolization as these played out across the settled landscape.