Five Boroughs of the Danelaw
The Five Boroughs or The Five Boroughs of the Danelaw were the five main towns of Danish Mercia (what is now the East Midlands). These were Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. The first four later became county towns.
Establishment and rule
In 874, following their winter stay in Repton (in present-day Derbyshire), the Great Heathen Army drove King Burgred of Mercia into exile and conquered Mercia; the Vikings replaced the exiled Mercian king with King Ceolwulf II of Mercia. According to Alfred the Great's biographer, Asser, the Vikings then split into two bands.[4][5] Halfdan led one band north to Northumbria.[6] The Vikings returned in 877 to partition Mercia: the west of the kingdom went to Ceolwulf II, whilst in the east the Five Boroughs began as the fortified burhs of five Danish armies who settled the area and established the Danelaw, the area where their native law and customs prevailed.
Each of the Five Boroughs was ruled as a Danish
Derby
Old Norse: Djúra-bý. Although the area was settled by Danes from 877, it was not under English threat until 913 when Lady
The Danes might well have established their military headquarters on the former Roman fort of
Leicester
Leicester became one of the more formidable Danish burhs; the local ruler combined his army with that of Northampton and raided the West Saxon territories of Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire in 913, and defied King
Relieved of English rule by
Lincoln
The burh at Lincoln guarded the route between Wessex and
Nottingham
The Viking army under Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan Ragnarsson first occupied Nottingham in 868 and subsequently set up winter quarters there. Burgred and his West Saxon allies laid siege, but made peace and allowed the Vikings to retreat after little serious fighting in 869. Danish reoccupation and settlement began in 877, and lasted until the assault by King Edward of Wessex in the summer of 918. Edward constructed a second burh on the opposite side of the Trent in 920 to further fortify the area from Danish attack. Saxon Nottingham was known to have covered about 39 acres,[14] which may have put the burh at c. 1300 hides.
Stamford
The West Saxon Ealdorman Aethelnoth invaded the area around Stamford in the summer of 894, but the town was not besieged and Danish rule remained unaffected. The end came when King Edward assaulted Stamford in late May 918 and the burh soon fell to the army of Wessex. Later that year Edward built a second burh on the south side of the River Welland. From Roffe, the ramparts of the northern burh might have been of approx 3100 ft (c. 750 hides), and the Edwardian burh of around 2700 ft (c. 650 hides).[15]
The Danish burhs to the south
The following burhs were not part of the Five Boroughs, but were Danish settled towns with large armies and ruled in a similar manner. These Danes often acted in alliance with those of the Five Boroughs and the Danish King of East Anglia.
Northampton
First recorded invading newly ceded Mercian territories with their allies in 913, the Northampton Danes were initially very successful. However, on their return they were defeated by local Mercian forces near Luton, losing many horses and weapons. In December 914, their strength was further depleted when a number of Northampton Danes submitted to Edward at Bedford. With the loss of Derby and East Anglia and the advance of King Edward, their ruler, Jarl Thurferth, and the men of Northampton and Cambridge submitted to the West Saxons in 917. Thurferth remained the client ruler, and attested four charters of King Æthelstan dated between 930 and 934.[citation needed]
Northampton was later incorporated in the enlarged Earldom of East Anglia under Æthelstan Half-King in the 930s. In 941, then in the hands of the Mercians, Northampton faced an unsuccessful siege by King Olaf of York. The 'army' of Northampton was still in existence in 984 when they were recorded witnessing the sale of land.[16] The size of the Anglo-Danish burh at Northampton has been estimated to have ramparts 3,000 ft (910 m) in length[17] (equivalent to c. 700 hides), making it one of the smaller Danish burhs.
Bedford
The Danish burh was first under threat from the advance of the West Saxon army in 914. In November that year Bedford was surrounded in a pincer movement by Edward, and the ruling Jarl Thurketel submitted with all of his followers. Edward returned in November 915 to the Danish-held fortress, this time taking direct control of it and building a second burh on the south bank of the River
Huntingdon
The Danes of Huntingdon were allies with the East Anglian Danes when they advanced to Tempsford and built a new fortress in July 917. From here, the joint army attempted to recover the recently fallen burh at Bedford, but were severely defeated and put to flight by the English garrison. The burh was occupied by the Edward's West Saxon army shortly afterwards.
Cambridge
Cambridge was first occupied by the Danes under kings
Anglo-Saxon and Danish reconquest
Danish rule of the Five Boroughs was lost following the English reconquests under Æthelflæd of Mercia and Edward the Elder of Wessex during 916 and 917. The area was subsequently ruled by the
It is at this time the Five Boroughs are first recorded in an English poem known as the
In 1015 there is a unique reference to the 'Seven Boroughs', which might have been included Torksey and York.[16]
Earldom of the Five Boroughs
Following Danish conquest in 1016,
References
- ISBN 0-19-285434-8.
- ^ ASC 865 – English translation at project Gutenberg. Retrieved 30 July 2013
- ISBN 0-521-44049-1.
- ISBN 978-0-14-044409-4.
- ^
ISBN 9780192854346. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
It was from their base at Repton, in 874, that the Vikings drove King Burgred into exile, 'conquered' the kingdom of Mercia, establishing a certain Ceolwulf as king in Burgred's place, and then decided to split into two bands.
- ^ Holman. The A to Z of the Vikings. p.117
- ^ "Measham History: Danish Period". Archived from the original on 26 April 2005.
- ^ ISBN 0-7509-2131-5
- ^ Falkus & Gillingham and Hill
- ISBN 0-903521-39-3p19
- ^ British History Online: Antiquities, Derbyshire. Retrieved on 15 January 2008.
- ^ Romain-Britain.org: Romano-British Walled Towns. Archived 17 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 15 January 2008.
- ^ Roman-Britain.org: Lindum. Archived 20 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 15 January 2008.
- ^ Nottingham Churches: City History. Archived 7 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 15 January 2008.
- ^ Roffe: Stamford Origins. Retrieved on 15 January 2008.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5
- ^ Blanchard, Ian (2007). The Twelfth-Century: A Neglected Epoch in British Economic and Social History, Chapter 8 Burhs and Borough Newlees p165
- ISBN 0-86272-295-0. p. 52