On this day, it is this formidable king known by many as Cnut the Great the subject of our blog. He is considered by many one of the most famous personalities to rule in the period we regard as Middle Ages. However, compared to his predecessor, the Anglo-Saxon king of Wessex, Alfred -who was also styled as the Great- and even to the last two saxon kings who later succeeded his crown, Edward the Confessor and Harold II, Cnut is not often the centre of discussion amongst medievalists. After all, we question ourselves: who was he? What kind of king was this foreigner viking who managed to conquer the English lands long before the conquest of William of Normandy? In a humble attempt, we hope to enlight this historical figure and provide a discussion of his role in the formation of the English society.
Cnut, also spelled Canute (in Old Norse: Knútr) or Knut, was the second son of the Prince of Denmark named Sweyn Forkbeard, who, in turn, was the grandson of Gorm the Old, who was once the subject of this blog. Regarding the identity of his mother, it is supposed that she was Sweyn's consort, a Polish princess named Gunhid. Because "Harald, the Crown Prince of Denmark, was their father's heir, Canute, as the second of the king was not expected to rule but was expected to lead troops and fight. According to sources the young Canute was trained by the legendary Thorkell the Tall of the Jomsviking in the art of combat. It is thought that Canute joined his father in battle at the invasion of Norwich in 1003/4 in response to the St Brice's Day Massacre of 1002, as the Skalkd, Óttarr svarti, describes a campaign similar to Norwich and states that Canute was 'of no great age' at the time."
Indeed his warrior skills would be effective to his next invasion in England. His father, Swein, managed to conquer all England, but unfortunately his reign did not last any more than 5 weeks. As we can observe below:
"The Danish north of England gave itself up and when the south followed suit, King Aethelred II fled to Normandy in December leaving Sveinn as sole king. But Sveinn died on 3 February 1014, Aethelred returned, and the young Cnut, who had been accepted as king by the Danelaw and Viking fleet, was forced back to Denmark"
For Cnut, though, the situation was not hopeless, for "Aethelred had fallen ill, and his son Edmund Ironside was in a violent dispute with Eadric Streona, the powerful ealderman of Mercia." It is thought he had an agreement with his brother, then king of Denmark, of which the latter would provide Cnut a marine force along a very well trained army if he did not try to claim the Danish throne,
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the said dispute between Edmund Ironside and Eadric happened "at the same time (...) King Knute (...) went soon (...) about Kent into Wessex, until he came to the mouth of the Frome; and then plundered in Dorset, and in Wiltshire, and in Somerset. King Ethelred, meanwhile, lay sick at Corsham; and Alderman Edric collected an army there, and Edmund the Etheling in the north. When they came together, the alderman designed to betray Edmund the etheling but he could not; whereupon they separated without an engagement, and sheered off from their enemies. Alderman Edric then seduced forty ships from the king, and submitted to Knute. The West-Saxons also submitted, and gave hostages, and horsed the army. And submitted, And he continued there until the midwinter."
The conquest was a bloody one, with several battles between Edmund Ironisde and Cnut Sweynsson, as reported by the "Chronicles", but, "in 1016 Canute returned and was victorious at the Battle of Ashingdon (Ashingdown) over Edmund 'Ironisde', Aethelred's eldest son and successsor. Canute and Edmund drew up the Treaty of Olney, which allotted The Danelaw and the English midlands to Canute, while Edmund retained control of southern England. (...) Edmund died shortly after this treaty and so Canute found himself the first Viking king of all England."
Unlike his predecessors, Cnut styled himself as King of all England, not 'king of the English'. His first years as king of England was, however, not the easiest: to settle down as uncontested monarch to the newly united land he used propaganda as one weapon and political tactics as other. For example, he got rid of one of Aethelred's survivings sons, contribuited to send to exile Edmund's own children aside of having killed the two-faced and highly distrustful ealdorman Eardric and other political rivals. It is surprising, though, how, despite the early oppositions, his authority was shaped successfully and through that the rise of an empire that, sadly, would not go pass by the next generation. So in the next paragraph, through the use of propaganda, we can observe that:
"Cnut (...) employed one of Aethelred's main counselors, Wulfstan, achbishop of York, to be his right hand man. A similar concern for showing continuity can be seen in the laws that Cnut issued. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that in 1018: "Dene 7 Engle wurdon sammaele aet Oxnaforda to Eadgares lage" (the Danes and English came to an agreement in Oxford to [follow] the law of Edgar). 'Edgar' is King Edgar the Peaceful of England (943-957) and Cnut appears to have modeled his own law codes on those of Edgar, e.g by copying the introduction of Edgar's laws at verbatim. By presenting his own laws as being in line with those of Edgar, Cnut places himself within an Anglo-Saxon tradition of government. (...) Cnut's second strategy was to identify himself explicitly with the AngloSaxons. He did so, for example, by addressing the Anglo-Saxons with words like 'we' and 'us' in his Letter to the English of 1020."
