1

The Reign of Cnut King of England Denmark and Norway

Edited by Alexander R Rumble

Leicester University Press London in association with Manchester Centre for Anglo-Samn Studies

~ ~

J Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Rutherford bull Madison bull Teaneck

Leicester University Press (a division of Pinter Publishers Ltd) 25 Floral Street London WC2E 9DS

and Associated University Presses 4M) Forsgate Drive Cranbury NJ 08512 USA

First published in 1994

copy The editors and contributors 1994

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study or criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 this publication may not be reproduced stored or transmitted in any form or by any means or process without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holders or their agents Except for reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency photocopying of whole or part of this publication without the prior written permission of the copyright holders or their agents in single or multiple copies whether for gain or not is illegal and expressly forbidden Please direct all enquiries concerning copyright to the Publishers at the address above

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7185 1455 6 (LUP) ISBN 0-8386-3605-5 (Associated University Presses)

Library of Congress CataIogiDl-inPublication Data

The reign of Cnut I edited by Alexander Rumble p em - (Studies in the early history of Britain)

Based on papers originally presented at a conference held in 1990 at the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies

Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-8386-3605-5 (a1k paper) 1 Great Britain - History - Canute 1017-1035 2 Canute 1 King

of England 995-1035 3 Great Britain - Kings and rulers 4 Denmark - Kings and rulers - Biography 5 Norway shyrulers - Biography 6 Danes - England - History I Rumble Alexander R II Series DAI60R45 1994 94202-dc20

Typeset by Mayhew Typesetting Rhayader Powys

Biography Kings and

94-16870 CIP

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd Guildford and Kings Lynn

Contents

Foreword List of photographs List of figures List of tables List of abbreviations

vii ix xi xii

xiii

1 Introduction Cnut in context Alexander R Rumble

1

2 Cnuts Scandinavian empire Peter Sawyer with an Appendix on The evidence of Scandinavian runic inscriptions by Birgit Sawyer

10

3 Cnuts Danish kingdom Niels Lund

27

4 Cnuts earls Simon Keynes

43

5 Military developments in the reign of Cnut Nicholas Hooper

89

6 An urban policy for Cnut David Hill

101

7 King Cnut in the verse of his skalds Roberta Frank

106

8 Danish place-names and personal names in England the influence of Cnut Gillian Fellows-Jensen

125

9 Archbishop Wulfstan and the homiletic element in the laws of lEthelred II and Cnut M K Lawson

141

10 A worthy antiquity the movement of King Cnuts bones in Winchester Cathedral John Crook

165

vi Contents

11 The coinage of Cnut Kenneth Jonsson

193

12 An iron reverse die of the reign of Cnut Michael Dennis OHara with a contribution by Elizabeth Pirie and the collaboration of Peter Thornton-Pett

231

Appendices 121 Moneyers with apparently similar elements in

the formation of their names 122 The significance of the moneyers name Thurulfr 123 Various possible mint readings for Norwich 124 Mints listed in EHC as having struck Cnuts

third issue the Short Cross type 1030-5 125 Terminology for discussion of coin-dies by EJE

Pirie

273 275 277

279

281

Textual Appendix Translatio Sancti lElfegi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi et martyris (BHL 2519) Osbems account of the translation of St lElfheahs relics from London to Canterbury 8-11 June 1023 an annotated edition by Alexander R Rumble with a translation of the text of Rosemary Morris and Alexander R Rumble

283

lodex 317

Foreword

The aim of the Studies in the Early History ofBritain is to promote works of the highest scholarship which open up virgin fields of study or which surmount the barriers of traditional academic disciplines As interest in the origins of our society and culture grows while scholarship becomes ever more specialized intershydisciplinary studies are needed not only by scholars but also by students and laymen This series will therefore include research monographs works of synthesis and also collaborative studies of important themes by several scholars whose training and expertise has lain in different fields Our knowledge of the early Middle Ages will always be limited and fragmentary but progress can be made if the work of the historian embraces that of the philologist the archaeologist the geographer the numismatist the art historian and the liturgist - to name only the most obvious The need to cross and to remove academic frontiers also explains the extension of the geographical range from that of the previous Studies in Early English History to include the whole island of Britain The change would have been welcomed by the editor of the earlier series the late Professor H P R Finberg whose pioneering work helped to inspire or to provoke the interest of a new generation of early medievalists in the relations of Britons and Saxons The approach of this series is therefore deliberately wide-ranging Early medieval Britain can only be understood in the context of contemporary developments in Ireland and on the Continent

In this volume Dr A R Rumble brings together a team of scholars from different disciplines to throw new light on the reign of the king and conqueror Cnut of England Denmark and Norway which until recently had received relatively little attention in modem scholarship By emphasizing the vast geographical range of Cnuts activities and examining the way that different categories of evidence for his rule can be studied these essays throw new light both on Cnuts career and on his policies Too often his rule in England or in his Scandinavian lands has been seen in isolation and in national historical terms In both his English and his Norwegian lands Cnut was indeed a foreign conqueror He was the first medieval king of England who was also the ruler of extensive continental states In each of his kingdoms he therefore had to solve the problem of developing structures of government that would

26 Birgit Sawyer

taken part in expeditions to England or simply to the west7 Some of these followed other leaders than Danish kings Tostig and Thorkell are named as well as Cnut as dispensers of geld on Ulf of Borrestas memorials Other leaders of western expeditions named in inscriptions were Spjallbode Obber and Ulf9 There were also expeditions to the east The named leaders include Ragnvald Ingvar and Torsten10 It is possible even likely that some of the men who went east did so as members of expeditions led by Swein or Cnut

It is perhaps worth emphasizing in a note devoted to inscriptions commemorating Swedes who went abroad that these account for a very small proportion less than 10 per cent of the inscriptions of the period For a fuller discussion of all the runic inscriptions and of some of the ways in which they can cast light on Scandinavia in the tenth and eleventh centuries see my paper Viking-Age rune-stones as a crisis symptom in the Norwegian Archaeological Review 24 (1991) 97-112

7 The England inscriptions are Os 8 Sm 5 27 29 77 101 104 So 46 55 83 160 166 207 U 194 241 344 539 616 812 978 1181 Vg 20 187 Vs 5 9 18 Og 104111 The west inscriptions are Sm 51 SO 145362106137159164 173 260 319 U 504 Vg 61 197 Og 68 and Fomvdnnen (1970) p 310

8 U 344 9 Vs 5 SO 137 260

10 U 112 644 SO 338

3 Cnuts Danish kingdom NIELS LUND

Cnut the Great first entered the records of history when after the death of his father Swein Forkbeard at Gainsborough on 3 February 1014 he was elected king by the Danish fleet there se flota eall gecuron Cnut to cyninge the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle informs us This did not make him king of England the English chose to recall their former king lEthelred from Normandy on condition that he would rule them more justly than he had done in the past and they outlawed all Danish kings from England1 It did not make him king of Denmark either In Denmark Swein was succeeded by his other son Harald probably the king of Denmark about whom least is known

Swein Forkbeard succeeded his father Harald Bluetooth in 987 in all probability2 Although we do not know anything about his age Swein must have been past his teens and more than that by this time He had a daughter Gytha who was married to Erik Jarl Hakonsson and became the mother of Hakon Jarl Eriksson who witnessed English charters as dux from 10193 and was drowned on his way from England to Norway in 1030 This Hakon was born in 9984 His mother is therefore unlikely to have been born much after 980 She must therefore be the issue of a liaison that Swein had before he became king in 9875

1 And I1fre I1lcne Deniscne cyning utlagade ofEnglalande gecwl1don ABC (E) Ba 1014

2 N Refskou In marca vel regno Danonun- En diplomatarisk analyse af forholdet mellem Danmark og TyskIand under Harald Blitand Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1985) 19-33 has produced a convincing argument that the year of Haralds death was 987 there is little reason to retain the traditional cautious 985x987

