colonised by Norsemen from Man and the islands. The greater number of the place-names are purely Scandinavian and the local dialects are full of terms of similar origin. It is probable that such parts of Lancashire as shew Viking influence, viz. Furness and Lancashire north of the Ribble, should be grouped with these districts; south of that river their influence on place-nomenclature is slight, except on the coast, where we have evidence of a series of Viking settlements extending to and including the Wirral in Cheshire. A twelfth-century runic inscription survives at Loppergarth in Furness, and the Gosforth cross in Cumberland bears heathen as well as Christian sculptures. The parallel existence of hundred and wapentake and the carucal assessment in Domesday warn us that we must not underrate the importance of Norse influence.
The Scandinavian kingdom of Northumbria must have been much smaller than the earlier realm of that name. Northumberland shews but few traces of Viking influence, and it is not till we reach Teesdale that it becomes strongly marked. From here to the Humber place-nomenclature and dialect, ridings and wapentakes, carucates and duodecimal notation in the Domesday assessments, bear witness to their presence from the shores of the North Sea right up to the Pennines.
For the extent and character of the Viking settlements in the district of the Five Boroughs we have not only the usual (and often somewhat unsatisfactory) tests of place-names and dialects, ancient and modern, but also a far more accurate index in the facts recorded in the Domesday assessment of the eleventh century. For the northern counties this is largely non-existent or too scanty to be of any great value, but here it has its usual fulness of detail. The chief tests derived from this source with their respective applications are as follows: (1) The use of the Danish "wapentake" as the chief division of the county in place of the English "hundred." This is found in Derbyshire (with one exception on its southern border), Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire (with certain exceptions along the sea-coast which have a curious and unexplained parallel in the Domesday divisions of Yorkshire), Leicestershire, Rutland and one district of Northamptonshire now included in Rutland. (2) The assessment by carucates in multiples and sub-multiples of twelve, which is characteristic of the Danelaw, as opposed to that by hides arranged on a decimal system. This we find in the shires of Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, Leicester and Rutland (with the above exception). In the two N.E. hundreds of Northamptonshire there are also traces of a duodecimal assessment. (3) The use of the ore of 16d. instead of that of 20d. is found in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Lancashire. In Leicestershire we are told on the other hand that the ore was of 20d. (4) In Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire (and Yorkshire) we have traces of the use of the Danish "long" hundred (= 120), e.g. the fine for breaking the king's peace is £8 (i.e. 120 ores). These tests establish Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire (Lincoln