A close approachment was a tactic used to cast a shadow at his 'foreigner' side, since the English disliked those who were not their countrymen, and a way to distant himself of politics that constant placed the Danes and the English in opposite sides, perhaps trying to reapproch these social groups. Also, "another instance in which Cnut seems to align himself on the side of the Anglo-Saxons, against the Danes, is by favouring the cults of specific Anglo-Saxon saints who had been martyred by Vikings. An example of such a saint is Aelfheah ('elf-high'), a bishop who was brutally murdered in 1012 by drunk Danes."
Indeed, Cnut had a great relationship with the Church. and by having the Archbishop of York Wulfstan as one of his closest advisors is another evidence of it, next to the buildings of churches and patronising Anglo-Saxons saints. He also divided the realm at first to four earldormen who were his counterparts before replacing them by native men of his trust. One of the greatest achievements of Cnut was not only building an Anglo-Scandinavian empire, which improved the relationship of these countries, contributing for the commerce and trade; but also his sense of justice and peace, when he held peace for the 19 years of his reign, since he provided security by preventing further incursions of the Vikings to England's shore. His marriage to Aelthered's widow, Emma of Normandy, also supplied the necessities of a better standing concerning the attempts on the king's part to reconcile the interests as himself as king and also on the behalf of the kingdom. He was, thus, the first monarch to have ruled England in a certain unity that would be seen better fortified after the Norman conquest in 1066.
As for the matter of the matrimony, briefly mentioned in the last paragraph concerning the widow Emma, it is one filled with controversy, though. For apparently "he had as well a consort in Denmark, Aelfgifu of Aelfhelm, with whom he had initiated a relationship in 1013 while holding charge of the fleet at Gainsborough. His marriage to Aelfgifu was after the Danish custom and not one sanctioned within the Christian church; together they had two sons, Harald Harefoot and Sweyn. When Canute then married Emma, a precondition was that the sons of their marriage would stand in line for the English throne before Canute's older sons or Emma's sons by Ethelred. The royal couple would eventually have two children, a boy, Harthacanute, and a girl, Gunhild, who later married Prince Henry of Germany."
But when Cnut came to die in 1035, the succession line was questioned due to a power struggle between Aelfgifu and Emma, but eventually the English chose Harald to succeed Cnut, forcing Emma to flee with her sons. Nonetheless, Harald would reign very briefly, for five years only, and he would be succeeded by his controversial brother Harthacanute, before the crown was inherited by Edward the Confessor, Emma's son with Aelthered. With the death of Harthacanute, though, also came to die the empire Cnut struggled to build. And after the conquest of William of Normandy, in 1066, Cnut's deeds were basically left to the margins of history. Is it fair that William receives the title of conqueror when he was not the first of doing so? Should Cnut or his father be acknowledged as both having important roles in shaping England's society?
It is difficult to respond these questions, but one at least can be sketched, on the basis of suppositions. But in a society ruled by a pious man as Cnut, who internalized years of pre-cristian cultures and practices, it was through his relationship with the Church that helped in to the development of a better relationship between the Christianism and the popular religion, which was strained for centuries, especially with the Vikings incursions -as a consequence of. these, some practices were inserted along with Christian practices that were already stablished with some of which being disapproved by the members of the Church. By holding an Archbishop who had an interest in changing that relationship, was a very clever move of Cnut, because that way he could also reconcile the interests of distant cultures that had its days of rivalries.
So that was also a way that Cnut, unlike one of his sons, was not seen directly as "foreigner". He learned much with his father, that is true. But Cnut held the capacity of making an empire that his heirs failed to hold. Through a religious perspective, it is important to notice that, especially because by having good relations with the Church in those days, was also an excellent instrument to hold the power uncontested in a society where religion was intrinsic to other social fields, On that matter, Cnut was, then, as successful as William of Normandy would be in his own days, except perhaps he could not produce a strong lineage to follow his steps. Perhaps, as we now say in our own days, it was just not meant to be.
Bibliography:
https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/20968/GAG_MAGCnut.pdf;jsessionid=CE9D497756B02EF40654ACF7342FF60C?sequence=1
https://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2016/06/28/from-worse-to-better-the-reign-of-cnut-the-great-1016-35/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great
http://storbritannien.um.dk/en/Culture/cnut-the-great-king-of-england-1016-to-1035/cnuts-conquest-and-reign/
http://www.viking.no/the-viking-kings-and-earls/canute-knud-the-great/
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/canute-i-the-great
http://historymedren.about.com/od/cwho/p/canute-the-great.htm
http://www.jorvik-viking-festival.co.uk/about/canute/
http://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/professions/education/viking-knowledge/viking-age-people/historical-characters/cnut-the-great-of-denmark-england-and-norway/
http://www.medievalchronicles.com/medieval-kings-2/early-medieval-kings/king-cnut-the-great/
http://www.fortidensjelling.dk/jellinge49.htm
https://ia902605.us.archive.org/2/items/Anglo-saxonChronicles/anglo_saxon_chronicle.pdf
SILK Logistics & Shipping is the best Door to Door Cargo in Pakistan
ResponderExcluir