DANEGELT (Dane and gelt, money), an annual tax (originally of one shilling, and afterwards of two) imposed on the Anglo-Saxons for every hide of land throughout the English realm, church-lands excepted, to maintain forces to oppose the Danes, or to furnish tribute to procure peace.
Danegelt was first imposed as a standing yearly tax under King Ethelred, A.D. 991. Edward the Confessor remitted this tax, but William I. and II. resumed it occasionally. In the reign of Henry I. it was accounted among the king's standing revenues; but Stephen, on his coronation-day, abrogated it for ever. Church-lands were exempted from the danegelt because, as is set forth in an ancient Saxon law, the people of England placed more confidence in the prayers of the church than in any military defence.