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too loosely over a hostile country : they grouped
themselves round the great strongholds which formed
the bases of their organisation.
These great strongholds were the Five Burgs or
Boroughs : Lincoln, once a Roman colony at the
junction of the Fosse Way with Ermine Street ;
Stamford, where Ermine Street crossed the Welland ;
Leicester, where the Fosse Way crossed the Soar ; Derby,
where Ryknield Street crossed the Derwent ; and
Nottingham, where another old route going north and
south crossed the Trent. Of these, Derby was practically
a Danish creation ; as Northweorthig, it had been
only a small Anglian village ; now it grew to importance
as Deoraby. Lindsey and Leicester had been
bishops’ sees ; that of Leicester was removed to
Dorchester, and that of Lindsey disappeared for over
eighty years.
Each of the five boroughs seems to have been
under a jarl of its own, with its own military organisation.
Internal affairs, in the case of Stamford and
Lincoln, were managed by twelve "lawmen," and
probably the same arrangement was followed in the
other towns. When Chester grew to some importance
through trade with Ireland, it also had its "lawmen,"
and the Lagmen of the Islands are mentioned in the
tenth century as leaders of invasion in Ireland ;
the chief justice of Orkney was called "lagman." The
title seems to have meant much the same as the
"Law-speaker" of the Icelandic Althing, that is to
say, chief of a court, who knew the law and stated it ;
the existence of twelve such men seem to imply twelve
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