10. The times when the Danes ravaged the greater part of the country were very trying to the life of English villages and towns. These sea-rovers came, at first, as plunderers, and the destruction of towns, churches, and monasteries was very great. Some monasteries, like Crowland[4], suffered several times, and many were never rebuilt. But, gradually, the invaders settled in England. They did not bring with them an entirely new land system. As they settled down to farming and village life, we find that land was held in almost exactly the same manner as under Saxon customs. 11. Of course there were some differences, and those who have studied the subject closely can indicate a good many points in which the Saxon and Danish land customs differed from each other. The dangers to which the Saxons had been exposed by the attacks of the Danes had put a great deal of power into the hands of the thanes and the king. Thus, by the time the Danes had settled in England, every vill and tun had got into the hands of some lord or thane, or was in the king's hands. In Danish settlements there seems always to have been an overlord, who led his people in war and ruled in time of peace; though there was a class of =freemen= amongst them which had special rights and privileges. 12. But the Danes were something more than tillers of the soil; they were traders too, and "tuns" became in many places more like our "towns" and trading-places than ever they had been before. In time we find the largest towns in the Danish part of England--Leicester, Lincoln, Derby, Nottingham, and Stamford--binding themselves together to protect their trading interests. =Summary.=--Land was gradually left to monasteries by kings and nobles on condition that they and their families should always be prayed for. The monasteries became holders of lands, often far away from their houses, which had to be attended to. Towns grew up round many monasteries, like St. Alban's and Bury St. Edmund's, and the monastery was their overlord. The Danes brought no new land system with them to England, though amongst them there was a class of freemen. Towns grew to be greater trading-places in Danish times. CHAPTER XIII TOWNS AND VILLAGES IN THE TIME OF CNUT THE DANE 1. Now let us see what an ordinary village was like in the time of King Cnut, when Saxon and Dane were living pretty comfortably together, side by side, under good government.