3 S 954-5 980 984 960-3 See Simon Keynes in this volume 61 4 A O Johnsen Hdkon jarl Eiriks80n (998-1030) Nytt kildemateriale og nye

synspunkter Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi n Hist-Filos Klasse Avhandlinger Ny aerie 17 (1981)

5 P Sawyer Swein Forkheard and the historians in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages EBBays presented to John Taylor ed I Wood and G Loud (1991) 27-40

Leicester University Press (a division of Pinter Publishers Ltd) 25 Floral Street London WC2E 9DS

and Associated University Presses 4M) Forsgate Drive Cranbury NJ 08512 USA

First published in 1994

copy The editors and contributors 1994

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study or criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 this publication may not be reproduced stored or transmitted in any form or by any means or process without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holders or their agents Except for reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency photocopying of whole or part of this publication without the prior written permission of the copyright holders or their agents in single or multiple copies whether for gain or not is illegal and expressly forbidden Please direct all enquiries concerning copyright to the Publishers at the address above

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7185 1455 6 (LUP) ISBN 0-8386-3605-5 (Associated University Presses)

Library of Congress CataIogiDl-inPublication Data

The reign of Cnut I edited by Alexander Rumble p em - (Studies in the early history of Britain)

Based on papers originally presented at a conference held in 1990 at the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies

Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-8386-3605-5 (a1k paper) 1 Great Britain - History - Canute 1017-1035 2 Canute 1 King

of England 995-1035 3 Great Britain - Kings and rulers 4 Denmark - Kings and rulers - Biography 5 Norway shyrulers - Biography 6 Danes - England - History I Rumble Alexander R II Series DAI60R45 1994 94202-dc20

Typeset by Mayhew Typesetting Rhayader Powys

Biography Kings and

94-16870 CIP

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd Guildford and Kings Lynn

Contents

Foreword List of photographs List of figures List of tables List of abbreviations

vii ix xi xii

xiii

1 Introduction Cnut in context Alexander R Rumble

1

2 Cnuts Scandinavian empire Peter Sawyer with an Appendix on The evidence of Scandinavian runic inscriptions by Birgit Sawyer

10

3 Cnuts Danish kingdom Niels Lund

27

4 Cnuts earls Simon Keynes

43

5 Military developments in the reign of Cnut Nicholas Hooper

89

6 An urban policy for Cnut David Hill

101

7 King Cnut in the verse of his skalds Roberta Frank

106

8 Danish place-names and personal names in England the influence of Cnut Gillian Fellows-Jensen

125

9 Archbishop Wulfstan and the homiletic element in the laws of lEthelred II and Cnut M K Lawson

141

10 A worthy antiquity the movement of King Cnuts bones in Winchester Cathedral John Crook

165

vi Contents

11 The coinage of Cnut Kenneth Jonsson

193

12 An iron reverse die of the reign of Cnut Michael Dennis OHara with a contribution by Elizabeth Pirie and the collaboration of Peter Thornton-Pett

231

Appendices 121 Moneyers with apparently similar elements in

the formation of their names 122 The significance of the moneyers name Thurulfr 123 Various possible mint readings for Norwich 124 Mints listed in EHC as having struck Cnuts

third issue the Short Cross type 1030-5 125 Terminology for discussion of coin-dies by EJE

Pirie

273 275 277

279

281

Textual Appendix Translatio Sancti lElfegi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi et martyris (BHL 2519) Osbems account of the translation of St lElfheahs relics from London to Canterbury 8-11 June 1023 an annotated edition by Alexander R Rumble with a translation of the text of Rosemary Morris and Alexander R Rumble

283

lodex 317

Foreword

The aim of the Studies in the Early History ofBritain is to promote works of the highest scholarship which open up virgin fields of study or which surmount the barriers of traditional academic disciplines As interest in the origins of our society and culture grows while scholarship becomes ever more specialized intershydisciplinary studies are needed not only by scholars but also by students and laymen This series will therefore include research monographs works of synthesis and also collaborative studies of important themes by several scholars whose training and expertise has lain in different fields Our knowledge of the early Middle Ages will always be limited and fragmentary but progress can be made if the work of the historian embraces that of the philologist the archaeologist the geographer the numismatist the art historian and the liturgist - to name only the most obvious The need to cross and to remove academic frontiers also explains the extension of the geographical range from that of the previous Studies in Early English History to include the whole island of Britain The change would have been welcomed by the editor of the earlier series the late Professor H P R Finberg whose pioneering work helped to inspire or to provoke the interest of a new generation of early medievalists in the relations of Britons and Saxons The approach of this series is therefore deliberately wide-ranging Early medieval Britain can only be understood in the context of contemporary developments in Ireland and on the Continent

In this volume Dr A R Rumble brings together a team of scholars from different disciplines to throw new light on the reign of the king and conqueror Cnut of England Denmark and Norway which until recently had received relatively little attention in modem scholarship By emphasizing the vast geographical range of Cnuts activities and examining the way that different categories of evidence for his rule can be studied these essays throw new light both on Cnuts career and on his policies Too often his rule in England or in his Scandinavian lands has been seen in isolation and in national historical terms In both his English and his Norwegian lands Cnut was indeed a foreign conqueror He was the first medieval king of England who was also the ruler of extensive continental states In each of his kingdoms he therefore had to solve the problem of developing structures of government that would

26 Birgit Sawyer

taken part in expeditions to England or simply to the west7 Some of these followed other leaders than Danish kings Tostig and Thorkell are named as well as Cnut as dispensers of geld on Ulf of Borrestas memorials Other leaders of western expeditions named in inscriptions were Spjallbode Obber and Ulf9 There were also expeditions to the east The named leaders include Ragnvald Ingvar and Torsten10 It is possible even likely that some of the men who went east did so as members of expeditions led by Swein or Cnut

It is perhaps worth emphasizing in a note devoted to inscriptions commemorating Swedes who went abroad that these account for a very small proportion less than 10 per cent of the inscriptions of the period For a fuller discussion of all the runic inscriptions and of some of the ways in which they can cast light on Scandinavia in the tenth and eleventh centuries see my paper Viking-Age rune-stones as a crisis symptom in the Norwegian Archaeological Review 24 (1991) 97-112

7 The England inscriptions are Os 8 Sm 5 27 29 77 101 104 So 46 55 83 160 166 207 U 194 241 344 539 616 812 978 1181 Vg 20 187 Vs 5 9 18 Og 104111 The west inscriptions are Sm 51 SO 145362106137159164 173 260 319 U 504 Vg 61 197 Og 68 and Fomvdnnen (1970) p 310

8 U 344 9 Vs 5 SO 137 260

10 U 112 644 SO 338

3 Cnuts Danish kingdom NIELS LUND

Cnut the Great first entered the records of history when after the death of his father Swein Forkbeard at Gainsborough on 3 February 1014 he was elected king by the Danish fleet there se flota eall gecuron Cnut to cyninge the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle informs us This did not make him king of England the English chose to recall their former king lEthelred from Normandy on condition that he would rule them more justly than he had done in the past and they outlawed all Danish kings from England1 It did not make him king of Denmark either In Denmark Swein was succeeded by his other son Harald probably the king of Denmark about whom least is known

Swein Forkbeard succeeded his father Harald Bluetooth in 987 in all probability2 Although we do not know anything about his age Swein must have been past his teens and more than that by this time He had a daughter Gytha who was married to Erik Jarl Hakonsson and became the mother of Hakon Jarl Eriksson who witnessed English charters as dux from 10193 and was drowned on his way from England to Norway in 1030 This Hakon was born in 9984 His mother is therefore unlikely to have been born much after 980 She must therefore be the issue of a liaison that Swein had before he became king in 9875

1 And I1fre I1lcne Deniscne cyning utlagade ofEnglalande gecwl1don ABC (E) Ba 1014

2 N Refskou In marca vel regno Danonun- En diplomatarisk analyse af forholdet mellem Danmark og TyskIand under Harald Blitand Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1985) 19-33 has produced a convincing argument that the year of Haralds death was 987 there is little reason to retain the traditional cautious 985x987

