Laurence Marcellus Larson

“ On his own contemporaries Canute made a profound impression which succeeding generations have shared. In Britain he was called the Great; in Scandinavia the Rich, the Mighty or the Powerful. The extent of his possessions, the splendour of his court, the size of his navy, his intimate relations with Pope and Emperor—all these things gave him a position and a prestige that was unheard of in the Northlands. And it was indeed a marvellous achievement for a pirate chief from a nation just emerging from heathendom to gather into his power the realms and territories that made up the Knytling empire. ”

“ His great rival of years to come, Olaf the Stout, who can have been only two years older than Canute, had already sailed the dragon for six or seven years. It is likely that the young Dane had also experienced the thrills of viking life, but on this matter the sagas are silent. But it is easy to see why Canute should favour the proposed venture: as a younger son he could not hope for the Danish crown. The conquest of England might mean not only fame and plundered wealth, but perhaps a realm to govern as well. ”

“ Whether the kings of Denmark in the tenth century were of Shielding ancestry is a matter of doubt; the probabilities are that they sprang from a different stem. The century opened with Gorm the Aged, the great-grandfather of Canute, on the throne of Shield, ruling all the traditional regions of Denmark,—Scania, the Isles, and Jutland—but apparently residing at Jelling near the south-east corner of the peninsula, not far from the Saxon frontier. Tradition remembers him as a tall and stately man, but a dull and indolent king, wanting in all the elements of greatness. ”

“ The historians of Old English times, both Saxon and Norman, were ecclesiastics and saw the reign of Canute from their peculiar view-point. To them the mighty Dane was the great Christian King, the founder of monasteries, the giver of costly gifts and valuable endowments to the houses of God. To the undisputed traits of Christian liberality, they added those of piety and humility, and told stories of the visit to the monks of Ely and of Canute's vain attempt to stem the tides and compel their obedience. ”

“ CHAPTER IX CANUTE AND THE NORWEGIAN CONSPIRACY—1023-1026
The sons of Earl Hakon, Eric and Sweyn, who ruled Norway for fifteen years after the fall of Olaf Trygvesson, were not aggressive rulers. They were not of the blood royal, they were vassals of alien kings, both seem by nature to have been of an easy-going disposition; hence they were not able to command obedience to the extent that a strong monarchy demanded. As a result, the Norwegian aristocracy arrogated to itself a great measure of independence. The peasantry resumed their old habits and practices ”

“ Canute was yet a young man—he had not advanced far into the thirties—but prudence, perhaps also wisdom, had developed with the years. He realised that his own person was really the only bond that held his realms together; but he also understood that direct rule was impracticable. The Norse movement was essentially a revolt from Olaf, not a popular demand for union with Denmark. Among the Danes, too, there was opposition to what smacked of alien rule, as is shown by the readiness with which the magnates had received the revolutionary plans of Earl Ulf. ”

“ It must have been clear to Canute that continued peace in the North was not to be hoped for. That King Olaf Haroldsson, who had begun his career as a viking while he was yet a mere boy and who was still young, strong, and virile, would be content with permanent exile was unthinkable. Canute must further have realised that his power in Norway had no secure foundation: bribery could not be employed forever ”

“ At the same time, it is clear that Eadric the Grasper was a man of real abilities; in spite of the fact that he held allegiance lightly, he seems to have retained his influence to the last. He was, says one writer,
a man of low origin, one whom the tongue had brought riches and rank, clever in wit, pleasant in speech, but surpassing all men of the time in envy, perfidy, crime, and cruelty. ”

“ From the south came the sons of the murdered man in vigorous pursuit; in the north Earl Hakon was mustering the Thronder-folk. Finally King Olaf was forced into one of the long inlets that cut into the western coast. Here he was trapped; flight alone was possible; but before him lay wild mountain regions, one of the wildest routes in Norway. It was midwinter, but the crossing was successful, though the sufferings and difficulties must have been great. Exile was now the only choice; the journey continued to the Swedish border and thence across that kingdom and the Baltic Sea to Russia. ”

