17 Cnut the Conqueror

 

Cnut was pretty much the complete king. Conqueror of the English, ruler of a Scandinavian empire that spanned 4 countries. And a man who knew how to win the peace as well as the war. The History of England podcast this week looks at his reign.   

Cnut was probably born around 990, and by 1016 had become the ruler of England. He was to rule for the next 19 years, and in the main his years were so full of boring peace, prosperity and lack of discord that the chroniclers could find little to say about his rule

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Cnut’s marriage to Aethelred the Unready’s widow, Emma of Normandy, was not only an astute political move but also turned out to be a good personal choice. Astute politically because he allied himself with the English Queen; and astute personally because he and Emma shared the same aims and values. Emma was a power at court, and helped Cnut get the English Church on his side.

This was important because recognition as a Christian King rather than a pagan warrior was essential a part of Cnut’s campaign to be accepted as the legitimate successor to the Anglo Saxon dynasty. He did other things as well. He agreed with the witan to rule by the laws of Edgar.  He issued his own law code which very clearly followed his predecessors’ codes, and their policy of accepting the different customs of the Danelaw and the rest of England.

But Cnut did have his followers to reward – after all they had fought hard for him and his father for many years. So although we see nothing like the wholesale replacement of English thegns that we will see under William the Conqueror, there is a significant influx. In the early years, Cnut’s great men are all Danes – Thorkell the Tall and Eilaf the Viking for example. But over time this changes, and Anglo Saxons such as Leofwin and Godwin gain their place in the sun. Cnut also taxed England and maintained a standing army and navy with the proceeds – some indication maybe that he was not secure at least for the first part of this reign.

Cnut's Empire Cnut spent much of his reign establishing his Scandinavian empire – and for a short period he ruled England, Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden. But it didn’t last long, and was to prove beyond the ability of his sons to maintain.

 When he died in 1035, the chroniclers are remarkably deadpan about his passing. But he was a clever and successful man, who gave England a much needed respite after the years of Aethelred’s chaos. He died and was buried at Winchester, and should be seen as one of the most successful rulers of England before the conquest.

 

 

 

Transcript

We left Cnut last week at last secure on the throne of England. This week, we are going to hear about how Cnut transforms himself from evil foreign conqueror to Christian English king. The story of his reign is also very much an international story. In the past, we have hints of international policy and relationships with kings like Offa and Aethelstan; Cnut was qualitatively different. A large part of his story is about his establishment, however temporarily, of a Scandinavian empire of which England was just part. It’s impossible to have any history of Cnut without talking a bit about this, but I promise you I will make sure that I don’t get dragged too far into it.

As far as England is concerned, Cnut’s had to find a way of uniting the country again after 30 years of war. And what’s more, he had to unite the country under him – one of the people who had torn the place apart. So far the English had known him and his father as vicious invaders who had raped the English nation repeatedly, done his best to impoverish them, and acted with utter ruthlessness – such as episodes like the mutilation of hostages in 1015. Cnut would have known that this was not a gimme.

Cnut’s strategy to achieve this was by making himself more English than the English. He realised that he had to convert himself from the Danish wild man into the English Christian. He had to convince the English that he was one of them, that he had adopted their ways and customs, and that he could now be trusted.

By the end of last week’s episode – also known as 1018 – he had already made great strides; he’d married Aethelred’s widow, and he’d agreed with the English to abide by Edgar’s laws. This last one, of course was particularly significant. It both re-assured the English that he was not going to make radical changes; and Cnut borrowed the legitimacy of the model English King. But we should remember that Cnut still had a way to go.

In his wife Emma of Normandy he had a powerful ally and supporter. Emma would have been about 32 when she married Cnut in 1017, which in the terms of the time far from being in the first flush of youth. There were some early indications that Emma was not to be pushed into the background. When she was the wife of Aethelred she clearly actively managed the lands that were given to her as part of the marriage negotiations – so for example, we see her bring over her own men from Normandy to run towns she owned such as Exeter. She is also much more prominent in the signing of charters than Aethelred’s first wife.