3 S 954-5 980 984 960-3 See Simon Keynes in this volume 61 4 A O Johnsen Hdkon jarl Eiriks80n (998-1030) Nytt kildemateriale og nye

synspunkter Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi n Hist-Filos Klasse Avhandlinger Ny aerie 17 (1981)

5 P Sawyer Swein Forkheard and the historians in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages EBBays presented to John Taylor ed I Wood and G Loud (1991) 27-40

vi Contents

11 The coinage of Cnut Kenneth Jonsson

193

12 An iron reverse die of the reign of Cnut Michael Dennis OHara with a contribution by Elizabeth Pirie and the collaboration of Peter Thornton-Pett

231

Appendices 121 Moneyers with apparently similar elements in

the formation of their names 122 The significance of the moneyers name Thurulfr 123 Various possible mint readings for Norwich 124 Mints listed in EHC as having struck Cnuts

third issue the Short Cross type 1030-5 125 Terminology for discussion of coin-dies by EJE

Pirie

273 275 277

279

281

Textual Appendix Translatio Sancti lElfegi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi et martyris (BHL 2519) Osbems account of the translation of St lElfheahs relics from London to Canterbury 8-11 June 1023 an annotated edition by Alexander R Rumble with a translation of the text of Rosemary Morris and Alexander R Rumble

283

lodex 317

Foreword

The aim of the Studies in the Early History ofBritain is to promote works of the highest scholarship which open up virgin fields of study or which surmount the barriers of traditional academic disciplines As interest in the origins of our society and culture grows while scholarship becomes ever more specialized intershydisciplinary studies are needed not only by scholars but also by students and laymen This series will therefore include research monographs works of synthesis and also collaborative studies of important themes by several scholars whose training and expertise has lain in different fields Our knowledge of the early Middle Ages will always be limited and fragmentary but progress can be made if the work of the historian embraces that of the philologist the archaeologist the geographer the numismatist the art historian and the liturgist - to name only the most obvious The need to cross and to remove academic frontiers also explains the extension of the geographical range from that of the previous Studies in Early English History to include the whole island of Britain The change would have been welcomed by the editor of the earlier series the late Professor H P R Finberg whose pioneering work helped to inspire or to provoke the interest of a new generation of early medievalists in the relations of Britons and Saxons The approach of this series is therefore deliberately wide-ranging Early medieval Britain can only be understood in the context of contemporary developments in Ireland and on the Continent

In this volume Dr A R Rumble brings together a team of scholars from different disciplines to throw new light on the reign of the king and conqueror Cnut of England Denmark and Norway which until recently had received relatively little attention in modem scholarship By emphasizing the vast geographical range of Cnuts activities and examining the way that different categories of evidence for his rule can be studied these essays throw new light both on Cnuts career and on his policies Too often his rule in England or in his Scandinavian lands has been seen in isolation and in national historical terms In both his English and his Norwegian lands Cnut was indeed a foreign conqueror He was the first medieval king of England who was also the ruler of extensive continental states In each of his kingdoms he therefore had to solve the problem of developing structures of government that would

26 Birgit Sawyer

taken part in expeditions to England or simply to the west7 Some of these followed other leaders than Danish kings Tostig and Thorkell are named as well as Cnut as dispensers of geld on Ulf of Borrestas memorials Other leaders of western expeditions named in inscriptions were Spjallbode Obber and Ulf9 There were also expeditions to the east The named leaders include Ragnvald Ingvar and Torsten10 It is possible even likely that some of the men who went east did so as members of expeditions led by Swein or Cnut

It is perhaps worth emphasizing in a note devoted to inscriptions commemorating Swedes who went abroad that these account for a very small proportion less than 10 per cent of the inscriptions of the period For a fuller discussion of all the runic inscriptions and of some of the ways in which they can cast light on Scandinavia in the tenth and eleventh centuries see my paper Viking-Age rune-stones as a crisis symptom in the Norwegian Archaeological Review 24 (1991) 97-112

7 The England inscriptions are Os 8 Sm 5 27 29 77 101 104 So 46 55 83 160 166 207 U 194 241 344 539 616 812 978 1181 Vg 20 187 Vs 5 9 18 Og 104111 The west inscriptions are Sm 51 SO 145362106137159164 173 260 319 U 504 Vg 61 197 Og 68 and Fomvdnnen (1970) p 310

8 U 344 9 Vs 5 SO 137 260

10 U 112 644 SO 338

3 Cnuts Danish kingdom NIELS LUND

Cnut the Great first entered the records of history when after the death of his father Swein Forkbeard at Gainsborough on 3 February 1014 he was elected king by the Danish fleet there se flota eall gecuron Cnut to cyninge the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle informs us This did not make him king of England the English chose to recall their former king lEthelred from Normandy on condition that he would rule them more justly than he had done in the past and they outlawed all Danish kings from England1 It did not make him king of Denmark either In Denmark Swein was succeeded by his other son Harald probably the king of Denmark about whom least is known

Swein Forkbeard succeeded his father Harald Bluetooth in 987 in all probability2 Although we do not know anything about his age Swein must have been past his teens and more than that by this time He had a daughter Gytha who was married to Erik Jarl Hakonsson and became the mother of Hakon Jarl Eriksson who witnessed English charters as dux from 10193 and was drowned on his way from England to Norway in 1030 This Hakon was born in 9984 His mother is therefore unlikely to have been born much after 980 She must therefore be the issue of a liaison that Swein had before he became king in 9875

1 And I1fre I1lcne Deniscne cyning utlagade ofEnglalande gecwl1don ABC (E) Ba 1014

2 N Refskou In marca vel regno Danonun- En diplomatarisk analyse af forholdet mellem Danmark og TyskIand under Harald Blitand Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1985) 19-33 has produced a convincing argument that the year of Haralds death was 987 there is little reason to retain the traditional cautious 985x987

3 S 954-5 980 984 960-3 See Simon Keynes in this volume 61 4 A O Johnsen Hdkon jarl Eiriks80n (998-1030) Nytt kildemateriale og nye

synspunkter Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi n Hist-Filos Klasse Avhandlinger Ny aerie 17 (1981)

5 P Sawyer Swein Forkheard and the historians in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages EBBays presented to John Taylor ed I Wood and G Loud (1991) 27-40

26 Birgit Sawyer

taken part in expeditions to England or simply to the west7 Some of these followed other leaders than Danish kings Tostig and Thorkell are named as well as Cnut as dispensers of geld on Ulf of Borrestas memorials Other leaders of western expeditions named in inscriptions were Spjallbode Obber and Ulf9 There were also expeditions to the east The named leaders include Ragnvald Ingvar and Torsten10 It is possible even likely that some of the men who went east did so as members of expeditions led by Swein or Cnut

It is perhaps worth emphasizing in a note devoted to inscriptions commemorating Swedes who went abroad that these account for a very small proportion less than 10 per cent of the inscriptions of the period For a fuller discussion of all the runic inscriptions and of some of the ways in which they can cast light on Scandinavia in the tenth and eleventh centuries see my paper Viking-Age rune-stones as a crisis symptom in the Norwegian Archaeological Review 24 (1991) 97-112

7 The England inscriptions are Os 8 Sm 5 27 29 77 101 104 So 46 55 83 160 166 207 U 194 241 344 539 616 812 978 1181 Vg 20 187 Vs 5 9 18 Og 104111 The west inscriptions are Sm 51 SO 145362106137159164 173 260 319 U 504 Vg 61 197 Og 68 and Fomvdnnen (1970) p 310

8 U 344 9 Vs 5 SO 137 260

10 U 112 644 SO 338

3 Cnuts Danish kingdom NIELS LUND

Cnut the Great first entered the records of history when after the death of his father Swein Forkbeard at Gainsborough on 3 February 1014 he was elected king by the Danish fleet there se flota eall gecuron Cnut to cyninge the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle informs us This did not make him king of England the English chose to recall their former king lEthelred from Normandy on condition that he would rule them more justly than he had done in the past and they outlawed all Danish kings from England1 It did not make him king of Denmark either In Denmark Swein was succeeded by his other son Harald probably the king of Denmark about whom least is known

