Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum and the Danelaw (c. 886)

The Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum is a short agreement made between King Alfred of Wessex and the Danish king Guthrum of East Anglia at some point between 878 and 890, most often dated to about 886. It set a boundary between English and Danish rule across southern England and set out rules for how the two peoples would deal with each other. The lands under Scandinavian control, later called the Danelaw, left a lasting mark on English law, language and place names.

Background: from Edington to settlement

From 865 the Viking army known as the Great Heathen Army conquered or broke three of the four main English kingdoms: Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia. Only Wessex survived. In January 878 a surprise attack by Guthrum nearly destroyed it too, but in May Alfred defeated him at the Battle of Edington.

As part of the peace, Guthrum was baptised with Alfred as his godfather and took the Christian name Æthelstan. His army moved to East Anglia in 879 and, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, shared out the land there in 880. Meanwhile other Danish groups had settled Northumbria from 876 and part of eastern Mercia from 877.

For the first time, a Scandinavian king ruled an English kingdom as a settled Christian neighbour of Wessex. Some formal arrangement between the two rulers was needed.

The date of the treaty

The text has no date. Guthrum is named as a living king, so it must be earlier than his death in 890, and it presumably follows the peace of 878. Many historians link it to 886, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says Alfred occupied London and “all the English people” not under Danish rule submitted to him. London lies on the boundary described in the treaty, which suggests it was then in English hands.

Others argue for an earlier date, around 880, soon after Guthrum’s settlement in East Anglia, or think the surviving text could revise an earlier agreement. Because certainty is impossible, the safest statement is that it dates from between 878 and 890.

What the treaty says

The treaty survives in an Old English version in a manuscript at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and in a Latin translation in the early 12th-century legal collection known as the Quadripartitus. It opens by stating that it is the peace agreed by King Alfred, King Guthrum and the councillors of the English and of the people of East Anglia, sworn with oaths for themselves and their descendants.

Its main clauses are short:

• The boundary: up the Thames, then up the River Lea to its source, then straight to Bedford, then up the River Ouse to Watling Street.
• Equal value of life: if a man was killed, Englishman and Dane were valued alike, at eight half-marks of refined gold. The exceptions were the ceorls, or free peasants, who occupied rented land, and their Danish equivalents, who were each valued at 200 shillings.
• Legal proof: if a king’s thegn was accused of killing a man, he had to clear himself with the oaths of twelve king’s thegns; an accused man of lower rank used eleven of his equals and one king’s thegn.
• Trade and movement: no one was to go over to the other army without permission, whether slave or free, but people could cross to trade in cattle and goods if they gave hostages as a pledge of good faith.

The clause on movement aimed to stop men escaping their lords or obligations by changing sides. The treaty says nothing about religion, though Guthrum’s baptism was part of the wider peace.

Key people

Alfred (848/849–899) was king of Wessex from 871. By the mid-880s he presented himself as king of all the English not under Danish rule, a claim reflected in the treaty’s language.

Guthrum (died 890) led the army that attacked Wessex in 875–878. As King Æthelstan of East Anglia he issued silver pennies in his baptismal name. His death is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 890.

The Danelaw

The treaty itself does not use the word Danelaw. The term, Old English Dena lagu, “law of the Danes”, first appears in legal texts of the early 11th century, in the reign of Æthelred II and in the writings of Archbishop Wulfstan of York. It described the region where Danish legal customs applied, as opposed to areas under West Saxon or Mercian law.

The Danelaw broadly covered three zones: the kingdom of York in Northumbria, centred on Jorvik; the East Midlands, later organised around the Five Boroughs of Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford; and East Anglia. It was never a single state, and Scandinavian rule in the south did not last long. From the 910s Alfred’s son Edward the Elder and daughter Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians conquered the southern Danish territories. York fell finally to English rule in 954.

Even under English kings, the region kept distinctive customs. Shires there were divided into units called wapentakes rather than hundreds, measured land in carucates, and had a large number of free peasants, called sokemen, recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Legacy in place names and language

The clearest trace of the Danelaw is on the map. More than 600 English place names end in -by, the Old Norse word for a farm or village, such as Derby, Grimsby, Whitby and Selby. Others end in -thorpe, meaning an outlying settlement, or -toft, a homestead plot. These names are concentrated in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Norfolk, and are rare south and west of the treaty boundary.

Old Norse also shaped everyday English. Words such as sky, egg, knife, skin, window, take and law come from Norse, as do the pronouns they, them and their. Many dialect words in northern England, such as beck for a stream and dale for a valley, share this origin. Historians debate how many Scandinavians actually settled, from a few thousand warriors to much larger migrations, but the linguistic evidence shows deep and lasting contact.

Myths and facts

A common picture shows England split neatly in two along Watling Street, with a single Danish kingdom to the north-east. The evidence is messier. The treaty boundary describes only the frontier between Alfred’s lands and Guthrum’s East Anglia, from London to the upper Ouse; it says nothing about Northumbria or the north-west Midlands, which were under other rulers.

The Danelaw was never one kingdom. York, the Five Boroughs and East Anglia had separate rulers and histories, and they were often at odds with one another. Nor was the population entirely Scandinavian: English people continued to live and farm throughout the region, and many Danish settlers adopted Christianity within a generation or two.

Finally, the boundary was not permanent. Within about thirty years of Guthrum’s death, English kings had pushed far beyond it, and the term Danelaw survived as a legal and regional label long after Scandinavian political rule had ended.

Timeline

• 865: The Great Heathen Army arrives in England.
• 876–877: Danish groups settle in Northumbria and eastern Mercia.
• 878, May: Alfred defeats Guthrum at Edington; Guthrum is baptised.
• 880: Guthrum’s army settles in East Anglia.
• 886: Alfred occupies London; the most commonly suggested date for the treaty.
• 890: Death of Guthrum.
• c. 910–920: Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd reconquer the southern Danelaw.
• 954: Eric Bloodaxe is expelled from York, ending independent Scandinavian rule there.
• Early 11th century: The word Danelaw first appears in English legal texts.

Why it matters

The Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum is one of the earliest surviving international agreements in English history and the first to set an English-Danish frontier. The Danelaw that grew out of this division shaped English regional identity, law and language, and its place names still mark the map of England today.