“ Toward the close of the eighth century, there appeared in the waters of Western Europe the strange dragon fleets of the Northmen, the "heathen," or the vikings, as they called themselves, and for more than two hundred years the shores of the West and the Southwest lived in constant dread of pillage and piracy. The viking invasions have always been of interest to the student of the Middle Ages; but only recently have historians begun to fathom the full significance of the movement. The British Isles were pre-eminently the field of viking activities. ”

“ The death of Sweyn was the signal for important movements throughout the entire North. Forces that had been held in rein by his mighty personality were once more free to act. In Denmark, his older son Harold succeeded at once to the full kingship. Three years later a national ruler re-established the Norwegian throne. But in England the results were most immediate and most evident: the national spirit rose with a bound and for three years more the struggle with the invader continued.
The host at Gainsborough promptly recognised the leadership of Canute and proclaimed him king. ”

“ I enjoin also all sheriffs and reeves of my entire kingdom, as they would enjoy my friendship or their own security, that they use no unjust violence to any man, either rich or poor, but that every one, both noble and freeman, enjoy just law, from which let them in no way swerve, neither for equal favour, nor for any powerful person, nor for the sake of collecting money for me, for I have no need that money should be collected for me by iniquitous exactions. ”

“ The advance of Christianity had made the myths impossible as poetic materials, but new themes were found in the deeds and virtues of the old Teutonic heroes and of the mighty war lords of the viking age. The saga materials of the heroic age, the stories of Helgi and Sigrun, of Sigurd and Brunhild, of Gudrun's grief and Attila's fury, had long been treasured by the Northern peoples. Just when each individual tale was cast into the form that has come down to us is impossible to say; the probabilities are, however, that a considerable number of the heroic lays were composed in the age of Canute. ”

“ Edmund was the victor in several important engagements, but in no great battle. There was no heavy fighting at Penselwood; Sherstone was at best a drawn battle; Brentford and Otford seem to have been partly successful attacks on the rear of a retreating foe; Ashington was a decisive defeat. We cannot tell what sort of a king he might have become but the glimpses that we get of his character are not reassuring. ”

“ In the new territorial additions to Wessex there were two chief elements, neither of which was distinctly pro-Saxon: the Dane or the half-Danish colonist was naturally hostile to the Saxon régime; his Anglian neighbour recalled the former independence of his region as Mercia, East Anglia, or Northumbria, and was weak in his loyalty to the southern dynasty. The spirit of particularism asserted itself repeatedly, for it seems unlikely that the many revolts in the tenth century were Danish uprisings merely. ”

“ Eric was a man of a nobler character than was common among men of the viking type; but he can have known very little of English affairs, and for this reason, perhaps, Canute passed his kinsman by and gave his confidence to the lordly viking, Thurkil the Tall. For a stay of nearly ten years in England as viking invader, as chief of Ethelred's mercenaries, and as Canute's chief assistant in his campaign against the English, had surely given Thurkil a wide acquaintance among the magnates of the land and considerable insight into English affairs. ”

“ The army that conquered England for Canute was no doubt also largely heathen. It seems, therefore, safe to assume that during the early years of the new reign, the worship of the Anse-gods was carried on in various places on English soil; surely in the Danish camps, perhaps also in some of the Danish settlements. This situation compelled the Christian King to be at least tolerant. Soon there began to appear at the English court prominent exiles from Norway, hot-headed chiefs, whose sense of independence had been outraged by the zealous missionary activities of Olaf the Stout. ”

“ But the finer instincts that we commonly associate with womanhood cannot have been highly developed in her case; what we seem to find is love of life, a delight in power, and an overpowering ambition to rule. At the time of her second marriage she was a mature woman; it is not likely that she was less than thirty years old, perhaps she was nearer forty. At all events, she must have been several years older than Canute. Two children were born to this marriage: Harthacanute, who ruled briefly in Denmark and England after the death of his father and of his half-brother Harold ”

