Cnut the Great

Lore & Background

Cnut was the son of Swein Forkbeard, though neither the place nor the date of his birth are known. The identity of his mother is uncertain and subject to significant contradictions between sources. Norse sagas name her Gunhild, a daughter of Burislav, king of the Wends. The Encomium Emmae Reginae refers to Cnut's mother as a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland. Thietmar of Merseburg's Chronicon also mentions an unnamed daughter of Mieszko I, the sister of Boleslaus, ruler of Poland, who married Sweyn and became mother to his sons. Adam of Bremen uniquely equates Cnut's mother with the former Queen of Sweden, though this is widely regarded as an error. Mainstream scholarship tends to view the figure as semi-legendary or a composite. A description from the 13th-century Icelandic Knýtlinga saga says: "Knut was exceptionally tall and strong, and the handsomest of men, all except for his nose, that was thin, high-set, and rather hooked. He had a fair complexion and a fine, thick head of hair. His eyes were better than those of other men, being both more handsome and keener-sighted." Hardly anything is known with certainty of Cnut's life until the year he was part of a Scandinavian force under his father, King Swein, in his invasion of England in summer 1013. Following Swein's death on Candlemas (Sunday 3 February 1014), Harald succeeded him as King of Denmark, while the Vikings and the people of the Danelaw immediately elected Cnut as king in England. However, the English nobility recalled Æthelred from Normandy, and the restored king swiftly led an army against Cnut, who fled with his army to Denmark, along the way mutilating the hostages they had taken and abandoning them on the beach at Sandwich in Kent.

In Their Own Story

In the summer of 1015, Cnut's fleet set sail for England with a Danish army of perhaps 10,000 in 200 longships. Cnut was at the head of an array of Vikings from all over Scandinavia. The invading army was composed primarily of mercenaries. The invasion force was to engage in often close and grisly warfare with the English for the next fourteen months. Practically all of the battles were fought against the eldest son of Æthelred, Edmund Ironside. According to the Peterborough Chronicle manuscript, early in September 1015 "[Cnut] came into Sandwich, and straightway sailed around Kent to Wessex, until he came to the mouth of the Frome, and harried in Dorset and Wiltshire and Somerset," beginning a campaign of an intensity not seen since the days of earlier Viking invasions. Among the allies of Denmark was Bolesław I the Brave, the duke of Poland, who lent some Polish troops. Swedes were certainly among the allies in the English conquest. Another in-law to the Danish royal house, Eiríkr Hákonarson, was the earl of Lade and the co-ruler of Norway. 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. In 1031, Malcolm II of Scotland also submitted to him, though Anglo-Norse influence over Scotland was weak and ultimately did not last to the time of Cnut's death.

Reader's Guide

Cnut's primary challenge is keeping his power base by uniting Danes and English under cultural bonds of wealth and custom. 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 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. Players should focus on securing the succession: Cnut's brother Harald is described as the younger in the Encomium Emmae. Some hint of Cnut's childhood can be found in the Flateyjarbók, a 13th-century Icelandic source that says he was taught his soldiery by the chieftain Thorkell the Tall, brother to Sigvaldi, Jarl of Jomsborg, and the legendary Jomsvikings, at their stronghold on the island of Wollin, off the coast of Pomerania. Cnut's date of birth is unknown; contemporary works such as the Chronicon and the Encomium Emmae do not mention it. A Knútsdrápa by the skald Óttarr svarti states that Cnut was "of no great age" when he first went to war, and mentions a battle identifiable with Swein Forkbeard's invasion of England and attack on the city of Norwich, in 1003–04, after the St. Brice's Day massacre of Danes by the English, in 1002.

Did You Know?

• Cnut's birthdate is unknown; estimates range from near 990 to near 1000, based on skaldic references to his age when first going to war.
• The identity of Cnut's mother is uncertain and contradictory across sources—Norse sagas name her Gunhild, while the Encomium Emmae Reginae says she was a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland.
• Cnut was described in the 13th-century Knýtlinga saga as 'exceptionally tall and strong, and the handsomest of men, all except for his nose, that was thin, high-set, and rather hooked.'
• After his victory against Norway and Sweden in 1026, Cnut styled himself 'King of all England and Denmark and the Norwegians and of some of the Swedes' in a letter to his subjects.
• Cnut's invasion of England in 1015 involved a fleet of perhaps 200 longships carrying around 10,000 men, and the campaign lasted fourteen months of close and grisly warfare.