And In 1016, when Edmund Ironside died Emma was left alone holding London. She showed herself perfectly capable of holding it against Cnut, until he felt that negotiation was the best way forward.

Emma is a genuinely fascinating player over the next 30 years. Her marriage to Cnut could easily be seen as a cold hearted political decision that left her sons at the time by Aethelred coldly to their fate. Alfred and Edward were in Normandy, she in London; and by becoming Cnut’s wife her chances of getting to see her two boys would be extremely low, since they were both pretenders to the throne Cnut could well have done without.

In fact, Emma’s decision to marry Cnut very probably saved their lives – Cnut had already shown that he was ruthless enough to get rid of pretenders. But it also quite liklely, that Emma felt little for her sons by Aethelred. After Cnut’s death, her later behaviour seems to show a marked preference for her sons by Cnut than by Aethelred.

During Cnut’s reign, she became increasingly important to Cnut. After 1020, as foreign adventure becomes Cnut’s main focus, she begins to sign ever more of the royal charters, and was clearly part of the royal inner circle. And she was absolutely invaluable to Cnut in her ability to lead and advise him on his relationships with the English Church. Because Cnut had realised early that to become more English than the English he needed to win the respect of the English Church and project a Christian image. Emma and her husband clearly made a good partnership during Cnut’s reign. Her importance in the government is emphasised by what happens after Cnut’s death, when her position became extremely political.

So Cnut set about the process of convincing the English that he was one of them. To be accepted as a Christian monarch, clearly he had to win the support of the English church. It’s also important to note that The Church and churchmen were an essential part of any propaganda campaign at the time, given that they were the only people who could write. They most certainly controlled history, given that much of what Cnut’s Skalds, or poets would sing would be lost to prosperity.

Cnut started by quickly making a friend and ally of Archbishop Wulfstan. I’ve not been good about talking about Wulfstan. I apologise and but to be honest I don’t intend to get significantly better now, but just to say that Wulfstan, Bishop of London, Worcester and Archbishop of York was the leading churchman of the first quarter of the 11th century. His writings, sermons and homilies were well known throughout England, and he was the leading supporter of Benedictine reform, continuing the work of Edgar and Dunstan during Aethelred’s reign. He had also been a close adviser of Aethelred throughout his reign, and was therefore very closely associated with the English leadership. Until his death in 1023, Wulstan was a central figure in Cnut’s inner circle of advisers right from the beginning of his reign, and his advice would also have helped him understand how to win over the church. Wulfstan also led Cnut’s project to issue his own lawcodes later in his reign.

Cnut set himself to repair the churches and monasteries that had been damaged for destroyed during the Danish wars. Throughout his reign, Cnut gave gifts widely and generously to the church, and in particular to institutions such as Winchester and Canterbury. He gave to churches abroad also, with the leading example being the institution at Chartres. We have seen that this is very much the tradition of the English kings since the conversion to Christianity, as it was throughout Christian western Europe, and Cnut’s gifts included not only land but also rights and privileges, such as exclusion from taxes, or the rights to the income from ports or burghs.

Cnut also realised that he had to heal the wounds of the recent conflict, and find a way to reconcile the two sides over key events. One of his actions therefore was to demonstrate respect for his opponents in that struggle. In 1020, he therefore ordered a church to be built at the site of the battle of Ashingdon, the site of the last battle and where Edmund had been defeated and so many English leaders killed. He made a major event of the church’s consecration, taking Wulfstan as Archbishop of York and himself on a procession to visit the church in person. He was careful to position this as remembering both English and Danish dead, not a celebration of Danish Victory.

He also focussed on specific events where some kind of atonement was needed. So you may remember the story of St Alfheah, the Archbishop of Canterbury who’s brutal murder by the Danes had led to the defection of Thorkell the Tall. In 1023 therefore, Cnut ordered the removal of St Aelfheah’s remains to Canterbury Cathedral with great ceremony and occasion, though by so doing he incurred the anger of the inhabitants of London. But then as we’ve seen, Cnut and the people of London weren’t really the best of mates, so that was Ok then.

