But as the Scandinavian colonies in the British Islands varied greatly in importance, so also must the effects which they produced have been somewhat different. In Ireland, as well as in Scotland, where the Norwegians met with tribes who, in spite of their apparent Christianity, stood rather below them in civilization, they kept themselves more apart from the natives. In Ireland, especially, they dwelt in their own strongly-fortified towns; where, until late in the middle ages, they maintained their own characteristic language, manners, customs, and laws. But in consequence of this, their Norwegian institutions had no real influence on the development of the national life or institutions of Ireland. At most they merely contributed to facilitate the introduction and establishment of the analogous Anglo-Norman institutions into the Irish cities. In England, on the contrary, where the Scandinavian colonies were far more numerous and powerful than in Scotland and Ireland, the Danish colonists certainly sought, after the Scandinavian fashion, to maintain in the midst of a foreign country their pure Danish laws, manners, and customs. Yet here the Danes, owing to the superior civilization which prevailed among the earlier Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England, were soon influenced by their language and culture, and became more and more amalgamated with them. Nevertheless the Danes in England were sufficiently numerous and independent to maintain the most important of their free Scandinavian characteristics, which coalesced with, and by degrees visibly impressed themselves upon, the more modern English manners and institutions. The Danish colonies in England, and the Norwegian colonies in Scotland and Ireland, had so far the same historical importance that they essentially conduced to found a new life, both externally and internally, in the British Islands, partly by extending trade and navigation, partly by subduing, or at least weakening, the power of the Anglo-Saxons, the Scotch, and the Irish, and thus in general preparing for a kindred race (the Normans) the dominion over all these people. It is well known that the Norman sway and the Norman spirit established themselves in Scotland and Ireland far later than in England—a circumstance chiefly owing to the conquests and settlements of the Norwegians in those countries having been far less extensive and important than the Danish conquests in England. Yet that the Danish-Norman spirit predominating in England has been able to maintain to our times its dominion in Scotland and Ireland also, is no slight evidence of the excellent and solid manner in which the Norwegians must originally have prepared the way.