53 Facts About Cnut

1.

Cnut sought to keep this power-base by uniting Danes and English under cultural bonds of wealth and custom.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,949
2.

Cnut's possession of England's dioceses and the continental Diocese of Denmark—with a claim laid upon it by the Holy Roman Empire's Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen—was a source of great prestige and leverage within the Catholic Church and among the magnates of Christendom.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,950
3.

Cnut was a son of the Danish prince Sweyn Forkbeard, who was the son and heir to King Harald Bluetooth and thus came from a line of Scandinavian rulers central to the unification of Denmark.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,951
4.

Harald Bluetooth, Gorm's son and Cnut's grandfather, was the Danish king at the time of the Christianization of Denmark; he became one of the first Scandinavian kings to accept Christianity.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,952
5.

Description of Cnut appears in the 13th-century Icelandic Knytlinga saga:.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,953
6.

Cnut had a fair complexion none-the-less, and a fine, thick head of hair.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,954
7.

Cnut's eyes were better than those of other men, both the handsomer and the keener of their sight.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,955
8.

Cnut was likely part of his father's 1003 and 1004 campaigns in England, although the evidence is not firm.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,956
9.

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.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,957
10.

Cnut went to Harald and supposedly made the suggestion they might have a joint kingship, although this found no favour with his brother.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,958
11.

Cnut lent some Polish troops, likely to have been a pledge made to Cnut and Harald Hardrada when, in the winter, they "went amongst the Wends" to fetch their mother back to the Danish court.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,959
12.

Cnut had been sent away by their father after the death of the Swedish king Eric the Victorious in 995, and his marriage to Sigrid the Haughty, the Swedish queen mother.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,960
13.

Cnut was at the head of an array of Vikings from all over Scandinavia.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,961
14.

The mid-winter assault by Cnut devastated its way northwards across eastern Mercia.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,962
15.

Cnut returned southward, and the Danish army evidently divided, some dealing with Edmund, who had broken out of London before Cnut's encirclement of the city was complete, and had gone to gather an army in Wessex, the traditional heartland of the English monarchy.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,963
16.

At this point Eadric Streona went over to King Edmund, and Cnut set sail northwards across the Thames estuary to Essex, and went from the landing of the ships up the River Orwell to ravage Mercia.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,964
17.

Edmund fled westwards, and Cnut pursued him into Gloucestershire, with another battle probably fought near the Forest of Dean, for Edmund had an alliance with some of the Welsh.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,965
18.

Cnut retained 40 ships and their crews as a standing force in England.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,966
19.

Cnut built on the existing English trend for multiple shires to be grouped together under a single ealdorman, thusly dividing the country into four large administrative units whose geographical extent was based on the largest and most durable of the separate kingdoms that had preceded the unification of England.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,967
20.

In general, after initial reliance on his Scandinavian followers in the first years of his reign, Cnut allowed those Anglo-Saxon families of the existing English nobility who had earned his trust to assume rulership of his Earldoms.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,968
21.

Cnut says he dealt with dissenters to ensure Denmark was free to assist England:.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,969
22.

King Cnut greets in friendship his archbishop and his diocesan bishops and Earl Thurkil and all his earls.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,970
23.

Under his reign, Cnut brought together the English and Danish kingdoms, and the Scandinavic and Saxon peoples saw a period of dominance across Scandinavia, as well as within the British Isles.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,971
24.

Cnut reinstated the Laws of King Edgar to allow for the constitution of a Danelaw, and for the activity of Scandinavians at large.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,972
25.

Cnut reinstituted the extant laws with a series of proclamations to assuage common grievances brought to his attention, including: On Inheritance in case of Intestacy, and On Heriots and Reliefs.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,973
26.

Cnut strengthened the currency, initiating a series of coins of equal weight to those being used in Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,974
27.

Harald II died in 1018, and Cnut went to Denmark to affirm his succession to the Danish crown, stating his intention to avert attacks against England in a letter in 1019.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,975
28.

Cnut's hold on the Danish throne presumably stable, Cnut was back in England in 1020.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,976
29.

Cnut appointed Ulf Jarl, the husband of his sister Estrid Svendsdatter, as regent of Denmark, further entrusting him with his young son by Queen Emma, Harthacnut, whom he had designated the heir of his kingdom.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,977
30.

