Wessex and the origins of the Danelaw: Borders, frontiers, and borderlands

This dissertation argues that the area of Scandinavian settlement in ninth- and tenth-century England, also known as the Danelaw, was a borderland and analyzes the relationship between it and the growing power of Wessex. A borderland is a space contested by two or more powers—whether physical or metaphysical—which also sees contact between cultures and populations. In Chapter 1, I read a ninth-century treaty between King Alfred of Wessex and a Scandinavian leader named Guthrum which establishes a border between their territories. I argue that this border was fundamental in creating the power that the treaty purports the two rulers already have. Reading the treaty as something which performs identities for the two rulers and those in their territories, I see this done directly through the act of creating a border and regulating it. In Chapter 2, I address how Wessex fortified their territory and expanded into the Danelaw through an analysis of annals about Edward and Æthelflæd and a text called the Burghal Hidage. I argue that the Danelaw has attributes of a frontier-borderland during this period because it is both a frontier for the West Saxons to push against, and a borderland contested between the West Saxons and Scandinavian leaders where both English and Scandinavians live. I also read a lawcode from Edgar three decades later to discuss how the frontier-borderland acts during a time of peace. In this lawcode, Edgar IV, Edgar takes on the fragile task of creating legislation for the Danelaw, while acknowledging that it has developed its own legal tradition in the previous decades of being a frontier-borderland. In Chapter 3, I read a poem found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle called The Battle of Brunanburh and argue that it shows the Danelaw as a borderland through the contestation of rulers over it and the power that holding it provides. While the poem does not directly mention the Danelaw, I see this as evidence for the West Saxon perspective of the area—that it is only important in so far as it provides power. In Chapter 4, I discuss two thirteenth-century tales that reimagine how the Danelaw came to be, and how Scandinavians came to live in England. I read the Middle English, Havelok the Dane, and the Old Icelandic, Ragnars saga loðbrókar, as part of a new corpus, the Matter of the Danelaw, and argue that these texts were used to help a thirteenth-century audience imagine relatively peaceful ways for the origin of the Danelaw and an Anglo-Scandinavian identity.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Valentine, Suzanne

Contributors dc:contributor

• Trilling, Renée R
• Barrett, Robert W
• Stickley Calderwood, Eric
• Höfig, Verena

• Danelaw
• Anglo-scandinavian
• Old English
• Old Norse
• Old Icelandic
• Alfred-guthrum Treaty
• Burghal Hidage
• Edgar Iv
• Battle Of Brunanburh
• Capture Of The Five Boroughs
• Havelok The Dane
• Ragnars Saga Lodbrokar

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Suzanne Valentine

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120257

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F120257