Swein Forkbeard succeeded his father Harald Bluetooth in 987 in all probability2 Although we do not know anything about his age Swein must have been past his teens and more than that by this time He had a daughter Gytha who was married to Erik Jarl Hakonsson and became the mother of Hakon Jarl Eriksson who witnessed English charters as dux from 10193 and was drowned on his way from England to Norway in 1030 This Hakon was born in 9984 His mother is therefore unlikely to have been born much after 980 She must therefore be the issue of a liaison that Swein had before he became king in 9875

1 And I1fre I1lcne Deniscne cyning utlagade ofEnglalande gecwl1don ABC (E) Ba 1014

2 N Refskou In marca vel regno Danonun- En diplomatarisk analyse af forholdet mellem Danmark og TyskIand under Harald Blitand Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1985) 19-33 has produced a convincing argument that the year of Haralds death was 987 there is little reason to retain the traditional cautious 985x987

3 S 954-5 980 984 960-3 See Simon Keynes in this volume 61 4 A O Johnsen Hdkon jarl Eiriks80n (998-1030) Nytt kildemateriale og nye

synspunkter Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi n Hist-Filos Klasse Avhandlinger Ny aerie 17 (1981)

5 P Sawyer Swein Forkheard and the historians in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages EBBays presented to John Taylor ed I Wood and G Loud (1991) 27-40

28 Niels Lund Cnuts Danish kingdom 29IThe mother of Cnut and of his brother Harald and his sister

Estrith was a daughter of the Polish duke Mieszko and a sister of the Polish king Boleslav Chrobry She was first married to the Swedish king Erik the Victorious who was alive in 992 but probably died no later than 995 Swein had three children by her and then at a time that cannot be fixed either he rejected her for reasons equally unknown According to the Encomium

Emmae Reginae her sons fetched her from Sclavonia after Sweins death6 so she presumably went to live in Poland after being rejected

While other sources inform us that Cnut was younger than Harald7 the Encomium insists that Cnut was the senior brother thereby implying that he had a lawful claim to Denmark The encomiast has a story that after realizing that he would have to fight for England Cnut returned to Denmark and asked Harald to share the kingdom with him offering him a share in England if they could conquer it together Harald flatly refused even to consider it claiming that Denmark was his paternal heritage while England was Cnuts and it was just too bad if Cnut had lost its If Cnut had in fact been the older he would hardly have accepted this but he did so surprisingly willingly and afterwards stayed with his brother in good spirit

The encomiast thus effectively undermines his own claim that Cnut was the senior brother Their names point in the same direction Swein Forkbeard is likely - in spite of his rebellion against his father Harald whom he did after all bury in Roskilde in the new royal mausoleum - to have named his eldest son after his father It would also comply with current international as well as later Danish practice if Swein had put his elder son in charge of his kingdom during his absence Should anything happen to him and the thought could hardly have eluded him completely the elder son would be there to secure succession immediately rulers seem often to have left their elder sons with the safer lot while the younger ones were given the more precarious one9 England was a potentially much richer lot but it was a gamble William the Conqueror gave Normandy which he must have regarded as the more established part of his heritage to his elder son and England for which he had constantly as David Bates has recently emphasizedlo to fight to the younger ones

All that the election at Gainsborough made Cnut then was leader of the fleet not king of Denmark The succession in Denmark

6 Campbell Encomium 19 (Book II 2) 7 Campbell Encomium lvi esp Do 3 8 Campbell Encomium 19 (Book II 2) 9 See for enmple P Staftord Unification and Conquest A Political and Social

History ofE1IIIland in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (1989) 43 10 William the Conqueror (1989)

had been looked after otherwise and was no matter for the fleet in England to decide

Extremely little is known about Haralds reign in Denmark The twelfth-century Danish historians Sven Aggesen and Suo ignore it completely and the very few contemporary sources that do mention it are far from trustworthy Thietmar of Merseburg who wrote his Chronicon between 1012 and 1018 and the Encomium disagree as to whether Harald accompanied Cnut to England and took part personally in the attack on London in July 1016 Alistair Campbell very rightly was sceptical about Thietmar and advised against basing anything upon unsupported statements in his account of these eventsl1 Although it was in the interests of the encomiast to ignore any active role Harald may have played anyone who would like to restore faith in Thietmar on this point will have to produce really convincing arguments

In recent years numismatic studies have suggested that Cnut may in spite of the encomiasts assertion that Harald declined to share power with him have had some real influence in Denmark during Haralds lifetime Exactly when Harald died is not known but as Cnuts journey to Denmark in 1019 is generally thought to have been for the purpose of taking over Denmark after his brothers death Harald is generally supposed to have died in 1018 or perhaps early 1019 It has now been shown that coins with Cnuts name on them were being struck before that in Scandinavia Brita MaImer has demonstrated that some were struck in Lund

11 Campbell Encomium lvi Campbell (ibid n 5) refers to something called Chronicon Erici apparently an important source of Danish history This is a confusing reference both in matters of bibliography and in matters of substance The Chronicon Eric is the text now normally referred to as the Annales Ryenses It was first published in 1603 by Lindenbrag who believed King Erik of Pomerania (1412-39) to be the author in fact it was written by an anonymous monk in the Cistercian monastery of Ryd near Flensborg in the middle of the thirteenth century Langebek published it under Lindenbrogs title in 1772 although he did not believe in Eriks authorship and in modern editions like the Annales Dcmici ed by Ellen Jllrgensen (1920) and Erik Kromans Danmarks middelalderlige annaler (1980) it has been given its appropriate title

It is a very dubious authority in this context Up to c 1100 the Annales Ryenses are based largely on Suo and on other annals and have no authority of their own Campbell may be right to say in his note Qvi5) that this text is the source of all the many references to Haraldr in later Danish chronicles but modem scholars place the Annales Ryenses themselves quite low in their stemmas of the Danish chronicles The Annales provide neither primary nor contemporary information on Cnut and Harald and are certainly not the basis of all later Danish chronicles in any general sense

J C H R Steenstrup (Nornmnneme m (1882) 435 fi) to whom Campbell referred demonstrated that the account here given is likely to be a garbled version of an account of the quarrels between Cnuts sons Harold Barefoot and Harthacnut after his death in 1035 Therefore this source cannot be adduced in relation to the succession to Swain Forkbeard

30 Niels Lund

1017 X 101812 and Mark Blackburn thinks that some may be as early as 101513

It is however dangerous to assume that the mere fact that a kings name appears in a given numismatic context is evidence that he had any power where the coins were struck The fact that Cnuts name appears on coins struck in Sigtuna in Sweden and that they even have a legend styling him REX SW is no corroboration of his claim made in his letter of 1027 that he was king of part of the Swedes the reason being that they are imitations die-linked into a Swedish coinage struck probably around 103014 And there are quite a few other examples of this in the numismatic history of this period Numerous coins with lEthelreds name on them were struck in Scandinavia in the reign of Swein Forkbeard - and we would be going against an impressive body of evidence to the contrary if this led us to construe lEthelred as the conqueror and Swein as the defeated In some cases dies that had been used in English mints were taken to Scandinavia to be used there in other cases new dies were commissioned from English die-cutters Mark Blackburn has shown that this practice was well established under lEthelred and increased after Cnuts conquest of England15 The coins therefore tell us more about how the mints and the coinage were managed than about who was actually in power

In 1019 Cnut paid his first visit to Denmark after he had established himself as king of England According to the AngloshySaxon Chronicle he spent the winter there and was back in England for Easter 1020 17 April This is all the information the Chronicle and other narrative sources have except that the D version adds that Cnut went with just nine ships to Denmark There is no hint of what he was doing there

Such a hint although quite a vague one is contained in a letter that Cnut wrote from Denmark to his English subjects during this visit This letter which is preserved only in a York gospel book together with other material clearly associated with Archbishop Wulfstan of York who may have added part of the text himself to the letter which he received from Denmark16 suggests that some

