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OK so like I had way too much time on my hands tonight - enjoy!

English Common Law as we understand it today, written laws, not based on local customs and whims as the Saxon legal system, but a more universally and fairly applied and codified law and the basis in part on which our own legal system was formed did not come the Saxons, it came from the Normans = Norse via their invasion, settlement and assimilation of northern France.

“In the Saxon system even serious crimes were person al matters”..

“The Normans made crime a public matter, and the King's authority became more heavily involved in adjudicating. His officials evolved over the next few centuries into professional judges and barristers, and judges from the King's Court”

“They also restricted the church to the administration of ecclesiastical law”

Read more: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=common%20law

But even before the Normans, a substantial part of England was settled and ruled by Vikings, the area known as the Daneland or Danelaw. Many place names in England and Ireland have origins in these Norse settlements: http://www.viking.no/e/england/danelaw/epl-danelaw.htm

What was the Viking Legal System like?; The very word LAW in English is a Viking word; a legislative assembly and a court; a jury of 12 http://www.viking.no/e/life/elaws.htm

Viking Society - A Self-Regulated Society; the Viking system was more democratic. It included everybody as citizens (even woman and the handicapped), except the slaves and those exiled from society - the outlaws http://www.arild-hauge.com/elife.htm

And the Vikings left their mark on the English language. http://www.viking.no/e/england/e-viking_english.htm

The Vikings in Russia; the Slavs, exhausted by uninterrupted inter-tribal wars, made the following proposal to the Rus (a name borrowed from the Finns to designate the Swedes): "Our country is rich and immense, but it is rent by disorder. Come and govern us and reign over us". http://www.viking.no/e/russia/index.html

The Vikings in Ireland: The Vikings were now a factor in the internal politics of Ireland and were accepted as such. Norse-Irish alliances became commonplace. http://www.ncte.ie/viking/vikage.htm

In short the stereotype of the Vikings and their culture as “Hells Angles in Longboats” is untrue. Yes they pirated, pillaged and plundered, but they also had a complex society, with laws, morals, religion, works of art and literature and while brutal and warlike, they were not so much unlike other tribes of Western Europe; the Celts, Vandals, Picts, Angles, Saxons, Francs, but for several hundred years, they just did it better!