And that's called paying the danish-geld; but we have proved it again and again, that if you have once paid him the Danish-geld, you will never get rid of the Danish. The #poet Rudyard Kipling described it best with his poem Dane-geld, first published in 1911. Although it was written as an allegory of the relationships of humanity in general, the specificity of the source requires clarification regarding how this metaphor was born. While no society intentionally plans its own destruction or subjugation, the reality of such actions is a matter of historical fact. One such example, and perhaps the most crucial of all such events for the English-speaking world, is the creation of the Dane-geld in pre-Norman Britain and the way in which the efficiency of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in collecting national taxes led directly to their downfall. There were indeed other factors involved in the success of the Norman Conquest in the second half of the 11th century, but without this pre-existing and self-sustaining means of financing, which was used to fuel William the Conqueror's military machine in the campaigns after 1066, it is It is doubtful whether the immediate impact of the invasion – the almost complete replacement of the Anglo-Saxon hierarchy with Norman rulers – and the devastation of northern England, through the genocidal acts of the Harrying of the North, could have been achieved. This essay will describe the process by which the Dane-geld came into existence, its impact on Anglo-Saxon society, and its immediate use by the Norman invaders in taking this pre-existing system and turning it against its creators in order to subjugate and control them in what would prove to be the most important invasion of the Western world a...... middle of paper...... Anglo-Saxon England, 500-1087. Stanford, California: StanfordUniversity Press, 1984.Loyn, H.R.. Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest. 2nd ed. London: Longman,1991.Williams, Ann. Kingship and government in pre-conquest England, c. 500-1066. NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1999.Williams, Ann. The English and the Norman conquest. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: BoydellPress, 1995.Williams, Ann. The world before Domesday: the English aristocracy, 871-1066. London:Continuum, 2008.Primary sourcesThe Anglo-Saxon chronicle. London: Everyman Press, 1912. Translation by Rev. James Ingram (London, 1823), with additional readings from the translation by Dr. J. A. Giles (London, 1847). Online: http://omacl.org/Anglo/Dane-geld, 980-1016 AD Kipling, Rudyard. First published in 1911. Online: http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_danegeld.htm