12 B Malmer On the early coinage of Lund in People and Places in Northern Europe 500-1600 Essays in Honour ofPeter Hayes Sawyer ed I Wood and N Lund (1991) 187-96

13 M Blackburn Do Cnut the Great8 first coins as king of Denmark date from before 1018 Commentationes de Nummis Saeculorum lX-XI in Suecia repertis Nova aer 6 Sigtuna Papers ed K JOn88on and B Malmer (Stockholm 1990) 55-68

14 See P Sawyer nut Sweden and Sigtuna in AlJatamp for en ny Sigtunashy(orskning ed S Tesch (Sigtuna 1989) 93 See also Kenneth JOn880n in this volume 228-30

15 M Blackburn English die8 used in the Scandinavian imitative coinage8 hikuin 11 (1985) 109

16 S Keyne8 The additions in Old English in The York Gospels ed N Barker Roxburghe Club (1986) 81-99

Cnuts Danish kingdom 31

unspecified dangers were threatening the English and that Cnut had managed to avert them

4 Since I did not spare my money as long as hostility was threatening you I have now with Gods help put an end to it with my money 5 Then I was informed that greater danger was approaching us than we liked at all and then I went myself with the men who accompanied me to Denmark from where the greatest injury had come to you and with Gods help I have taken measures so that never henceforth shall hostility reach you from there as long as you support me rightly and my life lasts 6 Now I thank Almighty God for his help and his mercy that I have so settled the great dangers which were approaching us that we need fear no danger to us from there but [we may reckon] on full help and deliverance if we need it17

In 1018 Cnut had disbanded the fleet that had helped him conquer England Most of the huge Danegeld that was paid out that year probably went towards this purpose It seems a bit rich on Cnuts part to claim that he had spent his money averting the dangers that he himself had brought in The troops were mercenaries in the sense that they had joined Cnut hoping for booty and rich rewards Dismissed by Cnut they were of course available for hire by other chieftains Some of them were Norwegians and Swedes and many of these probably went to Russia and Byzantium either on raids under other leaders or to take service with the eastern rulers The employment of Varangians by the Byzantine emperors increased steeply in these decadesIS

Others may have been hired by Danes and started fresh attacks on England If we may for once trust an unsupported statement by Thietmar Cnut warded off an attack by thirty ships in 1018 and killed the crews19 Cnut apparently claims to have warded off the danger of future attacks of this kind But what measures could he take that would effectively guarantee that no hostilities would reach the English from Denmark as long as they honoured him as their king and his life lasted

The new dangers may have sprung up after the death of Harald

17 Whitelock EHD 48 18 See N Lund The armies of Swein Forkbeard and Cnut leding Dr liO ABE 15

(1986) 105-18 and Lund The Danish perspective in The Battle ofMaldon AD 991 ed D Scragg (1991) 114-42

19 Tbietmari Merseburgensis episcopi Chromcon vm 7 ed W Trillmich in Ausgewiihlte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters Freiherr vom Stein-Gedachtnisausgabe In Verbindung mit vielen Fachgenossen ed R Buchner 9 (Darmstadt 1974) 448

32 Niels Lund

and before Cnut himself could secure control of the kingdom of Denmark as Stenton thought20 but what sort of measures would have any effect once Cnut was back in England

Some years ago a theory was put forward by C A Christensen the late general editor of the Diplomatarium Danicum21 By the end of the Middle Ages the cathedral church in Roskilde was the largest landowner in SjEelland owning some 4000 farms The chapter had about one-third of these while the bishop had almost two-thirds 2600 farms The bishop thus was very much richer than his chapter We are reasonably well informed about the beginnings of the endowment of the chapter It started with three substantial gifts by Estrith mother of King Swein Estrithsson by Swein bishop of Roskilde 1076-88 who added some of the episcopal land enough for seven prebends bringing the total number to an impressive 15 and by Margaret queen of King Harald III (1076shy80) In sixteenth-century terms this land altogether amounted to about 330 farms In these years negotiations were going on with the papacy about the creation of a Danish archdiocese and Roskilde was expected to be promoted22

Very little however is known about the origin of the episcopal lands and that applies not only to the diocese of Roskilde but to all Danish dioceses Once the sources begin to flow the sees are already well endowed23 Concerning Roskilde there was a vague idea expressed in garbled accounts by Saxo24 and Snorri25 that the episcopal riches could be traced back to a huge grant by Cnut but it was a very vague idea C A Christensen now suggests that their origins should be traced back to Cnuts measures in 1019 on which occasion he thinks Cnut put the bishops in control of the navigia belonging to their dioceses A navigium was an administrative unit responsible for supplying a ship for the royal navy comparable to the 300-hide units in England created by lEthelred for the same purpose26 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the bishops had such rights in some navigia as Christensen is able to demonstrate with many references but not in their entire dioceses They were a matter of bitter conflict between the archbishop of Lund and the kings because the archbishop in imitation of his colleagues in continental Europe claimed not only the income

20 ABE 401 21 C A Christensen Roskildebispens jordegods fr 8r 1200 Fra skibengods til

bispegods Historisk tid8skrift 80 (1980) 29-39 22 C Breengaard Munm om lsraels hus Regnum og sacerdotium i Danmork 1050shy

1170 (Copenhagen 1982) 82-122 N Skyum-Nielsen Kvinde og slave (1971) 13

23 C A Christensen Roskildebispens jordegods 32 24 Suo Grammaticus Gesta Danorum 10XVII6 ed J Olrik and H Rader

(Copenhagen 1931) 293 25 Snorri Sturluson Oldfs BOlla helga ch 153 26 ABC Ba 1009

Cnuts Danish kingdom 33

accruing from the commutation of military service but also the full control of the vassals who in return for service were exempt from this tax27

There are several reasons why this hypothesis cannot be sustained First it must be questioned whether the navigia were in existence at all at this date28 There is no pre-llOO reference to them and they belong in a leding organization that had hardly been created yet Indeed the organization into herreder which the navigia replaced was barely complete by 1100 Such organization presupposes a degree of centralization of government that is entirely unrealistic in this age particularly so if the king spent most of his time abroad Cnut ruled Denmark as an overlord not as a direct lord The first attempt to impose the obligation of expeditio and its concomitant equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon fyrdwite on the Danes was probably made by St Cnut when he planned to conquer England in 1085 - and it lost him his life29

Second even if this organization had already been in existence and some scholars would like to think that it was control of it hardly meant the control of all military resources in Denmark The principle most characteristic of the Danish leding that of bundling together a number of men and making them responsible econshyomically and practically for the service of one of their number was used in Carolingian Francia as well It provided a solution to the problem of extending the duty to serve in the host to those free men who were not wealthy enough to serve at their own expense and who were previously not called upon to serve30 Individual magnates still had their military households and still owned ships what would stop them from appealing again to Cnuts disbanded mercenaries These people were not tied down in any navigia even if the bishop were able to control these And in any case the bishop of Roskilde would be in control of his own diocese only What about the rest of the country There is no suggestion that other bishops were endowed as richly as the bishop of Roskilde

Third by all the evidence we have the Danish kings did not begin to give away royal military rights until much later Like the Anglo-Saxon kings since Offa they hung on to their expeditio and

27 This conflict is outlined in N Skyum-Nielsen Kirkekampen i Danmark 1241shy1290 Jacob Erlandsen samtid og eftertid (Copenhagen 1963)

28 The first reference to a navigium is in Diplomatarium Danicum 13 146 cU87 29 N Lund Knuts des Heiligen beabsichtigter Zug nach England im Jahre 1085

in Mare Balticum Beitriige zur Geschichte des Ostseeraums in Mittelalter und Neuzeit Festschrift zum 65 Geburtslag von Erich Hoffmann ed W Paravicini F Lubowitz and H Unverhau Kieler Historische Studien 36 (Sigmaringen 1992) 101-10

30 T Reuter The end of Carolingian military expansion in Charlemagnes Heir New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814-840) ed P Godman and R Collins (1990) 400

