Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Scandinavian Britain - II. The Danelaw - 5. Svein and Knút
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said to have abolished it about 1051, but William the
Conqueror levied a similar tax when he was crowned,
and another in the following year, and again another
in 1083-1084. Prof. Maitland (Domesday Book and
Beyond, p. 6) calls the sums exacted under Æthelred
and Knút "appalling." At two shillings the hide,
which was worth about a pound, England in the
middle of the twelfth century could pay only £5198 ;
so that £30,000 would be half the total value of the
kingdom, unless it was richer in the tenth than in
the twelfth century, or unless recourse could be had
to the hoarded wealth of many ancestral treasuries.
It must be remembered, however, that some of the
Viking hosts remained for a considerable time in the
country ; buccaneers are often open-handed, and much
of their prize-money must have gone back to the
people of the towns where they took up their
quarters.
After the battle of Maldon, Olaf Tryggvason himself
joined his kinsmen, and the host was enlisted by
the Saxon Witan to remain and defend Wessex from
the Danes. A further sum of £22,000 is said to have
been paid as a retaining fee, beside salaries while
they were on active service : but at the same time
they were allowed in certain cases to wage war or
make raids on other parts of the island, and any
province making a separate treaty with them was to
be outlawed. So next year we find a great fleet in
the English service on the Thames, commanded by
Thord of York, Ælfric, formerly a refugee in Denmark,
and two bishops. It is not surprising that Ælfric first
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