Danegeld

thumb|right|The England Runestones#U 241|runestone U 241 in Lingsberg, [[Uppland, Sweden, was raised by the grandchildren of Ulfríkr circa 1050 in commemoration of his twice receiving Danegeld in England.]]

Danegeld (; literally "Dane yield") was a tax raised to pay tribute or protection money to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the geld or gafol in eleventh-century sources. It was characteristic of royal policy in both England and Francia during the ninth through eleventh centuries, collected both as tributary, to buy off the attackers, and as stipendiary, to pay the defensive forces. The term Danegeld did not appear until the late eleventh century. In Anglo-Saxon England tribute payments to the Danes was known as gafol and the levy raised to support the standing army, for the defence of the realm, was known as heregeld (army-tax).