34 Niels Lund

related dues when granting privileges to ecclesiastical institutions whether churches or monasteries and thus kept control over the military resources in their own hands

Fourth C A Christensen does not take account of the fact that his main text was written by a foreigner the notary Bartholomeus Ortolani for the purpose of a process in Denmark before the papal nuncio Isarn It seems inevitable that the terminology of this text will represent a translation of the royal partys complaints into European feudal terminology and into categories that were clearer in Roman and canon law than in Danish life The text has a number of references to feudal principles that seem more designed to impress Isarn than to describe the facts of the matter in a Danish perspective for example to the obligation of a vassal to furnish consilium et auxilium31 to felonias-32 and to feudum 33

Fifth you cannot as C A Christensen does draw a straight line back from the beginning of the fourteenth century when the vassals were all important into a period in which they hardly existed Very important developments took place in the twelfth century that changed society dramatically34

Had Cnut wanted to control Denmark through his bishops where could he have found the inspiration for it It was very much what the German kings and emperors had done They had entrusted huge amounts of land to the bishops rather than to temporal princes because the bishops were easier to control They were appointed by the king and they had no heirs no legitimate heirs at least so should a bishop prove disloyal the problem could be solved at the next appointment This worked well for the German emperors until in the eleventh century the Gregorian Reform movement condemned all lay influence on the church and finally deprived the kings and emperors of the right to appoint bishops leaving them only a weak veto in that they could refuse canonically appointed bishops the investiture with the temporalities But Cnut is probably unlikely to have sought his inspiration in the Empire He was a young man and all his experience was with England Could he have learnt it there Bishops and abbots were sometimes encountered as military leaders heading the native forces against the Vikings like for example Bishop Ealhstan who fought together with Ealdorman Osric and the people of Dorset against the Danish army at the mouth of the Parret in 84535 and Oswald bishop of Worcester and archbishop of York clearly also was responsible for

31 Acta processus litium inter regem danorum et archiepiscopum lundensem ed A Krarup and W Norvin (Copenhagen 1932) 285 line 17

32 Acta 285 line 25 33 Acta 285 line 21 34 On this see K Hrby Middelaldererr in N Lnnd and K Hrby Samundet i

vikingetid og middelalder 800-1500 Dansk socialhistorie 2 (Copenhagen 1980) 181-217

35 ASC Ba

Cnuts Danish kingdom 35

the fulfilment of the military obligations with which his hundreds were encumbered36 He served in the kings fyrd as the archiductor of his tenants his thegns milites cnihtas and whatever they were styled The question is though whether they served only in respect of land owned by the church which was probably the case with Oswald or whether they performed the duties of the sheriff or ealdorman in some cases which was the point in Germany It is difficult to say therefore whether Cnut could have taken inspiration from what he had seen in England In any case the diocesan organization of Denmark in 1019 was far too rudimentary to live up to such demands Dioceses had been created in Jutland and maybe Fyn in the tenth century with bishops serving as suffragans to Hamburg-Bremen but these bishops had been driven out by Swein Forkbeard who wanted to end German influence on the Danish church and to replace German appointees with English clerics The bishop of Slesvig therefore was in exile he spent the rest of his life in Hildesheim and died there ip 1026 and in north Jutland only the see of Ribe was functioning Arhus is not heard of again until the time of Swein Estrithsson when the sees of Viborg and Vendsyssel were also created Bishops brought in by Swein Forkbeard did operate in Sjrelland and Skane but in spite of the case Peter Sawyer has made for Lund as an important centre ecclesiastical and otherwise in Sweins reign there is no evidence that proper dioceses were set up with cathedrals and chapters etc there or in Roskilde in the time of Swein Forkbeard The diocese of Skane was carved out of Roskilde by Swein Estrithsson about 1060

But even if Cnut did not invest the bishop of Roskilde or other Danish bishops with extensive temporal and military rights in 1019 there was still an idea that the endowment of Roskilde could be ascribed to him and there is more than a suggestion that Cnut had no modest intentions with this see The building of a stone church was begun in Roskilde during his lifetime and in a charter of 1022 witnessed by Gerbrandus Roscylde parochie Danorum gente37 this Danish bishop takes third place in the witness-list being preceded only by the archbishops of York and Canterbury in that order

The possible implications of this will be discussed below in the context of Cnuts church policy and his relationship with the German emperor Conrad II

This still leaves us with a very open question as to how Cnut organized the government of Denmark in 1019 Did he leave someone in charge as he entrusted the government of England to Thorkell during his trip to Denmark Did he appoint one or more earls as he had split England into four earldoms We just cannot

36 R P Abels Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (1988) 154

37 Diplomatarium Danicum 11 no 411 S 958

36 Niels Lund

know but it is tempting to speculate that some of those earls who witness Cnuts charters only occasionally such as Regnold38 and Halfdan39 or Sired40 and Thrym41 may have held office in Denmark and therefore not have been in England very often Another visitor to Cnuts court was Wrytsleof who subscribes S 962 One of Cnuts sisters was married to a Wendish prince named Wyrtgeorn and their daughter Gunhild married Harald the son of Thorkell the Tal142 Wrytsleofs name indicates a Wendish origin

Thorkell fell from favour in 1021 when Cnut outlawed him No explanation is given He was never a faithful friend of the Danish kings but someone too powerful to be ignored Cnut probably accepted his services in the first place because he could not afford to reject him43 but he may now have felt strong enough to get rid of him If so he apparently made a miscalculation According to the Chronicle they were reconciled two years later

The Chronicle informs us that in 1023 Cnut entrusted the government of Denmark to Thorkell and also gave him his son to maintain while he took Thorkells son with him to England That would be a rather ordinary exchange of hostages but we have reason to doubt that it ever took place Cnuts son Harthacnut could have been no more than five years old in 1023 and he appeared in England after the alleged reconciliation in Denmark when the relics of St lElfheah were transferred from London to Canterbury45 Cnut could at most as Campbell remarked46 have arranged to send Harthacnut to Denmark sometime in the future

In the meantime in 1022 Cnut had gone out with his ships to the Isle of Wight the Chronicle saYS47 This trip apparently took him to Denmark for from there he returned to England in 1023 This makes it tempting to consider Steenstrups suggestion48 that ASC D)s Wihtland might be not the Isle of Wight but possibly what later became East Prussia on the south coast of the Baltic Witland is used in this sense in the Old English Orosius49 though t

U

as used by the ASC (E) for 99B it unambiguously refers to the Isle of Wight and Stenton regarded a concentration of the fleet off the Isle of Wight in 1022 as a sound precaution against possible raids

38 S 956 See Simon Keynes in this volume 61 39 S 954 See Keynes in this volume 62 40 S 954 and 960 See Keynes in this volume 76 41 S 959 See Keynes in this volume 64 42 F Barlow Edward the Confessor (1979) 57 43 N Lund Armies of Swein Forkbeard 105-18 44 ABC (C) sa 1023 45 ASC (D) sa 1023 See below Textual Appendix 46 Campbell Encomium 75 47 ASC (E) (D) Wihtland 48 J C H R Steenstrup Normanneme m (1882) 323-5 49 The Old ETIIlish OTOBius ed J Hately Early English Text Society ss 6 (1980)

16 line 30 with note p 197

Cnuts Danish kingdom 37

by Thorkell50 Nevertheless the south-eastern part of the Baltic is exactly the part of the world to which Thorkell would tum to seek his old friends having fallen from grace in England This is where he could hope to find support maybe for ventures that could prove dangerous for Cnut That would at least make some sense of an otherwise rather chaotic and incredible sequence of events It stretches the imagination to accept unless some extraordinary pressure was brought to bear on Cnut that he would first outlaw a man like Thorkell who had since the conquest been his most important lay subject and the person entrusted with the governshyment of England in Cnuts absence from 1019-20 and then only two years later give him his son to raise and one of the most important posts in his empire

