Danelaw Wapentake

A wapentake is a geographic division formerly used in England in those counties in the Danelaw for administrative, judicial and military purposes similar to the Anglo-Saxon hundred. Finally abolished by the 1974 reorganization of local government they had survived into the early modern period as taxation districts and for mobilizing the militia in the Napoleonic wars.

The Danelaw
In 886, the Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred and the Danish leader, Guthrum concluded the Treaty of Wedmore: the Danes would confine themselves to that part of England east of Watling Street and north of the Thames. Thus the former English territory roughly east of a line running from London to Chester became the Danelaw.

With Danish law came the Danish legal system and other Scandinavian institutions. Just as shillings and pounds were replaced in the north and east Midlands by the ere and the mark, so administrative districts were now the wapentake or the Þriding.

Genealogical Significance
If you wish to consult the hearth tax records or the militia and muster rolls, you will need to know in which wapentake your ancestor lived.