“ The first three or four years of Canute's government in England can have given but little promise of the beneficent rule that was to follow. To the conquered Saxon they must have been a season of great sorrow. On the throne of Alfred sat an alien king who had done nothing as yet to merit the affectionate regard of his subjects. In the shire courts ruled the chiefs of the dreaded Danish host, chiefs who had probably harried those same shires at an earlier date. A heavy tax had been collected to pay the forces of the enemy, but a large part of those forces still remained. ”

“ The next few months seem to have witnessed a revolution in Denmark: Earl Ulf appears to have summoned a national assembly at Viborg, an old sanctuary in the north central part of Jutland, where he announced that it was Canute's desire to have his young eight-year-old son chosen and proclaimed King of Denmark. With evident success he argued that the ancient kingdom, which always had had a ruler within its borders, was poorly served by the present arrangement of subjection to an absentee-king. He also called attention to the threatened invasion from the allied kingdoms of Norway and Sweden. ”

“ So far as we know, Canute made no effort to dislodge Magnus. It may be true that he was ill; or perhaps the power of the Church restrained him: Magnus was the son of a saint; would not the martyred King enlist the powers of heaven on the side of his son? ”

“ Where two vigorous peoples representing differing types or different stages of civilisation come into more than temporary contact, the reciprocal influences will of necessity be continued and profound.
The viking movement had, therefore, its aspects of growth and development as well as of destruction. The best representative of the age and the movement, when considered from both these viewpoints, is Canute the Great, King of England, Denmark, and Norway. Canute began as a pirate and developed into a statesman. ”

“ In the Proclamation he is entrusted with the task of enforcing the laws against heathen and heretical practices. But to assign such a duty to the man who was in such a great measure responsible for the martyrdom of Saint Alphege must have seemed a travesty upon justice to the good churchmen of the time. The conjecture that the banishment of the Earl was not wholly the result of royal disfavour receives some support from the fact that, a few months later, Canute and Thurkil were reconciled, and the old Earl was given a position in Denmark analogous to the one that he had held in England. ”

“ To analyse a character such as that of Canute is a difficult task, as character analysis always must be. There was so much that was derived from a heathen time and ancestry, and also so much that had been acquired by contact with Christian culture and influences, that the result could be only a strange composite out of which traits and characteristics, often contradictory and hostile, would come to the surface as occasion would suggest. ”

“ The first and the most difficult problem that Canute and Thurkil had to solve was how to establish the throne among an unfriendly people; for the conquered Saxons cannot have regarded the Danish usurper with much affection. It is generally believed that Canute took up his residence in the old capital city of Winchester, though we do not know at what time this came to be the recognised residential town. It may be true, as is so often asserted, that Canute continued, even after other lands had been added to his dominions, to make England his home from personal choice ”

“ But the achievements of genius cannot be measured in such terms only: the great movement that culminated in the subjection of Britain was of vast importance for the North; it opened up new fields for Western influences; it brought the North into touch with Christian culture; it rebuilt Scandinavian civilisation. These are the more enduring results of the reign and the preceding expeditions to the West. At the same time, Canute's reign minimised the influence that was working northward from the German outposts. The connection with England was soon interrupted ”

“ Rolf the founder of Normandy and Canute the Emperor of the North. Both were sea-kings; each represents the culmination and the close of a great migratory movement,—Rolf of the earlier viking period, Canute of its later and more restricted phase. The early history of each is uncertain and obscure; both come suddenly forth upon the stage of action, eager and trained for conquest. Rolf is said to have been the outlawed son of a Norse earl; Canute was the younger son of a Danish king: neither had the promise of sovereignty or of landed inheritance. ”

“ The dismissal of one host was followed by the immediate reorganisation of another. Far more important than the departure of the fleet is the fact that the crews of forty ships remained in the royal service: this would mean a force of between three thousand and four thousand men. But the North knew no continuous body of warriors except the military households of chiefs and kings; such a household was now to be organised, but one that was far greater and more splendid than any organisation of the sort known in Scandinavia. ”