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gelisation of the danes (as also of other scandinavians within the extended
danish sphere of influence), settling danes in frisia to protect against at-
tacks by Vikings and playing one danish king off against another, perhaps
hoping to turn denmark into something like a frankish protectorate.17
Later frankish kings, such as Lothars I and II, Charles the Bald and
Charles the fat, persisted with these strategies. on occasion non-military
strategies were pursued by the danes as well. Members of the various
danish royal dynasties came to look to the Carolingians for support when
there were disputes or expulsions at home. It was also sought when danish
royal control had to be re-established in Westarfold (Vestfold in norway)
in 813.18 the outcome, as far as our evidence reaches before danish history
fades into obscurity toward the end of the ninth century,19 was an intermit-
tently lively scene of frankish-danish diplomacy.20
In the early stages of contact matters were typically, by danish choice,
resolved by negotiations held on-site at the border, but visits by danish
legates at one or other imperial seat in the heartland also occurred from the
first.21 In 782, envoys from sigifridus appeared at Charlemagne’s court, ap-
parently to negotiate a transfer of the defeated saxon chieftain Widukind.22
following the final conquest of saxony in 804, Godofridus,23 report-
edly another king of the danes,24 promised to come in person to negotiate
with Charlemagne, although in the event he instead sent envoys.25 In 809
Godofridus, having destroyed the slavonic port of Reric the previous year,
17 Martin Brooke, ‘the Prose and Verse Hagiography of Walahfrid strabo’, in Charlemagne’s
Heir, 561.
18 Ganshof, The Carolingians, 166; Lund, ‘the danish empire’, 156; joanna story, Carolingian
Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c. 750–870, studies in early
Medieval Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 136-7.
19 skovgaard-Petersen, ‘the Making of the danish kingdom’, 174.
20 Ganshof, The Carolingians, 173.
21 Ganshof, The Carolingians, 178; else Roesdahl, The Vikings, trans. susan M. Margeson and
kirsten Williams, 2nd ed. (London: Penguin, 1998), 195–6.
22 nelson, ‘the frankish empire’, 20.
23 the spellings Godifridus and Godafridus, also found, are normalised to Godofridus in
reference to this and other bearers of the name in this essay.
24 for the actual limitations of his power and the possibility of his co-rulership with sigifridus,
see Maund, ‘“A turmoil of Warring Princes”’, 32, 34.
25 Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, trans. Bernhard
Walter scholz with Barbara Rogers (Ann Arbor, MI: university of Michigan Press, 1970),
83–4.