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Cnut
Cnut (/kəˈnjuːt/ kə-NYOOT; Old Norse: Knútr; c. 990 – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rule are referred to together as the North Sea Empire by historians.
As a Danish prince, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe. His later accession to the Danish throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut sought to keep this power base by uniting Danes and English under cultural bonds of wealth and custom. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. In 1031, Malcolm II of Scotland also submitted to him, though Anglo-Norse influence over Scotland was weak and ultimately did not last by the time of Cnut's death.
Dominion of England lent the Danes an important link to the maritime zone between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, where Cnut, like his father before him, had a strong interest and wielded much influence among the Norse–Gaels. Cnut's possession of England's dioceses and the continental Diocese of Denmark – with a claim laid upon it by the Holy Roman Empire's Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen – was a source of great prestige and leverage among the magnates of Christendom (gaining notable concessions such as one on the price of the pallium of his bishops, though they still had to travel to obtain the pallium, as well as on the tolls his people had to pay on the way to Rome). After his 1026 victory against Norway and Sweden, and on his way back from Rome where he attended the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor, Cnut deemed himself "King of all England and Denmark and the Norwegians and of some of the Swedes" in a letter written for the benefit of his subjects. Medieval historian Norman Cantor called him "the most effective king in Anglo-Saxon history".
He is popularly invoked in the context of the legend of King Canute and the tide.
Cnut was a son of the Danish prince Swein Forkbeard, who was the son and heir to King Harald Bluetooth and thus came from a line of Scandinavian rulers central to the unification of Denmark. Neither the place nor the date of his birth are known. Harthacnut I was the semi-legendary founder of the Danish royal house at the beginning of the 10th century, and his son, Gorm the Old, became the first in the official line (the "Old" in his name indicates this). Harald Bluetooth, Gorm's son and Cnut's grandfather, was the Danish king at the time of the Christianization of Denmark; he became one of the first Scandinavian kings to accept Christianity.
The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg and the Encomium Emmae report Cnut's mother as having been Świętosława, a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland. Norse sources of the High Middle Ages, most prominently Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson, also give a Polish princess as Cnut's mother, whom they call Gunhild, a daughter of Burislav, the king of Vindland.
Since in the Norse sagas the king of Vindland is always Burislav, this is reconcilable with the assumption that her father was Mieszko (not his son Bolesław). Adam of Bremen in Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum is unique in equating Cnut's mother (for whom he also produces no name) with the former queen of Sweden, wife of Eric the Victorious and by this marriage mother of Olof Skötkonung.
To complicate the matter, Heimskringla and other sagas also have Swein marrying Eric's widow, but she is distinctly another person in these texts, named Sigrid the Haughty, whom Swein only marries after Gunhild, the Slavic princess who bore Cnut, has died. Different theories regarding the number and ancestry of Swein's wives (or wife) have been advanced (see Sigrid the Haughty and Gunhild). But since Adam is the only source to equate the identity of Cnut's and Olof Skötkonung's mother, this is often seen as an error on Adam's part, and it is often assumed that Swein had two wives, the first being Cnut's mother, and the second being the former Queen of Sweden. Cnut's brother Harald was the younger of the two brothers according to Encomium Emmae.
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Cnut
Cnut (/kəˈnjuːt/ kə-NYOOT; Old Norse: Knútr; c. 990 – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rule are referred to together as the North Sea Empire by historians.
As a Danish prince, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe. His later accession to the Danish throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut sought to keep this power base by uniting Danes and English under cultural bonds of wealth and custom. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. In 1031, Malcolm II of Scotland also submitted to him, though Anglo-Norse influence over Scotland was weak and ultimately did not last by the time of Cnut's death.
Dominion of England lent the Danes an important link to the maritime zone between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, where Cnut, like his father before him, had a strong interest and wielded much influence among the Norse–Gaels. Cnut's possession of England's dioceses and the continental Diocese of Denmark – with a claim laid upon it by the Holy Roman Empire's Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen – was a source of great prestige and leverage among the magnates of Christendom (gaining notable concessions such as one on the price of the pallium of his bishops, though they still had to travel to obtain the pallium, as well as on the tolls his people had to pay on the way to Rome). After his 1026 victory against Norway and Sweden, and on his way back from Rome where he attended the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor, Cnut deemed himself "King of all England and Denmark and the Norwegians and of some of the Swedes" in a letter written for the benefit of his subjects. Medieval historian Norman Cantor called him "the most effective king in Anglo-Saxon history".
He is popularly invoked in the context of the legend of King Canute and the tide.
Cnut was a son of the Danish prince Swein Forkbeard, who was the son and heir to King Harald Bluetooth and thus came from a line of Scandinavian rulers central to the unification of Denmark. Neither the place nor the date of his birth are known. Harthacnut I was the semi-legendary founder of the Danish royal house at the beginning of the 10th century, and his son, Gorm the Old, became the first in the official line (the "Old" in his name indicates this). Harald Bluetooth, Gorm's son and Cnut's grandfather, was the Danish king at the time of the Christianization of Denmark; he became one of the first Scandinavian kings to accept Christianity.
The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg and the Encomium Emmae report Cnut's mother as having been Świętosława, a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland. Norse sources of the High Middle Ages, most prominently Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson, also give a Polish princess as Cnut's mother, whom they call Gunhild, a daughter of Burislav, the king of Vindland.
Since in the Norse sagas the king of Vindland is always Burislav, this is reconcilable with the assumption that her father was Mieszko (not his son Bolesław). Adam of Bremen in Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum is unique in equating Cnut's mother (for whom he also produces no name) with the former queen of Sweden, wife of Eric the Victorious and by this marriage mother of Olof Skötkonung.
To complicate the matter, Heimskringla and other sagas also have Swein marrying Eric's widow, but she is distinctly another person in these texts, named Sigrid the Haughty, whom Swein only marries after Gunhild, the Slavic princess who bore Cnut, has died. Different theories regarding the number and ancestry of Swein's wives (or wife) have been advanced (see Sigrid the Haughty and Gunhild). But since Adam is the only source to equate the identity of Cnut's and Olof Skötkonung's mother, this is often seen as an error on Adam's part, and it is often assumed that Swein had two wives, the first being Cnut's mother, and the second being the former Queen of Sweden. Cnut's brother Harald was the younger of the two brothers according to Encomium Emmae.
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