4. The amalgamation of the two peoples.

The amalgamation of the two peoples was greatly facilitated by the close kinship that existed between them. The policy of the English kings in the period when they were re-establishing their control over the Danelaw was to accept as an established fact the mixed population of the district and to devise a modus vivendi for its people. In this effort they were aided by the natural adaptability of the Scandinavian. Generations of contact with foreign communities had made the Scandinavians a cosmopolitan people. The Danes assimilated to most of the ways of English life. Many of them early accepted Christianity. It would be a great mistake to think of the relation between Anglo-Saxons and Dane, especially in the tenth century, as uniformly hostile.
Alongside the ruins of English towns, there existed important communities established by the newcomers. They seem to have grouped themselves at first in concentrated centres. Among such centres the Five Boroughs Lincoln, Stanford, Leicester, Derby and Nottingham, became important foci of Scandinavian influence.
But these large centres and the multitude of smaller communities where the Northmen
gradually settled were absorbed later into the general mass of the English population.