Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Scandinavian Britain - II. The Danelaw - 2. East Anglia
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the Danes held the field, but lost their king Jórik,
Æthelwald the pretender, and "Ysopa" and Asketil
the "holds"; höldr being a word which usually meant
an owner of odal land, ancestral possessions, though in
this case none of their holdings can have dated further
back than twenty-five years. No doubt it means here
a large landowner; the scale of precedence in Scandinavian
society about this time was King, Jarl, Hersir
(chief of a clan), Höld, Bóndi (yeoman), Leysingi
(freedman), Thræll (slave). As there was no clan-system
among the immigrant Danes, who were adventurers
under a leader, not tribes under a patriarch, the
Höld in the East Anglian kingdom must have been
next in rank to the Jarl.
Following this outburst, in 906 King Eadward made
a treaty with the new king of East Anglia, Guthorm II.,
a son or nephew of Guthorm-Æthelstan. Jórik, contrary
to the terms of Wedmore, had been a pagan–at
least Æthelwerd the chronicler tells us he "descended
to Orcus," which implies as much,–and the new treaty
provided that the Danes should abjure heathenism
and respect church-sanctuary. Something in the
nature of international law was agreed upon; offences
were to be atoned by the English wite or the Danish
lah-slit (lag-slíð) according as they were committed
by one or the other nationality; which indicates an
intention on both sides to prevent border-raiding from
becoming a casus belli. In spite of this adoption of
Christianity the bishopric of Elmham remained for
some time in abeyance; but a little light is thrown
on the conversion of the East Anglian Danes by the
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