boundary as running along Watling Street to Chester, although the treaty does not
specify this. While the treaty has often been regarded as a foundation charter for the
Danelaw, it was contracted only on behalf of the Scandinavian settlers in East Anglia.
Furthermore, the boundary established by the treaty did not endure and the West
Saxons were obliged to capture burhs on the ‘English’ side in the early tenth century,
while Scandinavian place names to the west of the boundary indicate Scandinavian
settlement there (Davis 1982 ; Dumville 1992 ). Finally, the fortuitous survival of this
treaty in later manuscripts obscures the fact that it was only one of a number of broadly
contemporary peace treaties with the regions of Scandinavian settlement. The Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle records the breaking of a peace between King Alfred and the North-
umbrians and East Anglians in 893 (Whitelock 1979 : 201 ), and in 905 notes that King
Edward the Elder confirmed a peace (frið) at Tiddingford (Bucks.) with the East
Anglians and Northumbrians (Whitelock 1979 : 209 ), while the laws of this king (II
Edward, 5. 2 ) stipulate that certain legal provisions in eastern and northern England
should be ‘in accordance with the provisions of the treaties (friðgewritu)’ (Attenborough
1922 : 120 – 1 ).
The Danish qualities of parts of northern and eastern England were subsequently
recognised in a law code issued by King Edgar (in the 960 s or early 970 s) where it is
stipulated that ‘there should be in force among the Danes (mid Denum) such good laws as
they best decide on’ (Whitelock 1979 : 435 – 6 ). It is not, however, clear who would have
been identifiable as Danes, and by what means, around a century after settlement had
begun (Reynolds 1985 : 406 – 8 ). Moreover, many of the most recent settlers in northern
England had come not from the Danish provinces but from northern Scandinavia or
Dublin, where there had been Scandinavian settlers since the mid-ninth century (Smyth
1999 : 32 – 5 ).
The regions known as the Danelaw were accorded special provisions, but were,
nonetheless, regarded as legal provinces within the English kingdom. Indeed, Edgar also
demanded that other aspects of the law should ‘be common to all the nation, whether,
Englishmen, Danes or Britons’ (Whitelock 1979 : 435 ), and it has been argued that
Æthelred’s law code issued at Wantage, and addressed to the territory of the Five
Boroughs, while laden with Scandinavian terminology was unquestionably English
royal law, and may even have been an attempt to extend English customs to the Danelaw
(Wormald 1978 : 61 – 2 ; Neff 1989 : 287 ). It has also been argued that ethnic termin-
ology was employed from the mid-tenth century as part of the cultivation of the regional
identities of parts of England. Edgar’s separate legal provision for ‘the Danes’ may have
been a reward for support received from the elite of northern England early in his reign
(Lund 1976 ). The political language of the early eleventh century frequently invoked
the friendship between English and Danes, and the forged document known as ‘The
Laws of Edward and Guthrum’ sought to project such relations back to a much earlier
date, ‘when the English and the Danes unreservedly entered into relationships of peace
and friendship’ (Whitelock 1941 ; Innes 2000 : 77 ). Yet expressions of ethnic difference
coincided with the binding of the elites of northern and eastern England to the English
kingdom (Innes 2000 : 85 ), and the loyalty of secular and ecclesiastical leaders in
northern England from the mid-tenth century was enhanced by the appointment of men
who also held substantial possessions further south (Whitelock 1959 ). In spite of
the ethnic terminology employed, the distinctive legal provisions for the Danelaw
attest to the integration of the settlers and their descendants into English society (Innes
–– Dawn M. Hadley––