Could be, although it's hard to tell how closely the killers' idea of who was Danish enough to be massacred would have matched the views on ethnicity of people in general, let alone their victims. Massacrers are notorious simplifiers and lumpers-together... But then you'd think they'd have needed at least some perceived distinction to exploit.
--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Ruarigh Dale" <ruarigh@...> wrote:
>
> The entry for the St Brice's Day massacre (1002) in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to the Danes or Danish people in England. This suggests that the English peoples understood there to be a difference, unless you think it only refers to visiting Danes, which is one possible interpretation. A charter of Aethelred from two years later ordering restitution to St Frideswide's minster in Oxford refers to a decree "to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like weeds amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination". This charter is the only real evidence of the massacre actually occurring, but the terminology suggests that there were clear divisions of identity between the English and the Danes living in England, so there may not have been an Anglo-Danish identity per se, previous discussion on this forum notwithstanding.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 4:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [norse_course] Re: Did the Norse ever refer specifically to the Anglo-Danes?
>
> True enough, though it likely depended on whether you were an Anglo-Dane from Northumbria, East Anglia or Mercia prior to 1066. The latter folk were probably much more "blended" with their Anglo-Saxon neighbors than someone north of the Humber.
>