Cnut the Great

[close] Cnut the Great (Old English: Cnūt; Old Norse: Knūtr inn rīki; c. 985 or 995 - 1035), also known as Canute or Knut or Cnut Sweynsson, was a Viking king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden. As a statesman, with notable successes in politics and the military, and the importance of his legacy - if now obscure - Cnut seems to have been one of the greatest figures of medieval Europe. Until recently though his achievements were largely lost to history, after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

Thietmar of Merseburg states that Cnut's mother was from Poland, a daughter of Mieszko I[citation needed], making Cnut a nephew of Boleslaw the Brave, the contemporary first King of Poland.

As a prince of Denmark, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity throughout the British Isles. His accession to the Danish throne within a couple of years in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut held this power-base together by uniting Danes and Englishmen under cultural bonds of wealth and custom, rather than sheer brutality. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. Sweden's capital at Sigtuna was held by Cnut. He had coins struck which called him king there, but no record of a coronation survives.

Cnut extended his authority into the Irish Sea, keeping the rival powers around its coasts in check. In light of the struggles of the Danes for preeminence within Scandinavia, Cnut's rule was definitely felt by the sea-kingdoms of the Viking settlers among the Celtic nations; known as the Gall Gaidel. These were the Kingdom of the Isles (probably under direct overlordship through one of his lieutenants) in the Sea of the Hebrides, and the Kingdom of Dublin (probably on the terms of vassal and suzerain), in the Irish Sea. His chief goal was to control the western seaways to and from Scandinavia, and to check the might of the Earls of Orkney. At the height of his power, Cnut held certain Gaelic kingdoms and the Ui Imhair sea-kingdom of Echmarcach mac Ragnaill as client vassals, too.

Cnut's possession of England's archdioceses and the continental diocese of Denmark – with a claim laid upon it by the Holy Roman Empire's Hamburg-Bremen archdiocese – gave him leverage within the Church to gain concessions on the tolls his people had to pay on the way to Rome. He also gained concessions on the price of the pallium of his bishops, from the Pope, and other magnates of medieval Christendom, at the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor. After his 1026 victory against Norway and Sweden and on his way to Rome for the coronation, Cnut proclaimed himself in a letter, king of all England and Denmark and the Norwegians and of some of the Swedes.