Cnut the Great: Ruler of The North Sea Empire
Cnut the Great: birth c.990/crowned King of Denmark 1018; King of England 1016 to 1035; King of Norway 1028-1035/death 1035
Spouse(s): Ælfgifu of Northampton and Emma of Normandy (m. 1017)
House: Knýtlinga/Father, Sweyn Forkbeard /Mother, Gunhild of Wenden
Children: Svein Alfivasen (with Ælgifu) Harald Harefod (with Ælgifu) Hardeknut (with Emma) Gunhilda of Denmark with (Emma)
 | The “House of Cnut the Great” refers to the House of Knýtlinga (also known as the Jelling dynasty or House of Gorm), a Viking royal family that ruled the North Sea Empire, a powerful union of Denmark, Norway, and England with Cnut the Great as its most famous member. He was a king who ruled from 1016 to 1035 and was the son of Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark. The dynasty began with Harthacnut I and his son Gorm the Old, who were central to the unification of Denmark. At Left: Canute, line engraving by George Vertue. |
Cnut, also known as Cnut the Great and Canute, was a powerful monarch who reigned over England, Denmark, and Norway in the early 11th century. His rule brought together these three kingdoms, forming what is now known as the North Sea Empire.
Rise of the Empire
 | English Conquest (1016): As the son of Sweyn Forkbeard, Cnut continued his father’s invasion and fully conquered England, becoming its king. Danish Throne (1018): When his brother Harald died, Cnut also became king of Denmark, uniting England and Denmark under his rule. Norwegian Conquest (1028): In 1028, Cnut’s armies drove King Olaf II from Norway, allowing Cnut to be crowned king. He installed a deputy to govern Norway for him. |
| The North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, c. 1030 |
Extent of the North Sea Empire
At the height of Cnut’s power, his empire included territories and claims that formed a strategic and economic powerhouse in Northern Europe. As a result of his conquests, Cnut the Great forged a North Sea Empire, a personal union of the kingdoms of England, Denmark, and Norway, which lasted from 1016 to 1035. His power was based on control of the seas, with England as the administrative and economic center. The empire was ultimately short-lived, disintegrating shortly after his death.
Core Territories (Ruled as King)
England: Conquered in 1016, England was the heart of Cnut’s empire, providing stability and wealth.
Denmark: Inherited in 1018, the kingdom of Denmark was an essential part of his family’s legacy.
Norway: Cnut extended his dominion by claiming the crown of Norway in 1028, after defeating their king, Olaf Haraldsson. Claimed in 1028, Norway represented the culmination of Cnut’s Scandinavian ambitions.
Vassals and Areas of Influence
Scotland: After leading an army into Scotland in 1027, Cnut received the submission of three Scottish kings, extending his political influence.
Ireland: Cnut maintained significant influence over the Norse-Gaelic settlements in the Irish Sea region, including Dublin, where coins bearing his image were minted.
Parts of Sweden: After a victory over Swedish forces at the Battle of the Helgeå, Cnut claimed to rule over “some of the Swedes” in a 1027 letter.
Baltic coast: Cnut also claimed some level of control over the coastal areas around the Baltic Sea, which were populated by the Wends.
North Sea Empire of Canut the Great
Cnut the Great’s Rise to Power
Like his father Sweyn Forkbeard, Cnut began fighting at an early age and was described in many Norwegian sagas as a fierce fighting warrior. In the first months of his reign Cnut ruthlessly eliminated anyone who might challenge him. This included Eadric, the two-faced nobleman Edmund should have executed years before.
Edmund Ironside
 | King Æthelred of England died on 23 April 1016: the nobility and citizens present in London elected Edmund king, while the rest of the English nobility declared their allegiance to Cnut. It was not until the summer of 1016 that any serious fighting was done: Edmund fought five battles against the Danes and their supporters, ending in his defeat on 18 October at the Battle of Assandun, after which they agreed to divide the kingdom, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the rest of the country. Edmund died shortly afterwards on 30 November, leaving two sons, Edward and Edmund; however, Cnut became king of all England, and exiled the remaining members of Edmund’s family. |
| Battle of Assandun, showing Edmund Ironside (left) and Cnut the Great, 14th century |
After the death of Edmund Ironside, the remaining members of the English royal family were killed or driven into exile, and his wife and young children fled to Hungary. Æthelred’s widow, Emma, had taken refuge in Normandy during these dangerous years, but in 1017 AD Cnut sent for her, and she agreed to marry him – her husband’s enemy. By marrying Emma, sister of the Duke of Normandy, Cnut gained an alliance with a powerful neighbor and neutralized any challenge from the children Emma had birthed while married to Æthelred. Cnut already had two sons with Ælfgifu of Northampton, and he did not repudiate her or their children after his marriage to Emma. However, Emma was acknowledged as his queen, and he seems to have made an assurance to her that any son she might have by him would succeed him as king. Cnut and Emma went on to have two children, Harthacnut and Gunnhild.