Unfortunately there is no way of putting this hypothesis to the test Nothing is heard of Thorkell after the alleged reconciliation in 1023 He vanishes from our records and it may be seriously doubted whether he was in fact made regent of Denmark Three years later Ulf of whose appointment nothing is heard was regent of Denmark51 and took part in a plot against Cnut who afterwards had him killed in Roskilde an act for which he compensated his sister Estrith with some of the land that she was able to grant to the chapter in Roskilde

The next major crisis in Cnuts Danish kingship occurred in 1026 or 1027 when he faced an alliance made up of the kings of Norway and Sweden and his brother-in-law and regent in Denmark Ulf The sources for these events are extremely contradictory the Scandinavian sources some skaldic verses claim that Cnut won a splendid victory the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that he suffered a bad defeat While Stenton concluded that no coherent story can be pieced together from these diverse relations52 the Swedish historian Ove Moberg in an effort to do just that has attempted to buttress an old suggestion that the Ulf referred to in the Chronicle was not Cnuts brother-in-law but a Swedish earl who also happened to have a brother cslled Eilaf they were the sons of Earl Ragnvald of Uppland53 Moberg also claimed that the Chronicles statement that pa Sweon heafdon weallstowe geweald really meant that the Swedes lost the battle and lay dead on the field of slaughter These suggestions were both dismissed by Campbell the former he regarded as mere sophistry and the latter provoked him to this comment This means grimly wrenching the Old English Chronicle to mean the opposite of what it says54 but Moberg has

50 ABE 402 51 See Campbell Encomium 82-7 52 ABE 404 53 O Moberg Olav Haraldsson Knut den Store och Sveri8e Studier i Olav den

heliges fOrhdllalUk till de nordiska grannlalUkrna (Lund 1941) the idea was not a new one For references see ibid 163 n 33 and Campbell Encomium 86

54 Campbell Encomium 86 and 99

38 Niels Lund

reiterated both in a recent paper55 While Campbell is certainly right about the meaning of the Chronicle the sons of Earl Ragnvald may well deserve more consideration than he allowed them

Skaldic poetry is often trusted too easily - no trained historian of today could be as innocent as Snorri Sturluson about the credibility of praise poems recited in front of and paid for by a ruler - and there are no grounds for attributing any bias or prejudice against Cnut to the Chronicle on this point Cnut himself in a letter written to his English subjects in 1027 while he was on his way back from Rome having attended the imperial coronation of Conrad II rather conveys the impression that while his enemies had not achieved what they hoped he was in no position to dictate terms to them

lI13 And therefore I wish to make known to you that returning by the same way that I went I am going to Denmark to conclude with the counsel of all the Danes peace and a firm treaty with those nations and peoples who wished if it had been possible for them to deprive us both of the kingdom and of life but could not since God indeed destroyed their strength May he in his loving-kindness preserve us in sovereignty and honour and scatter and bring to nought the power and strength of all our enemies from henceforth 56

God had destroyed their strength he says and while this expression may be only pious modesty on Cnufs part it may also be significant that he does not claim credit for any resounding victory The battle left his opponents fit partners for a negotiated peace treaty they had not been reduced to acceptance of a settlement imposed by Cnut On the other hand Cnut was able after the battle to leave Scandinavia for Rome so if his enemies were able to claim a victory in the battle of the Holy River they were unable to exploit it

As far as our records go this visit was Cnuts last to Denmark According to later Old Norse sources he received help from Denmark when in 1028 he brought Norway under his sway57 but he himself journeyed from England with a fleet of 50 ships58 While he was king of Denmark he visited it four times and never spent more than the winter there He was in control as shown among other things by the fact that military support came forth for his conquest

55 Knut den stores motstindare i slaget vid Helgea Scandia 51 (1985) 7-17 In another recent paper Bo Graslund has questioned the traditional location of the battIe in Skline and persuasively argued that it probably took place near another Helga in south-east Uppland Knut den Store och Sveariket Slaget vid HeIges i ny belysning Scandia 52 (1986) 211-38

56 Whitelock EHD 53 57 Snorri Sturluson Old8 BrJla helga cbs 168-70 58 ASC (DEF)

Cnuts Danish kingdom 39

of Norway but we do not know how mf was replaced in Denmark There are some suggestions that Harthacnut was made ruler of Denmark59 but he was still only ten years old and however precocious he may have been could not really be taken seriously yet The claim may draw some substance though from the possibility that coins were struck in Harthacnuts name before Cnuts death60

To what extent can one under these circumstances expect to find influence traceable to Cnuts reign in the government of Denmark its institutions and culture

There are two areas which have attracted particular interest the church and the coinage Cnut definitely tried to introduce a Danish coinage modelled on the English system by which types were centrally controlled and exchanged at regular intervals His first attempt was made in the years following his accession to Denmark and was based on English types lEthelreds Small Cross and Cnuts Quatrefoil for example but a decade later a series of local types was introduced featuring a snake or a dragon on the obverse The main mint appears to have been in Lund but as in England a number of mints were in operation evenly distributed across the country It is possible to distinguish these mints by their special types but they all worked according to two new weight systems one east Danish with a penny weight about one gram and one west Danish with lighter pennies about 075 grams61 in western Denmark the mark was divided into more pennies than in the east so the coins had to be lighter

Anglo-Saxon influence on the Danish church in Cnuts reign was also more than traceable it was massive Christianity had no long history in Denmark it had been introduced by Harald Bluetooth probably in 965 and this was an event with many political overtones Before the adoption of Christianity Denmark had of course been the target of Christian missions first from the archdiocese of Rheims later from the archdiocese of HamburgshyBremen to which Scandinavia became assigned This implied that any sees it might have been possible to create in Scandinavia would become part of this archdiocese and that the bishops would be suffragans of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen who had the right to consecrate bishops within the archdiocese The archbishop was very conscious of this since he had no other suffragans this was a serious canonical flaw This situation was only remedied in

59 Old(s BrJIa helga ch 171 60 M Dolley and K Jonsson Imitative anticipation yet another dimension to the

problem of Scandinavian imitation of Anglo-Saxon coins in Studies in Northern Coinages of the Eleventh Century ed C J Becker Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes SeIskab Historisk-filosofiske Skrifter 94 (Copenhagen 1981) 116 C J Becker The coinages of Harthacnut and Magnus the Good at Lund c 1040-c 1046 ibid 121

61 Becker Coinages of Harthacnut 120

40 Niels Lund

948 more than a hundred years after the foundation of the archshydiocese when bishops were appointed to three Danish dioceses62 Whether these bishops ever set foot in Denmark is not known but very probably they did not Their appointment made it clear however that the German emperor did not intend to leave a pagan neighbour alone

Harald Bluetooth took the hint and adopted Christianity Although he appears to have bypassed Hamburg-Bremen and taken baptism from someone from elsewhere63 he was very much in favour with the archdiocese and there were suggestions after his death that he the first king to fill the North with preachers and churches should be sanctified64 As a result of Haralds conversion the emperor relinquished his rights over those parts of the archdiocese that were in Denmark so to speak leaving it to Harald to afford the Danish church secular protection65 This obviously was no full solution for the archbishop was still an imperial official problems yet unsolved between Denmark and the Ottonian empire are suggested by the fact that shortly after Harald started rebuilding the ancient fortifications on the German border Massive building activities have been dated to the year 96866

Swein Forkbeard chose on succeeding his father to reverse his policy towards Hamburg-Bremen In order to escape imperial influence he drove out the German bishops and the emperor Otto III permitted them to purchase land inside the empire and to hold it with immunity67 One of them spent the rest of his life in Hildesheim claiming that his see had been destroyed by pagans and died there in 1026 To replace these bishops Swein brought in ecclesiastics from England and Norway all of whom had been consecrated in England68 To Adam of Bremen not to acknowledge the rights of Hamburg-Bremen amounted to apostasy so Swein

62 H Fuhrmann Die heilige und Generalsynode des Jahres 948 in Ingelheim am Rhein Forschungen und Studien zur Geschichte Ingelheims ed J Autenrieth (Stuttgart 1964) 159-64 Reprinted in Otto der Grosse ed H Zimmermann Wege der Forschung 40 (Darmstadt 1976) 46-55

