What is Danelaw?

1.

What is Danelaw?
BY PAULINA DIMITROVA

2.

Name
Danelaw is a
historical name
given to the part
of England in which
the laws of
the Danes held sway
and dominated
those of the AngloSaxons.

3.

In 865 a Great Viking Army left
Scandinavia to conquer
England.
The Great Viking Army
(sometimes referred to as the
Great Danish Army), known by
the Anglo-Saxons as the Great
Heathen Army was a coalition of
Norse warriors, originating from
Denmark and Norway (and
possibly also from Sweden) who
came together under a unified
command to invade the four
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that
constituted England.

4.

The area occupied by
the Danelaw was
roughly the area to the
north of a line drawn
between London and
Chester, excluding the
portion of
Northumbria to the
east of the Pennines.

5.

Under the Danelaw, between 30% and 50% of the population in the
countryside had the legal status of 'sokeman', occupying an
intermediate position between the free tenants and the bond tenants.
This tended to provide more autonomy for the peasants. A sokeman
was a free man within the lord's soke, or jurisdiction.

6.

THE END