What was Danelaw? Read this Danelaw KS2 fact blog to find out what Danelaw was, how it was established and what happened to it.
Teaching the Danelaw in KS2?
Save planning time with this ready-to-teach Danelaw KS2 History lesson with lesson plan, slideshow and a variety of printable activities and resources.
What was Danelaw?
Danelaw was the name given to the area of England that officially belonged to the Vikings after 886 CE.
It covered much of the north and east of England, while the Anglo-Saxons continued to control Wessex and English Mercia.
Map showing the Danelaw in 886
How was Danelaw established?
To understand how Danelaw was established, we first need to look at when and why the Vikings came to England.
The first recorded Viking raid was at Lindisfarne on Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland, in 793 CE. After this, the Vikings continued to attack, plunder and destroy monasteries around the coastal areas of northern England, Scotland and Ireland.
For more than 50 years, the Vikings only raided England before sailing away again in their longboats. However, in 852 CE, the Vikings stayed in England for a longer period of time, camping on the Isle of Thanet in Kent over the winter.
The Vikings were starting to think about colonising England. This means they wanted to take control of land, establish their own settlements and rule over them.
In 865 CE, the Danish ‘Great Army’, led by King Ivar the Boneless and King Halfdan, landed on the east coast of England. Over the coming years, the Vikings attacked further inland in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria.
In 869 CE, King Edmund raised an army to defend the East Anglians from the latest Viking attacks. However, his army was defeated and King Edmund was killed.
King Alfred and the Vikings
After their success in East Anglia, the Vikings turned their attention to Wessex, which was by then the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
In 871 CE, there were a series of battles between the Vikings and the Wessex army, led by King Ethelred and his brother Alfred. When Ethelred died, Alfred became king.
A month after he became king, Alfred suffered a humiliating defeat in another Viking battle. By this time, many men were exhausted from war, and some had gone back to their farms to harvest crops. Alfred decided to offer the Vikings money on the condition that they would stay out of Wessex. The Vikings agreed, and a special tax called danegeld was paid to them.
However, the peace did not last. In 878 CE, the Vikings attacked Wessex again, but this time King Alfred and his army defeated them. Both sides agreed that a peace needed to be reached.
The Treaty of Wedmore
King Alfred offered the Vikings the north-east of England on the condition that they left the rest of the country to the Anglo-Saxons. The Vikings agreed, and their leader, King Guthrum, even converted to Christianity and was baptised.
In 886 CE, the Treaty of Wedmore officially granted the Vikings control of the north-east of England. This area became known as Danelaw. The rest of the country was left to King Alfred, who controlled Wessex and English Mercia.
These maps show the change in territory from 793 CE to 886 CE after the Treaty of Wedmore.
Download this FREE Danelaw Map
What was Danelaw like?
Danelaw consisted of three main areas: Northumbria, which included modern-day Yorkshire, East Anglia, and The Five Boroughs: Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford and Lincoln.
The city of York, then known as Jorvik, was a key Viking city. It had a population of more than 10,000 people and became an important trading centre.
When and why did Danelaw end?
In 954 CE, Eric Bloodaxe, the king of Northumbria, was defeated and driven out of the kingdom. This marked the end of Danelaw.
Viking rule in England finally ended in 1066 CE, when Harald Hardrada, the last Viking king, was defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York.
The legacy of Danelaw in modern-day England
Many places that were founded by the Vikings during their rule of Danelaw can still be found today. Villages and towns whose names end in -by, -ay or -thorpe are often of Viking origin.
If you are a teacher looking for ready-to-teach lessons about this part of history, you might be interested in our Vikings vs Anglo-Saxons KS2 History scheme of work, or our Vikings Topic Bundle, which includes Viking-themed History, Science, Geography and Art lessons.
