Following the Norse invasion of Britain in the late 9th century and the creation of the Danelaw out of Jorvik, Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia what became of the Anglo-Saxon peasants who lived in the area? Were they all displaced by Norse peasants or were they allowed to remain? If so, how were their day to day lives impacted?
The scale of Norse settlement in so-called Danelaw region has lively been debated among scholars since the middle of the last century, but they have not reached an agreement so far. Neither suppose I recent genome analysis of the current inhabitants of the region can provide definitive new evidence to this age-old debate.
The most of scholars seem to think somewhat middle ways between mere hundreds of one or a few Norse warlords with their followers and the mass scale immigration that almost replaced the whole local population. To give an example, Hadley suggests: 'a few thousands settlers may account for the Scandinavian influence discernible in so many aspects the society and culture of northern and eastern England' (Hadley 2006: 130).
Many scholars agree that the land was actually allotted with the Danish settlers (Lund 1981: 149f., ASC A a. 876 [875]), as a scribe writes in the following famous passage: 'And that year Halfdan divided up the land of the Northumbria; and they were ploughing and providing for themselves' (Swanton trans. 2000: 74), but the clause of the famous treaty of King Alfred of Wessex and Guthrum the Dane in 878 presupposes that both freemen and unfree, with almost certainly English ones, would continue to live under the rule of 'Vikings (Danes)'. A few researchers argue that at least one of the purpose of the treaty is to guarantee the minimum social order between the new settlers and the old, local population there (Abrams 2001: 135f.). When a Danish local magnate (comes) submitted himself to the army of King Edward of Wessex in 917, a chronicler report that the citizens and rural people of Northampton who had fled into his fortress (burh) consisted both of the Danes and the Angles=English (John of Worcester, a. 917, cited in Abrams 2001: 136).
Many of the basic settlement structure in northern and eastern England are supposed to have function as before, as the local church organization as parishes did, As I wrote a few days ago in this question thread. It means that the old farm was took over by the family of new settlers and given the new, Scandinavian-based place names like -by and -thorpe suffix. It was also possible for the Englishmen to purchase land from 'the heathen (Danes)' , according to some documentary evidences from the early 10th century.
We don't have much concrete evidences between the new Danish settlers and the vanquished English on the latter's attitude against the former, but these survived fragmentary evidences suggests that their attitude was not overall hostile, and many of them accepted to lived either side by side, or with their former enemies. (it is also worth noting that Scandinavian origin place names concentrated in some places in northern- and eastern- England, not in whole later Danelaw regions, though).
In sum, it is not so unlikely that the remaining local population also involved with the formation of the distinct identity of 'Danelaw' region that played an important role in the 10th and 11th century English history.
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