The Thousandth Anniversary of the Danish Conquest of England

by Norman Berdichevsky (January 2016)

One of Hans Christian Andersen’s most beloved poems and the most often cited as a popular choice for a national anthem instead of the current two (one for royal occasions and another for civic celebrations), entitled “I Danmark er jeg født” (I was born in Denmark), expresses what has been a recurrent theme and dilemma in Danish self-identity – the knowledge that the present country’s small size and very modest power as a factor in international affairs masks a glorious past when…

(Translation) You once were master in “All the North, ruled over England” – but now you are called weak, just a small country, yet nevertheles as wide across the world as wherever the Danes’ song and chisel blow are heard. You cheerful Danish beach, the plough finds, the golden horn. May God give you a future as he gave you memories! I love you Denmark, my homeland!

Canute’s military successes made him one of the greatest figures of early medieval Europe and set the stage for Danish involvement in European matters. Had it not been for the victory of another branch of Scandinavian adventurers – the Normans, who first raided then conquered and settled the northwestern coast of France (Normandy) and went on to conquer England in 1066, Canute might have gone down in history as more important than Charlemagne in the formation of the modern European states.

Starting in approximately the year 790, waves of Danish assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles for plunder were followed by settlers from Denmark. By 865, Danish chieftains wintered in East Anglia, moved north and captured York in 867, defeating various Saxon contenders for the throne. The Danes placed a puppet Saxon Englishman on the throne and gradually extended considerable influence throughout the region of Northeast England, north of the Humber River. This tribute was simply blackmail paid to the Vikings to prevent the land from being plundered.

Most of the English kingdoms lay in turmoil and were unable to oppose the Vikings. Danes  arrived in 870 in a force called “The Great Summer Army” to overrun large areas of central and Eastern England. They then planned to move on to Wessex but were defeated on January 8, 871 at The Battle of Ashdown. By 878, an agreement was signed recognizing an autonomous Danish region in the Northeast of England known as the DANELAW. Viking chieftains agreed to respect the authority of the English king and to desist from further attempts at expansion beyond this fixed boundary line.

The Danish controlled area lasted for approximately two centuries and was formalized between King Alfred the Great of England and the Danish ruler Guthrum the Old. The border ran roughly north of a line drawn in London trending to the northwest to Chester. Five fortified towns became particularly important in the region: Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford and Lincoln, today referred to as The East Midlands.

Objectively however, the reign of the Danish King Canute the Great (1016–1035), brought stability with his proclamation of a joint monarchy embracing Denmark and England. His grandfather was Harald Blaatand (Bluetooth) who had been the first acknowledged king of a united and Christianized Denmark embracing Jutland, the Danish islands and Southern Sweden.

What brought him to England was the ambition to rule not only over the Danelaw but establish a united kingdom embracing the British Isles and Denmark. The Saxon King Ethelred plundered parts of the Danelaw and the Isle of Man in the year 1000 thus violating the old treaty and recognized border. It was an apparent first step to evicting the Danes from all of Britain.

On the death of his father Sweyn, after only 5 weeks as king, in February 1014, Canute’s brother Harald succeeded him as King of Denmark. Canute was proclaimed as king by the Danish army in England. However, the English nobility opposed the Danes and recalled their leader King Ethelred from Normandy to lead an army against Canute. Canute then retreated back to Denmark and proposed a shared rule with his brother Harald in a joint kingship. Harald rejected this proposal but offered Canute command of his forces for another invasion of England, on the condition he did not continue to press his rival claim.

After a major victory against Norway and Sweden in 1026 and on his way to Rome for the coronation, Canute proclaimed himself “King of all England and Denmark and the Norwegians and of some of the Swedes.”

So what lasting effects did all this ancient history leave behind in modern Europe? What were the consequences for England and the English language as a result of these dynastic struggles and conflicts in the North Sea of the eleventh century? During the more than two centuries of distinctive Danish presence in England, Anglo-Saxon speech was influence by its contact with Danish in the direction of simplification especially with regard to the conjugation of verbs. Danish dropped the cumbersome case endings (as in Latin) that were still current in Anglo-Saxon and moreover has today only one form for verbs in the present and the past tenses whereas Anglo-Saxon like old Germanic and Latin tongues had distinctive forms for each person. Another feature of cultural borrowing by English speakers from Danish took place in areas of vocabulary and spelling. Compare for example the Danish terms closely resembling English such as kniv (knife) and vindue (window) with the German equivalents of messer and fenster. Incongruous spellings (in English) like knees, kneel, knave, knight, gnaw, and gnome derive from their Danish equivalents.

Why bother with so much ancient history, and geography? Most Danes today probably can’t recall a great deal of the old medieval kings and their intrigues but they do retain a sense of historical continuity as a great nation and grasp that terms like the Danegeld and Danelaw reflect an honored and important tradition their ancestors played in the fortunes of Scandinavia, and the British isles. Even abroad, many educated people who know little or nothing about Canute or Denmark have heard the legendary story of the great king who commanded the tide to stop before the water reached his feet.

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Norman Berdichevsky is the author of The Left is Seldom Right and Modern Hebrew: The Past and Future of a Revitalized Language.

 

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Norman Berdichevsky contributes regularly to The Iconoclast, our Community Blog. Click here to see all his contributions on which comments are welcome.