Portal:Denmark/Selected biography/2011/2



Canute the Great (d. November 12, 1035) was a Danish king of England, Denmark, Norway, and Sigtuna in Sweden, as well as overlord of Pomerania, and the Mark of Schleswig. He, in treaty with the Holy Roman Emperors, Henry II and Conrad II, as well as, in good relations with the papacy, was the ruler of a Scandinavian domain which saw the Kingdom of Denmark at its height. Though after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history, historian Norman F. Cantor has made the paradoxical statement that he was "the most effective king in Anglo-Saxon history".

Cnut was of Danish and Slavic descent. His father was Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark (which gave Cnut the patronym Sweynsson, Old Norse Sveinsson). Cnut's mother was the daughter of the first duke of the Polans, Mieszko I; her name may have been Świętosława, but the Oxford DNB article on Cnut states that her name is unknown.

As a prince of Denmark, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe. His accession to the Danish throne 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. The Swedish city Sigtuna was held by Cnut. He had coins struck which called him king there, but there is no narrative record of his occupation.

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