Finally. Cnut visited Rome in 1027 as part of the coronation of Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor. He came back with some practical results regarding the reduction of tolls and obstacles for pilgrims, and no doubt enjoyed the chance to meet up with people with similar job descriptions to his own. But the main reason for the visit was again the opportunity to demonstrate just how very Christian he was. No way, was he a foreign pagan, no sir.

Put together, all this was remarkably successful in changing the perception that Cnut’s English subjects had of him, and built a surviving tradition of his piety. And to be honest there’s really no reason to doubt that in this matter, personal conviction and public policy came nicely together.

Cnut did his best to demonstrate the continuity between his rule and that of the preceding AS monarchs, as a way of emphasising the legitimacy of his rule, above and beyond the right of conquest. One of the ways he did this was in his patronage of the Church, as we have just talked about, but it’s worth noting that probably the most important daily factor would have been the continuation of the process of government and administration. Cnut did nothing to change the system of hundreds, shires and shire courts that formed the daily rythmn of administration which was all most people would ever have seen of the king.

However, he also used the law to emphasise continuity. We’ve already seen that one of Cnut’s earliest acts was to confirm at Oxford in 1018, that England would continue to abide by Edgar’s laws. Wulfstan helped Cnut issue a code at that meeting which was effectively an adaptation of Aethelred’s code of 1008, which itself- had built on Edgar’s codes.

In 1020 or 1021, Wulfstan and Cnut, issued the laws codes from Winchester that were to become the defining code of English law after the Norman conquest. While the law code is comprehensive and practical, it is almost universally without innovation, so again it reflects and builds on existing practice from the time of Edgar. Although not particularly innovative, there are many things though worth noting about the lawcodes.
The first is that Cnut is very keen to make sure that the different practice of the AS regions and the Danelaw are recognised, so that all his people know that he is respecting their individual rights. This reflects the policy of the kings of England for some time; Aethelred himself had also issued separate lawcodes – one at Winchester for AS lands, and the other at Wantage to cover the Danelaw.

Another is the specific mention in the codes of the rights of the King. In Wessex and Mercia, these are:

Munbryce, or Royal protection, Hamsocn, which means an assault on property, forstal, which means assault on person and Fyrdwrite, which is the right of military service.
It’s not exactly clear why these are mentioned in the law codes, but it could have something to do with the growth of private justice, with lords beginning to dispense justice. This is a theme we’ll return to in future episodes, but here Cnut is reminding his lords that these rights come from him, and he can take them away if he wants to.
And we also see the specific inclusion of Outlawry, which was the ultimate sanction of AD law. Outlawry seems to have been of Scandinavian origin, and was derived from folklaw, and therefore fell into the Shire courts, rather than being derived from the King.

So Cnut worked hard to satisfy his new English subjects, and to settle old grievances. But inevitably there were also areas where in could not be hidden that Englishmen were part of a conquered nation. Although it is very clear that by the end of his reign Cnut felt very secure in England, this was not the case in the earlier times. Some of the actions he took to protect and secure his reign were actually the things that were to have the longest lasting consequences – such as in taxation and the creation of the great earldoms.

So the first of these factors was about the people who hold land and power. There is nothing like the wholesale transfer of power we see in the Norman conquests, but like William, Cnut was surrounded by a group of men who expected to get some reward for their loyalty during the campaign. So we see plenty of evidence of land grants and an influx of Danes into the ruling class. One of the best sources of evidence is the Domesday Book, with its clear evidence of the widespread existence of Scandinavian names. It is also significant that while Cnut was prepared to trust Englishmen with the exercise of power, there are far fewer of them in Cnut‘s inner circle than Danes, especially in the earlier years.

In addition, the use of the Scandinavian term Earl had almost completely replaced the English form of Earldorman by 1035. The traditional, English earldormen had been very much connected with the shire; and the shire had been connected with the traditional origins of the English nations. Whereas the Earldoms were anything but – they we simply royal appointees ruling vast areas arbitrarily decided by the king.