63 Lene Demidoff The Poppo legend Medieval Scandinavia 6 (1973) 40-5 64 Adam Bremensis Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae Pontificum II 28 in Quellen

des 9 und 11 Jahrhunderts zur Geschichte der hamburgischen Kirche und des Reiches ed W Trillmieh Ausgewdhlte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters Freiherr vom Stein-Gedachtnisausgabe In Verbindung mit vielen Fachgenossen eds R Buchner and F J Schmale 11 (Darmstadt 1978)

65 MGH Diplomate regum et imperatorum Germaniae I 411 no 294 66 H H Andersen H J Madsen and O Voss Danevirke Jysk Arkleologisk

Selskabs Skrifter 13 (Copenhagen 1976) 75-84 According to Widukind Ill70 the Saxons expected to have a war with the Danes that year Widukind Res gestae Sazonicae in Quellen zur Geschichte der siichsischen Kaiserzeit eds A Bauer and R Ran Ausgewiihlte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters Freiherr vom Stein-Gedachtniaausgabe In Verbindung mit vielen FachgenoBsen ads R Buchner and F J Schmale 8 (Darmstadt 1977)

67 MGH Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae 2 440 no 41 68 Adam Bremensis II 37 II 41

-

Cnuts Danish kingdom 41

really entered his bad books Adam only acknowledges Sweins return to the faith shortly before 100069 This does not seem to reflect any change in Sweins attitude to Hamburg but rather the fact that the next event Adam was going to record was Sweins victory in the battle of Svold in which of course the Lord turned out to be on Sweins side after that Adam could no longer be against him

Cnut continued Sweins policy Adam of Bremen records that he introduced many bishops from England into Denmark and appointed three of them to Skane Roskilde and Fyn (Odense)1deg and that Odinkar bishop of Ribe and a native Dane had been educated in England at Cnuts suggestion71 This of course did not please the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen To counter it he applied to the emperor Conrad II for help and he also took the matter into his own hands Adam records that Unwan angry with Cnuts policy captured Bishop Gerbrand of Roskilde when he was on his way from England to Denmark because he had learnt that Gerbrand had been consecrated by lEthelnoth of Canterbury Forced by necessity quod necessitas persuasit Gerbrand now promised to show the see of Hamburg its due fidelity and subshymission and according to Adam became a dear friend of the archbishop thereafter 72

Adam claims that after this Unwan was instrumental in bringing about a reconciliation between the emperor and Cnut who in 1027 travelled to Rome to attend the imperial coronation of Conrad On this journey Cnut conducted negotiations with Conrad and with the pope as well as with other rulers and achieved quite a bit in some respects among other things customs reductions for pilgrims and traders from England and Scandinavia73 He also arranged for his daughter to marry the emperors son - when both children came of age It is not clear however what he may have achieved concerning the church and what he may have conceded It is likely that he promised to acknowledge Hamburg-Bremen Unwans successor Libentius (1029-32) was able to consecrate Avoco Gerbrands successor in Roskilde74

Hamburg-Bremen certainly was pleased and acquiesced in the bishops that Cnut had brought in from England How much Cnut gave up can only be conjectured but it is possible that the threat to Hamburg-Bremen was even greater than the mere fact that he had some Danish bishops consecrated in England bad enough as that might be and that it did in fact fully justify the drastic measures

69 Adam Bremensis II 39 70 Adam Bremensis II 55 71 Adam Bremensis scholion 25 72 Adam Bremensis II 55 73 Whitelock EHD 49 74 Adam Bremensis II 64

---- ----bull-

42 Niels Lund

that Unwan took against Gerbrand In 1022 Gerbrand witnessed an exchange between Cnut and Ely Abbey of land at Wood Ditton for Cheveley Cambs The witness-list included the queen the archbishops of York (Wulfstan) and Canterbury (the newly appointed lEthelnoth) eleven bishops eight abbots three earls and ten other lay magnates75 In this list Gerbrand takes second place only to the queen and the archbishops This is a remarkably prominent position Normally one would expect a bishop so recently appointed and probably never a very influential member of the English episcopacy to figure somewhere towards the end of the list of diocesan bishops76 or indeed like the newly appointed Danish bishops in Ingelheim in 948 at the very end of it77 L M Larson long ago suggested that Cnut had held out hopes to lEthelnoth of Canterbury of rising to metropolitan authority of the Danish as well as of the English church78 This suggestion was probably based on no more evidence than Adam of Bremens reference to the consecration of three Danish bishops at Canterbury but taken together the fact that Cnut endowed the see of Roskilde so exceptionally richly and Gerbrands high position in the witness-list may suggest that Cnut was in fact planning to elevate Roskilde to archdiocesan dignity If that was so Unwan really had cause for concern When some decades later Swein Estrithsson (1047-76) had negotiations with the pope about the creation of an indeshypendent archdiocese for Scandinavia Hamburg-Bremen countered these plans with a suggestion that its archbishop Adalbert be vested with patriarchal authority over this new see79 and after the creation of the archdiocese of Lund in 1103 Hamburg-Bremen for at least the next half-century lost no opportunity of trying to have this new see quashed and of regaining authority over the Scandinavian churchso

Note

In a paper entitled The Death of Harald Bluetooth in the proceedings of the 2nd Interbaltic Symposium Bornholm 26-29 October 1992 I argue that Adam of Bremens account of Harald Bluetooths relationship with the archsee of HamburgshyBremen and of his burial in Roskilde is untrustworthy There is therefore no good evidence that Harald was buried in Roskilde (p 28) and none for a change of attitude towards Hamburg-Bremen from Harald to Swein (p 40)

75 S 958 Liber Eliensis ed E O Blake Camden Soc 3rd ser 92 (1962) 150-1 76 Keynes Diplomas 156 77 H Fuhrmann Die heilige und Generalsynode des Jahres 948 reprint 52 78 L M Larson Canute the Great 995 (circ)-1035 and the Rise of Danish

Imperialism during the Viki1llI Age Heroes of the Nations (New York and London 1912) 190

79 Adam Bremensis III 33 39 and 59 80 See Breengaard Muren om Isroels hus passim

4 Cnuts earls SIMON KEYNES

Following the death of King lEthelred the Unready on 23 April 1016 all the councillors who were in London and the citizens chose Edmund as kingl at about the same time according to John of Worcester the bishops abbots ealdormen and all the more important men of England assembled together and unanimously elected Cnut as their lord and king whereupon they came to Cnut at Southampton repudiated all the race of King lEthelred and swore loyalty to him2 Soon afterwards King Edmund Ironside recovered control of Wessex and promptly embarked on his strenuous campaign against the Danish invaders Following Edmunds defeat at the battle of Assandun on 18 October 1016 the two kings met at Olney near Deerhurst in Gloucestershire3 and came to terms with each other they fixed the payment for the Danish army and arranged a division of the kingdom which left Wessex in the control of Edmund and Mercia in the control of Cnut Following the death of King Edmund Ironside on 30 November 1016 Cnut was able to bring matters to their inevitable conclusion In 1017 according to the chronicler King Cnut succeeded to all the kingdom of England and divided it into four Wessex for himself East Anglia for Thorkell Mercia for Eadric and Northumbria for Eirikr later on in the same year a number of prominent Englishmen (including Eadric Streona) were put to death and to set the seal on the process by which he had sought to avert the threat posed by surviving English mthelings Cnut then ordered the widow of King lEthelred Richards daughter to be fetched as his wife In 1018 the tribute was paid over all England the greater part of Cnuts army returned to Denmark and the Danes and the English reached an agreement at Oxford

1 ASC (CDE) 2 Florentii Wigomiensis monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis ed B Thorpe 2 vols

(1848-9) I 173 Whitelock EHD p 249 n 3 3 On the identification of Olney (an island in the confluence of Naight Brook and

the Severn at Deerhurst) see A H Smith PNGlos pt 2 79 and pt 3 161 (not Alney Island in Maisemore)