Danegeld, -gelt Eng. Hist.
(ˈdeɪngɛld, -gɛlt)
Also 4 Dangilde, 4–6 Danegilt, Dane gilt, 5–7 Dane ghelte, Daneghelt, 6 Dane gelt, 7 Danageld, 7–9 Danegelt.
[Corresponds to ON. *Dana-giald, in ODa. Danegjeld, mod.Da. Danegæld, f. Dana-, Dane- + gjald, gjeld, payment, tribute, corr. to OE. ᵹield, ᵹild, ᵹeld, whence ME. ȝeld, ȝild, yeld. Cf. med.L. Danigeldum.]
An annual tax imposed at the end of the 10th c. or in the 11th c., originally (as is supposed) to provide funds for the protection of England from the Danes, and continued after the Norman Conquest as a land-tax. Also transf. and fig.
The name is not known to occur in OE., and the actual contemporary notices, beginning with Domesday, are mainly of fiscal character. Bromton (14th c.) calls it ‘tallagium datum Danis’, apparently identifying it with the gafol or tribute paid to the Danes in 991, and on two subsequent occasions, to buy them off. In the so-called ‘Laws of Eadweard’ (Schmid 496) it is described as an annual tax to hire mercenaries to resist and put down pirates. This might identify it with the heregyld ‘army-tax’ levied by the Danish kings to maintain their army and navy (see O.E. Chron. 1039–40), and said to have been afterwards remitted by Edward the Confessor. Mr. Freeman suggests (Norm. Conq. II. App. Q) ‘that Denageld was a popular name of dislike, originally applied to the payments made to buy off the Danes, and thence transferred to these other payments made to Danish and other mercenary troops, from the time of Thurkill onwards’. The Danegeld was levied as a land-tax by the Norman kings; it disappears under that name after 1163, but in fact continued under the name of tallage.
| [991 O.E. Chron., On þam ᵹeare man ᵹerædde þæt man ᵹeald ærest gafol Deniscan mannum, for þam mycclan broᵹan þe hi worhtan be þam sæ riman.] 1086 Domesday Bk. (1816) 336 Stanford..dedit geldum T.R.E. pro. XII. hundrez & dimidio. In exercitu & nauigio & in Danegeld. 1100–35 Charter to London in Stubbs Sel. Ch. iii. 103 Et [cives] sint quieti de schot et de loth, de Danegildo et de murdro. c 1250 Gloss. Law Terms in Rel. Ant. I. 33 Danegeld, Tailage de Danais. c 1330 R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 57 Edward him granted..þat neuer þe Dangilde..Suld be chalanged for man of Danes lond. 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 324/2 An ayde was thenne cleped the dane ghelte. 1577 Holinshed Chron. I. 239 an. 991 This money was called Danegylt or Dane money, and was levyed of the people. Although others take that to be Danegylte, whiche was gyuen unto such Danes as king Egelred afterwards reteyned in his service, to defende the lande from other Danes and enimyes. 1644 Milton Areop. (Arb.) 73 Not he who takes up armes for cote and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. 1756 P. C. Webb Short Acc. Danegeld 2 It was called Danegeld as being originally agreed to be paid to the Danes, and, like many other things, continued to retain the name long after it became appropriated to uses entirely different. 1873 Stubbs Const. Hist. I. 105 It may be questioned whether any money taxation properly so called ever existed before the imposition of Danegeld by Ethelred the Unready. Ibid. I. 279 The Conqueror..imposed the Danegeld anew. Ibid. I. 462 The Danegeld from this very year 1163 ceases to appear as a distinct item of account in the Pipe Rolls. 1911 Fletcher & Kipling School Hist. Eng. ii. 39 It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation, To call upon a neighbour and to say:—‘We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away’. And that is called asking for Dane-geld. 1920 19th Cent. July 28 A policy dictated by fear should be interpreted in terms of danegeld payable by Great Britain to the Moscow Camarilla. 1955 Times 18 May 11/5 Amounted to little more than blackmail and the payment of danegelt, which has never yet satisfactorily settled any dispute. |