A study of the people who held those earldoms is also revealing. Of the 16 men who sign charters in Cnut’s reign, only 6 are English. Cnut essentially formed a kitchen cabinet of close advisers around him, which is awfully reminiscent of the thegn and his close followers of early English days. The chief members of this inner circle were Thorkell until 1021, Eric Hlathir and his son Haakon until 1026 and Eilaf the Viking. By the end of the reign these men have gone, and Cnut’s two chief Advisers are English – Leofric of Mercia and Godwin, though it should be stressed that Godwin owed all his power to Cnut, and therefore does not really represent continuity with earlier English kingdoms.

The rise to power of these two men, Godwin and Leofric, and their families was to have profound repercussions for England, because the rivalries of their families reduced its ability to form an effective response to the Norman threat in 1066. So we should take a bit of time to look at where they came from.

Leofric represents the most powerful survival of the English aristocracy. He was the son of Leofwine, earldorman of the Hwicce, who had fought loyally on Aethelred and Edmund’s side. Leofric’s elder brother, Nothman, had paid the penalty for this loyalty through his execution by Cnut in 1017.

Godwine, on the other hand, was most definitely a parvenu, but also known for his loyalty to Edmund and Aethelred. We know very little of his provenance, though we know his father was called Wulthnoth, and it seems more than possible that it was the same Wulnoth who was accused of treachery by Edric and who took a squadron of ships and started to raid his own kingdom. After 1016, he became a trusted adviser of Cnut, and accompanied him on his 1018 campaign to Denmark. He must have performed well, because he was rewarded by being made earl of Wessex in 1019. Cnut trusted Godwine and raised him up, even allowing him to marry into his family when Gowine married Cnut’s sister in law, Gytha. Godwine developed a huge landed estate centred on Bosham in Sussex, and in the later part of Cnut’s reign practically became his viceregent. The Godwine’s were to remain a power in England until William came and broke them.

The other major lord during Cnut’s reign was Siward of Northumbria. Siward was a Dane who succeeded Eric of Hlathir as the earl of Northumbria. The ancient AS family that had ruled Bamburgh still remained in the form of Eadwulf, Uhtred’s son. Later, Siward was to take over the whole of Northumbria. By and large though, Siward played less of a role at the centre of politics – that was mainly taken by Leofric and Godwine.

Another symptom of subjection was Cnut’s creation of what is effectively the first standing army in England, and the first iteration of an issue that will have many repeats through the following centuries. This had two forms. Cnut surrounded himself with a core unit of specialised fighting men, called the Huscarles. These were essentially professional soldiers. There existence not only stressed Cnut as an alien and outsider; they also point to a wider development of warfare and the pressures it would put on society. Essentially, it could no longer be expected that the ordinary Ceorl could maintain all the equipment needed to fight effectively, although the fyrd would remain an element of the army until 1066. And so a professional core was maintained. The same applied to the fleet;’ so although Cnut paid off most of his ships, he did retain 16 to remain in permanent service.

This core of professional soldiers needed paying, and in England Cnut had found the most efficient tax administration in the western world, which had built up around the regular need to deliver the Danegeld to the Danish invaders. Since 1012, Aethelred that collected this tax regularly, not just when the Danish invaders needed paying off. That’s because he maintained a regular group of professional soldiers. However, the English might well have expected that with the Danish invaders paid off, that Cnut would no longer collect the danegeld, or Heregeld as it was also know – i.t. army tax. But not a bit of it. He maintained his professional core of soldiers and ships, so the heregeld still needed to be collected. In fact, the tax was charged annually until Edward the Confessor abolished it in 1052. It very probably amounted to something not much less than the Danegelds of the preceding decades – and the English hated it.

This is of course a theme that will continue to cause trouble throughout English history – the upheaval caused by the need to generate money to support a king’s wars, and the administrative and constitutional innovation that so often caused.

