Danish Viking Settlement in the Five Boroughs

Photo: Lynda Mallett

The 10th and 11th century settlements of the Danes differed from those of the English; they were the encampment of armies, and their boundaries were the fighting fronts sustained by a series of fortified towns. Stamford, Nottingham, Lincoln, Derby, and Leicester were the bases of the new invading force. Behind their frontier lines the warriors of one decade were to become the colonists and landowners of the next. The Danish settlement in England was essentially military. They cut their way with their swords, and then planted themselves deeply in the soil, as did their English predecessors. The warrior type of farmer asserted from the first, a status different from ordinary agriculturist.

They had a status of freemen or Sokemen. By the time of the Norman invasion free peasants formed the third largest group among the peasantry, almost 14% of the recorded population. In economic terms, they were among the most substantial groups within the peasantry, possessing on average 30 acres of land and two plough oxen.

Freemen (Status) and freemen (Peasant) appear in large numbers only in the Danelaw where their numbers were very considerable, up to half the rural population in some counties. The peculiarities of this distribution have excited considerable debate. Most historians would agree that the distribution reflects the impact of the Viking invasions of the ninth century, though just how this effect was produced is disputed. Some believe that the free peasantry of the Danelaw recorded in the Doomsday Book represent descendants of the rank and file of the Danish armies who had settled in the ninth century, others that they were the descendants of a mass immigration of Scandinavian peasants which followed in the wake of this military conquest. A third view is that the effects of Viking conquest were indirect and cultural, the native peasantry of the Danelaw acquiring free status under Viking rule. It has also been argued that the free peasantry were widely distributed throughout the country before the Viking invasions, the once free peasantry of Wessex losing their freedom in the struggle for survival against the Vikings. However, in the area of the Five Boroughs within the Danelaw the rights and customs of freemen continued long after the Norman conquest.

The Ancient Boundary Wood of Sherwood

The Ancient Boundary Wood of Sherwood

Stuart Reddish

We are all familiar with the mythical stories of Robin Hood but what do we know about the name of his forest home Sherwood.

The first references are over a thousand years old and come from a family name. An ancient English surname which is derived from the Old English elements 'Scir' (pronounced 'sher') meaning 'bright' or 'shire', and 'Wudu' - a Wood or collection of trees. So the name may have begun to describe a 'dweller in the bright wood' or a 'dweller in a wood near a Shire or County boundary'. That would mean the name is of topographic origin (like the surname Wood) and may have developed independently in several regions at the same time. As it is the name of the forest and the place in Nottinghamshire it could be associated with a surname of toponymic origin. The earliest reference is in 958AD, when a SCIRWUDU was a prominent Saxon during the reign of the Wessex King Edwig ('The Literary Digest', 29 December 1928). Another early reference is to William de Shirewude 1219 Assize Rolls: Yorks.

There are other possible explanations. This is from The place-names of Nottinghamshire by John Eric Bruce Gover, Allen Mawer, F. M. Stenton:

"Others connect the first element with modern shire. In the earliest records, Sherwood is often spoken of as the "forest of Nottingham " (Victoria County Hist. I 365), which would seem to support the derivation from shire-wood, " the wood belonging to, or forming part of, the county."

This explanation is not thought to be wholly satisfactory either. The authors venture to suggest that the word sclr- is used here in the same sense as in Shireoaks, and Shire Dyke, a little stream forming part of the boundary between the counties of Nottingham and Lincoln. Its meaning is "boundary, division." Jellinghaus (p. 316) connects the word with modern Westphalian Sckier* y of the same meaning, which enters into numerous Low German field names, such as Sckiereneiken, " Shire-oaks," Schierenboken, "-beeches,"Schierholz, "-holt, or wood." There exists also a Shirland in Derbyshire, which goes back to older Scirlund, lund being the Scandinavian word for " wood."

If this explanation is adopted, the meaning would be " boundary forest." This seems a most appropriate name, seeing that Sherwood Forest stretches along the boundary between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and that part of its ancient bounds, as laid down in the perambulations, actually coincides with the modern line dividing the two counties.

Our research at Thynghowe has included a further early boundary implication between Mercia and Northumbria and maybe a Viking role between the Five boroughs of the Danelaw and the Kingdom of York. This emphasis on boundary and dispute resolution underpins the long history of the Thynghowe assembly site in the heart of Sherwood.

Surveying the summit of Thynghowe Viking Assembly site where the boundary's of Budby, Edwinstowe and Warsop meet.