Sometimes a war is won not with the sword but with the purse. In 991 the English ealdorman Byrhtnoth faced a Viking army at Maldon – and lost. Afterwards England decided to pay off the attackers instead: 10,000 pounds of silver, the first Danegeld. A look at a tribute that drove streams of English silver into the North.
On 10 or 11 August 991 a Viking fleet landed on the coast of Essex and sailed up the river Blackwater. The aged ealdorman Byrhtnoth called out the local levy. The Vikings sat on a tidal island, joined to the shore only by a narrow causeway at low tide. When they asked for free passage to fight, Byrhtnoth – out of pride or over-boldness (Old English ofermōd) – let them across. The battle ended in his defeat and death.
The remarkable thing: we know the scene from an Old English heroic poem, “The Battle of Maldon.” When the Vikings demanded gold for their withdrawal, Byrhtnoth is said to have answered that they would be paid with spear-points and sword-blades. A proud word – yet he lost the battle all the same.
After the defeat, Archbishop Sigeric and the magnates advised King Æthelred to pay off the Vikings instead. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records it for the year 991:
“In that year it was decided to pay tribute to the Danes for the first time, because of the great terror they wrought along the coast; that was first 10,000 pounds.” Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for the year 991 (Old English, public domain; free translation)
That was only the beginning. Under Æthelred the payments grew ever higher; vast amounts of English silver flowed into the North – and reappear to this day in Scandinavian hoards and on runestones. The tribute bought short peace, but made the Vikings rich and invited new voyages. How this silver was weighed and chopped in the North is shown in our piece on hacksilver.
The Battle of Maldon took place on 10/11 August 991 near Maldon (Essex); Ealdorman Byrhtnoth fell against a Viking army (leader possibly Olaf Tryggvason). On Archbishop Sigeric's advice, King Æthelred then paid the first Danegeld of 10,000 pounds of silver (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 991). An Old English fragment of 325 lines, “The Battle of Maldon,” depicts the fight in literary form. Under Æthelred the Danegeld payments rose sharply; much English silver reached Scandinavia.
“Danegeld was just cowardly payment” is too simple: it was a political choice between fighting and buying – and it was financed through a regulated tax. The poem “The Battle of Maldon,” moreover, is poetry, not a protocol: speeches and details are literarily shaped (Byrhtnoth's “ofermōd” is a deliberate interpretation by the poet). What is certain are the date, Byrhtnoth's death and the first Danegeld of 10,000 pounds.
Hacksilver – silver as currency · Ribe & the North's first coins · Ragnar's sons · Stiklestad – the fall of Saint Olav · The Ulfberht sword.