Despite these enduring symbols of English subjection, Cnut’s reign was marked by stability and peace – in England at least. The success of Cnut’s reign can be most easily measured in the number of entries in the chronicles such as ASC and Florence of Worcester. Essentially, they almost completely dry up – because there’s really nothing to talk about. But one of the early events in Cnut’s reign is the confirmation of England’s borders with Scotland. The battle of Coldstream in 1018 was a comprehensive victory by Malcolm II of Scotland and Owen of Strathclyde over Uhtred, the earl of Bamborough – father of the Eadwuld we’ve just mentioned.

Coldstream marks the end of any question about which kingdom Lothian belonged to. There are different schools of thought – one that Edgar had granted Lothian to the Scots, and this battle simply confirmed it; and the other that the Battle of Coldstream was the key event that annexed Lothian to Scotland. Whatever approach you take, by 1018 Scotland’s modern borders where pretty much under her control.

The northern kings continued to pay nominal featly to the English king, as demonstrated in 1027, when the ASC records that Cnut visited the Scottish king and received his fealty and that of 2 lesser kings. But presumably this visit also confirmed Scotland’s ownership of the Lothian region. After this date it was Siward who was the guardian of English power in the face of the Scots, and he was a warrior lord in the ancient mould. During his lifetime he extended Northumbria significantly to the North West in Cumbria, taking lands that had been claimed by the Kingdom of Strathclyde in the 10th Century.

But from 1019, Cnut’s main focus is with the construction of his northern empire. In 1019, Harold of Denmark died, and Cnut sailed to Denmark, and successfully confirmed his claim to the throne. Cnut wrote an open letter back to his nation, and the only person mentioned specifically by name is Thurkell the Tall, suggesting that Thurkill is the regent in his absence. His letter is part of his propaganda, another demonstration of why he is the best choice of ruler, and the fulfilment of his promise to rule wisely. Cnut explains in the letter that he’d gone to Denmark to protect England from some unspecified threat from there – which of course is tripe since he’d actually gone there to add a country to his empire, but it’s an effective demonstration that he can keep the peace in England in a way that his predecessor could not.

This practice of open letters is interesting, and one that he repeats in 1027 on the occasion of his visit to Rome. However self serving the content, it is a pretty unique example of openness about policy, and it would be difficult to find similar examples elsewhere in Europe.

After his successful accession to the throne of Denmark, Cnut made his first son by Emma, Harthacnut, the crown prince of Denmark, and returned to England. Soon afterwards, in 1021, Cnut fell out with Thorkell, and Thorkell was outlawed and banished from his kingdoms. There seems to be no clear explanation for this, but it is probably connected with events in Scandinavia, and after Cnut’s following expedition in 1022, he and Thorkell were just as surprisingly reconciled. Thorkell disappears from the historical record after this point, whether because he died or simply opted for the quiet life.

Cnut continued his search for Scandinavian glory, and by 1028 he was at the head of an empire that included Denmark, Norway and parts of southern Sweden. He was without doubt a king of international importance, and his invitation to visit to Rome in 1027 was a sign of his stature.

From England’s point of view Cnut’s position and empire gave them command of the entrance to the Baltic and its trade, and of the North Sea – the flood of Viking pirates had been well and truly stemmed, and most Englishmen probably considered that to be well worth a Danish king. This control gave England’s international commerce more freedom and safety that it had had for decades. Cnut, like all the good kings of the age, recognised the importance of encouraging commerce, and the importance to commerce of a strong coinage. In fact, had he lived now, it’s quite possible that Cnut would have been in favour of European monetary union, he is careful to regularise the weights of English coins to those in Scandinavia – which must have made trade easier between nations – just like monetary union. Or maybe not. If you are a Eurosceptic, not have a go at me, I’m just doing history here, not politics, OK?

Cnut’s new empire, though, was to be shortlived, and in fact Cnut had begun to lose his grip on Norway as soon as 1033, and by the time he died Magnus, one of Olaf Trygvasson’s descendents, had made himself king of Norway.

