CANUTO (KNUD), the Great, king of DANIMARK, ENGLAND, and NORWAY. — Son of Svend Tveskaeg, king of Denmark and England, and of Gunhild, princess of Poland, b. around 995. He accompanied his father in the invasion of England in 1013 and succeeded him on the throne the following year. He continued the struggle on the island until, in 1016, upon the death of King Ethelred, his rule was recognized; he secured it by marrying Ethelred’s widow, Emma of Normandy.
When the work of internal consolidation had been completed, C. found himself obliged to confront the restlessness of his men, who were burdened by inactivity after the conquest. He dismissed them and, in their place, created the new military organization known as the Tinglid, with a nucleus, the Hird, which served as the king’s special guard. The new army was constituted in the form of a chivalric brotherhood, governed by its own most rigorous law, called Vederlag.
The Danish crown having become vacant, in 1020 C. returned to his ancient homeland and was recognized there as king: the regency in England was entrusted, in place of the faithful Thorkil the Tall, to a native, Goodwin. In the following years the movement of expansion continued: against the Slavs at the mouth of the Vistula and in support of the anti-Polish struggle of the German king Conrad II, from whom he obtained the cession of part of Schleswig. Then, taking advantage of the reaction that in Norway, the land of his ancestors, had been provoked by the religious policy of King Olaf (v.), through the almost forcible introduction of Christianity, he attacked his rival. But, having encountered his strong resistance and allied himself with the Swedish king Anund Jacob, in the naval battle at the mouth of the Helge he abandoned the struggle in order to achieve his aim by simpler political means. And, in fact, when he came to Rome in 1027 for the coronation of Conrad II, the agreement with the Pope and the Emperor for the attack on Norway led to Olaf’s exile and his own recognition.
The work of the conquering king, which marked the highest point of Viking and Danish expansion, was complete; but it did not endure. Although C. was able to strengthen the Church in the northern lands and, as a result of the new breadth of relations, imbue England with Nordic customs, after his death, which occurred on 12 November 1035, the three crowns were divided once again. His son Sven succeeded him in Norway, his other son Harold Hanfoot in England, and finally his third son Hardeknud in Denmark. All three had short lives and brief reigns.