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| Ælfgifu of Northampton Scene from Bayeux Tapestry | Emma of Normandy |
The first year of Cnut’s reign saw political executions and heavy taxation imposed on England, but by the end of 1017 his power seems to have been secure, and from then on, he adopted a conciliatory approach to the country he had conquered. He divided England into four earldoms, appointing his loyal supporters – both English and Danish – as earls of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, and East Anglia. In 1018, at a meeting in Oxford, an agreement was reached that declared Cnut had “established peace and friendship between the Danes and the English and put an end to all their former enmity.” Both English and Danes agreed to follow the law-code created by Edgar, Æthelred’s father, and “to love King Cnut with justice and loyalty.”
 King Cnut | In 1018, King Cnut held a council, or Witenagemot, in Oxford where he met with English ecclesiastical and lay authorities to establish his rule. During this meeting, he agreed to uphold “the laws of Edgar,” a commitment that paved the way for the Cnutian law code issued in Winchester in 1020, which structured the religious and secular laws of England under his reign. |
Cnut maintained power over those he conquered by promoting the English who supported him, keeping in place existing English laws, promoting churchmen as his advisors, donating to the churches, and ending the taxes that England had been paying to the Danes. He stopped widescale destruction of the land, and refrained from imposing his culture on the English, maintaining the English language. He released a code of law in 1020 which is to this day the most comprehensive record of Anglo-Saxon laws. He converted to Christianity and, in 1027, he travelled to Rome to attend the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II. There he was welcomed with honor by the pope and Conrad II and was treated as a northern emperor. He solidified their support by arranging for his daughter Gunnhild to marry Conrad’s son and negotiated with Pope John XIX to reduce tolls on English merchants and those making pilgrimages to Rome. Scholars report that Cnut displayed reverence and humility upon his return to England from Rome, and he promised his Saxon subjects that he would rule with mercy and justice.
 | The story “King Canute and the Tide”is an apocryphal anecdote meant to illustrate the piety or humility of King Canute the Great (also written as Cnut), recorded in the 12th century by Henry of Huntingdon.In the story, Canute demonstrates to his flattering courtiers that he has no control over the elements (the incoming tide), explaining that secular power is vain compared to the supreme power of God. The episode is frequently alluded to in contexts where the futility of “trying to stop the tide” of an inexorable event is pointed out, but usually misrepresenting Canute as believing he had supernatural powers, when Huntingdon’s story in fact relates the opposite. Source: King Canute and the Tide |
Historians view Cnut as one of the most powerful kings of the age. By 1028 AD, he was king of England, Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden, and may also have had some authority over Scotland and Ireland – an empire matched by few rulers before or since. They can find no evidence of English rebellion against him, and no ethnic tensions associated with the Normans some fifty years later. Because of his extensive empire, Cnut’s court was multilingual to an extent unparalleled in pre-Conquest England. The king’s laws and official pronouncements continued to be issued in English, but Cnut was a patron of Old Norse poetry, too; his poets praised him as “the greatest prince under the heavens.”
Angels crown Cnut as he and Emma of Normandy present a large gold cross to Hyde Abbey in Winchester.
From the New Minster Liber Vitae in the British Library.
Emma was also a patron of literature; she commissioned a Latin history of Cnut’s conquest and reign known as the Encomium Emmae Reginae (‘In Praise of Queen Emma’). Cnut’s court in England was a meeting place for people from across his empire and beyond, including Danes, Norwegians, and Icelanders as well as Emma and her Norman followers. Cnut ruled England for nineteen years and during that time both England and Scandinavia saw prosperity. Historian Norman Cantor describes him as “the most effective king in Anglo-Saxon history.”
Cnut died at Shaftesbury on 12 November 1035, aged probably not much more than forty. He was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester (now Winchester Cathedral), alongside some of the first kings of Wessex. His tomb does not survive, and his remains have suffered a disturbed history: in 1642, when the cathedral was invaded by Parliamentarian soldiers, the bones of Cnut and other early monarchs buried there were removed from their resting-place and scattered across the floor of the cathedral. The bones were collected up again, but for centuries were not identified. Cnut’s mortal remains, together with those of Emma, their son Harthacnut, and a number of others, form part of a confused jumble of bones kept in mortuary chests in the cathedral. [Eleanor Parker]
(Photo: One of the mortuary chests in Winchester Cathedral, known as Foxe’s Boxes. This is the one that originally contained Cnut, written here as “Canute”).
Source: Brian Klaas
When Cnut died, his wife Emma hoped the crown would pass to her favorite son, Harthacnut. However, Harthacnut was serving as King of Denmark (1035-1042 AD) and was unable to travel to his coronation because his Danish kingdom was under threat of invasion by King Magnus I of Norway and Anund Jacob of Sweden. England’s ealdormen favored the idea of installing Harold Harefoot temporarily as regent, due to the difficulty of Harthacnute’s absence. Harald was the son of Cnut and his first wife, Ælfgifu of Northampton. Harald agreed to become Regent and rule until Harthacnut arrived in England. Two years into his Regency, Harald had enough support to have himself declared king and send Emma into exile in Flanders in 1036.