Cnut died in 1035. Despite the brutality of the manner in which he gained power, and the antipathy the English must have felt towards him at the time, Cnut managed to end up with a good reputation by the end of his reign, and by and large he has retained that reputation. The old story of Cnut trying to hold back the waves is the positive story of a king aware of his insignificant compared to God. The more I read about pre conquest England, the more I come back to Alfred’s impeccable management of his reputation, and how he made sure that all the messages we have of him are good ones. Cnut was not quite so lucky, or clever; the ASC Chronicle reveals the despair and hatred the English felt in the early years. But he did pretty well. And it has to be said that his record is impressive. He won himself a rich and prosperous kingdom, and then created a Scandinavian Empire. He was a king of international power and renown. Most importantly, he brought England peace, prosperity and the rule of law after 30 years of strife. Despite that, the chronicles are remarkably deadpan about his death – they simply record that it happens. There may have been fear and respect for Cnut, but I suspect there was little love.

Cnut’s death came at a bad moment for the succession. It is pretty clear that he had intended that Harthcnut, his son via his marriage with Emma, would rule his empire, including Denmark and England, although it is quite possible that he had intended Norway to be ruled by his first wife and her son Swein. But Harthacnut was under attack from Magnus in Norway and could not come over to England to claim his inheritance. Meanwhile Harold, the son of Cnut by his first wife Aelgifu of Northampton, was very much available, and very interested in Cnut’s throne.

Next week we’ll talk about the rather messy end of the Danish Dynasty, and get into the reign of the penultimate AS king of England, Edward the Confessor.

 

 

Cnut was a pretty complete king. Conqueror of the English, ruler of a Scandinavian empire that spanned 4 countries. And a man who knew how to win the peace as well as the war. The History of England podcast this week looks at his reign.

Cnut was probably born around 990, and by 1016 had become the ruler of England. He was to rule for the next 19 years, and in the main his years were so full or boring peace, prosperity and lack of discord that the chroniclers could find little to say about his rule.

His marriage to Aethelred the Unready’s widow, Emma of Normandy, was not only an astute political move successful move but also turned out to be a good personal choice. Astute politically because he allied himself with the English Queen; and personally because he and Emma shared the same aims and values. Emma was a power at court, and helped Cnut get the English Church on his side.

This was important because recognition as a Christian King rather than a pagan warrior was essential a part of Cnut’s campaign to be accepted as the legitimate successor to the Anglo Saxon dynasty. He did other things as well. He agreed with the witan to rule by the laws of Edgar. He issued his own law code which very clearly followed his predecessors’ codes, and their policy of accepting the different customs of the Danelaw and the rest of England.

But Cnut did have his followers to reward – after all they had fought hard for him and his father for many years. So although we see nothing like the wholesale replacement of English thegns that we will see under William the Conqueror, there is a significant influx. In the early years, Cnut’s great men are all Danes – Thorkell the Tall and Eilaf the Viking for example. But over time this changes, and Anglo Saxons such as Leofwin and Godwin gain their place in the sun. Cnut also taxed England and maintained a standing army and navy with the proceeds – some indication maybe that he was not secure at least for the first part of this reign.

Cnut spent much of his reign establishing his Scandinavian empire – and for a short period he ruled England, Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden. But it didn’t last long, and was to prove beyond the ability of his sons to maintain.

When he died in 1035, the chroniclers are remarkably deadpan about his passing. But he was a clever and successful man, who gave England a much needed respite after the years of Aethelred’s chaos. He died and was buried at Winchester, and should be seen as one of the most successful rulers of England before the conquest.

 

 

 

 

4 thoughts on “17 Cnut the Conqueror

  1. David,
    Just wanted to say excellent job on the podcast! I listen to it on my commute back and forth to work and it is very interesting. Much of this info we do not hear about in the states and I’m enjoying learning about my Anglo-Saxon heritage. Keep up the good work!
    Caleb Eaton
    Crane, Texas

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