Some sources state that the brothers-in-law were playing chess at a banquet in Roskilde when an argument arose between them, and the next day, Christmas 1026, one of Cnut's housecarls killed the jarl with his blessing, in Trinity Church, the predecessor to Roskilde Cathedral.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,978
31.

Cnut left his affairs in the north and went from Denmark to the coronation at Easter 1027, which would have been of considerable prestige for rulers of Europe in the Middle Ages.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,979
32.

Consistent with his role as a Christian king, Cnut says he went to Rome to repent for his sins, to pray for redemption and the security of his subjects, and to negotiate with the Pope for a reduction in the costs of the pallium for English archbishops, and for a resolution to the competition between the archdioceses of Canterbury and Hamburg-Bremen for superiority over the Danish dioceses.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,980
33.

Cnut sought to improve the conditions for pilgrims, as well as merchants, on the road to Rome.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,981
34.

Cnut was surely in a stronger position, not only with the Church and the people, but in the alliance with his southern rivals he was able to conclude his conflicts with his rivals in the north.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,982
35.

Cnut was to return to Denmark from Rome, arrange for its security, and afterwards sail to England.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,983
36.

Cnut stated his intention of proceeding to Denmark to secure peace between the kingdoms of Scandinavia, which fits the account of John of Worcester that in 1027 Cnut heard some Norwegians were discontented and sent them sums of gold and silver to gain their support for his claim to the throne.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,984
37.

In 1028, Cnut set off from England to Norway, and the city of Trondheim, with a fleet of fifty ships.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,985
38.

Cnut was crowned king, now of England, Denmark and Norway as well as part of Sweden.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,986
39.

Cnut entrusted the Earldom of Lade to the former line of earls, in Hakon Eiriksson, with Eirikr Hakonarson probably dead by this time.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,987
40.

Hakon, a member of a family with a long tradition of hostility towards the independent Norwegian kings, and a relative of Cnut's, was already in lordship over the Isles with the earldom of Worcester, possibly from 1016 to 1017.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,988
41.

Cnut died at the hands of his own people, at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,989
42.

In 1014, while Cnut was preparing his re-invasion of England, the Battle of Clontarf pitted an array of armies laid out on the fields before the walls of Dublin.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,990
43.

Cnut was already a Christian before he was king—being named Lambert at his baptism—although the Christianization of Scandinavia was not at all complete.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,991
44.

Cnut built new churches and was an earnest patron of monastic communities.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,992
45.

Cnut's homeland of Denmark was a Christian nation on the rise, and the desire to enhance the religion was still fresh.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,993
46.

Cnut is known to have sent a psalter and sacramentary made in Peterborough to Cologne, and a book written in gold, among other gifts, to William the Great of Aquitaine.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,994
47.

Cnut arranged that travellers from his realm not be straitened by unjust tolls and that they should be safeguarded on their way to and from Rome.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,995
48.

Cnut brought the crowns of Denmark and England together again until his death in 1042.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,996
49.

Cnut's reign secured Norman influence at court thereafter, and the ambitions of its dukes finally found fruition in 1066 with William the Conqueror's invasion of England and crowning, fifty years after Cnut was crowned in 1017.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,997
50.

Cnut died at Shaftesbury in Dorset and was buried in the Old Minster, Winchester.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,998
51.

Four of them, namely Sigvatr Þorðarson, Ottarr svarti, Þorarinn loftunga and Hallvarðr hareksblesi, composed verses in honour of Cnut which have survived in some form, while no such thing is apparent from the four other skalds Bersi Torfuson, Arnorr Þorðarson jarlaskald, Steinn Skaptason and Oðarkeptr.

FactSnippet No. 2,531,999
52.

The principal works for Cnut are the three Knutsdrapur by Sigvatr Þorðarson, Ottarr svarti and Hallvarðr hareksblesi, and the Hofuðlausn and Tøgdrapa by Þorarinn loftunga.

FactSnippet No. 2,532,000
53.

References of this sort were avoided by poets composing for the contemporary kings of Norway but Cnut seems to have had a more relaxed attitude towards pagan literary allusions.

FactSnippet No. 2,532,001