Converted pagans received always a new name, in those days, when baptized; and our common phrase, _the Christian name_, has arisen from the circumstance.
Guthrum's Christian name was Ethelstan.

Alfred was his godfather.
After the baptism the whole party proceeded to a town a few miles distant, which Alfred had decided to make a royal residence, and there other ceremonies connected with the new convert's admission to the Church were performed, the whole ending with a series of great public festivities and rejoicings.
A very full and formal treaty of peace and amity was now concluded between the two sovereigns; for Guthrum was styled in the treaty a _king_, and was to hold, in the dominions assigned him to the eastward of Alfred's realm, an independent jurisdiction.

He agreed, however, by this treaty, to confine himself, from that time forward, to the limits thus assigned.

If the reader wishes to see what part of England it was which Guthrum was thus to hold, he can easily identify it by finding upon the map the following counties, which now occupy the same territory, viz., Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, and part of Herefordshire.

The population of all this region consisted already, in a great measure, of Danes.