ch a
danegeld tax on land was assessed on everyone every ten to twenty
years. The amount was determined by the witan and was typically
2s. per hide of land. (A hide was probably the amount of land
which could support a family or household for a year or as much
land as could be tilled annually by a single plough.) It was stored
in a strong box under the King's bed. King Alfred the Great, who
had lived for awhile in Rome, unified the country to defeat the
invaders. He established fortifications called "burhs", usually on
hill tops or other strategic locations on the borders to control
the main road and river routes into his realm. The burhs were
seminal towns. They were typically walled enclosures with towers
and an outer ditch and mound, instead of the hedge or fence
enclosure of a tun. Inside were several wooden thatched huts and a
couple of churches, which were lit by earthen oil lamps. The
populace met at burhgemotes. The land area protected by each burh
became known as a "shire", which means a share of a larger whole.
The shire or local landowners were responsible for repairing the
burh fortifications. There were about thirty shires.

Alfred gathered together fighting men who were at his disposal,
which included eorldormen with their hearthbands (retinues of men
each of whom had chosen to swear to fight to the death for their
eorldorman, and some of whom were of high rank), the King's
thegns, shire thegns (local landholding farmers, who were required
to bring fighting equipment such as swords, helmets, chain mail,
and horses), and ordinary freemen, i.e. ceorls (who carried food,
dug fortifications, and sometimes fought). Since the King was
compelled to call out the whole population to arms, the
distinction between the king's thegns from other landholders
disappeared. Some great lords organized men under them, whom they
provisioned. These vassals took a personal oath to their lord "on
condition that he keep me as I am willing to deserve, and fulfill
all that was agreed on when I became his man, and chose his will
as mine." Alfred had a small navy of longships with 60 oars to
fight the Viking longships.

Alfred divided his army into two parts so that one half of the men
were fighting while the other half was at home sowing and
harvesting for those fighting. Thus, any small-scale independent
farming was supplanted by the open-field system, cultivation of
common land, more large private estates headed by a lord, and