If you have read anything about the Vikings in England, you have probably come across the term “danegeld.”
Scholars use this term to refer to money collected from locals and paid to the Vikings not to attack, much like the modern Mafia.
However, the term “danegeld” was not coined until after the Norman conquest of England in 1066.
They adopted the term for the process of collecting taxes from locals based on their property, which was initially put in place to pay off Viking hoards to prevent attacks, and then used to pay tribute to Viking kings.
They used the term “dane” because the majority of Viking leaders active in England were Danes, but raiders from all over the Viking world were active in England.
Viking extortion accepting money not to attack was not limited to England, and there is evidence of the practice in France a good century and a half before it began in England.
Moreover, as well as forming the basis for land tax in England, the practice of extorting danegeld from the Anglo-Saxons led the Vikings, who up until that point relied on a bullion economy, to move towards a currency economy and mint their own coins.
Paying Off Vikings in France
The evidence suggests that long before the Anglo-Saxons started paying the Viking danegeld, people in France were paying the Vikings extortion fees not to attack.
The earliest record of something resembling danegeld in France was in Frisia in 810, when a Danish fleet of around 200 ships started harassing the coastline and then defeated the Frisian troops in three standing battles.
The Vikings demanded payment to end the conflict and leave them alone, and the Frisians collected 100 pounds of silver through local taxation to pay them off.
While it is impossible to compare the value of that amount of silver then to today’s currency, many have tried.
While it is far from a tried and tested formula, let’s do it for fun anyway. One hundred pounds of silver is probably worth around US$600,000 in today’s money.
While this bought temporary peace, it was not long before the Vikings were back.
This is why Rudyard Kipling coined the saying in one of his poems: “pay them danegeld and then you will never get rid of a Dane.”
In 836, a group of Vikings burned Antwerp, and again, only agreed to leave in exchange for cold, hard cash.
The following year, they captured several local nobles and held them for ransom.
The Vikings then proceeded to conduct a “census,” claiming wealth “of diverse kinds.”
This suggests that they went from property to property and charged an amount based on the size and wealth of the property, but accepted payment in various forms (not just gold or silver).
We hear if them accepting cows, worth around US$1600 per head in today’s money.
Unsurprisingly, considering how lucrative the act seems to have been, the Vikings were back in 852, with more than 250 ships.
This time they were paid off before they attacked and began their cyclic devastation.
That they must have been paid in wealth raised through taxes is confirmed by a record that, in 873, the Frisians refused to pay extortion fees to the Vikings, saying that they only owed taxes to their king.
Similar stories survive from around France, though without the clear evidence that the Vikings were paid through taxes levied on local populations.
We hear of the people of Britany paying off the Vikings in 847, 854/5, and 869, before raising funds to hire them as mercenaries in 873.
In 882, Charles the Fat paid to end the Siege of Elsloo. In West Francia, they paid of Ragnar Lodbrok after his attack on Paris, preventing he Vikings from destroying the city with six tons of silver and gold (that’s around US$75 million).
Danegeld in Anglo Saxon England
The practice of paying danegeld started similarly in Anglo-Saxon England but began much later.
The first record of this kind of payment is in 991, when King Aethelred was advised to pay the Vikings off, at least for now, following the Viking victory at the Battle of Maldon.
It is unclear exactly how the funds were collected, but it is described in the sources as a “gafol,” which means tax or tribute.
The English paid the Vikings 3,300 kilograms of silver (maybe US$600,000). This tribute was reportedly paid to Olaf Tryggvason, who was a Norwegian Viking.
Again, the peace this bought was only temporary, and in 994, the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard arrived and laid siege to London.
Aethelred used the same system, this time called “heregeld,” meaning army tax, to pay for his armies.
But in the end, the Vikings were bought off, for an unknown amount.
The Vikings clearly decided that this was a lucrative approach. Similar expeditions were launched and extortion prices were paid in 1002 and 1007, the second reportedly with 13,400 kilograms of silver (US$2.2 million).
They got even more in 1012 when they sacked Canterbury and were bought off with 17,900 kilograms of silver (maybe US$3 million).
At the end of 1013, Sweyn Forkbeard conquered England, and in 1016, his son Cnut the Great established himself as the accepted King of England.
Two years later, he felt sufficiently secure in his position that he sent away all but 40 of his ships.
Those ships carried 26,900 kilograms of silver from the countryside and 3,900 kilograms of silver collected just in London back to Viking territory (that’s a combined total of US$5 million).
When Cnut’s son lost control of England, the Vikings were no longer able to extort danegeld.
But the same system of tax was used by the Normans after their conquest in 1066.
We know that this was the same system because they are the ones who started calling in “danegeld.”
Taxes were measured on units of land considered sufficient to support a family, which different in different regions of the country.
The records that measure the value of land parcels also pre-date the Norman conquest, confirming that they adapted an established practice to manage their new territory.
Payments in the Baltic
Extortion was not just practiced in France and England.
There is also evidence of the same practice in Baltic countries including Finland, Estonia, and Latvia, though they paid the Swedish rather than the Danish Vikings.
It seems that even the Sami, who occupied the northern regions of Norway and Finland, also paid a form of danegeld, though they paid in valuable furs rather than gold or silver.
The Swedish Vikings who became the Kievan Rus also collected annual tribute from the Slavs, known as dan, from at least 859.
Prince Oleg of Kiev demanded that the people of Novgorod pay him 300 “griveni I” per year.
Danegeld and Currency
One result of the Vikings demanding so much wealth from the Anglo-Saxons is that coins needed to be minted and were then exported to Scandinavia.
More English coins from that period survive in Scandinavia than survive in England. Many coin-rich hoards from across England and Scandinavia date to the period of danegeld extortion.
Despite being traders, the Vikings did not mint coins until the end of the 10th century.
This wasn’t because they didn’t know about coins. Hoards of precious objects from the Migration Period (400-700 CE) and the first centuries of the Viking Age include coins from Rome, Constantinople, and even the Arab world. Many have small holes drilled into them, showing they were worn as pendants.
During the Migration Period, the people who would become the Vikings also made bracteates.
These look like extremely thin one-sided coins that are worn as pendants.
Their designs were inspired by Roman coins, featuring profile portraits of the gods in place of the Caesars, and marked with runic inscriptions in place of Latin dedications.
During the Migration Period, the proto-Vikings mostly relied on a barter economy, trading goods for other goods they considered of equal value.
When this became impractical, they switched to a bullion economy, with precious metals, mostly plentifully available silver but also gold, representing value.
This economic shift led to jewelry made of silver and gold becoming symbols of status and wealth in the Viking world.Initially, bullion trade was mostly in ingots made and weighted for that purpose.
However, by the 9th century CE, hack metal was also commonly used. While whole pieces of jewelry could be traded, smaller pieces of metal were hacked off pieces of jewelry to create smaller.
