CANUTE (Knud) the Great, King of Denmark, England, and Norway. - Son of Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark and England, and of Gunhild, princess of Poland, b. around 995. A companion of his father in the invasion of England of 1013, he succeeded him on the throne the following year. He continued the struggle on the island, until in 1016, on the death of King Ethelred, his rule was recognized, which he secured by marrying Ethelred's widow, Emma of Normandy.
When the work of internal consolidation was completed, C. found himself having to face the restlessness of his men, to whom inactivity, after the conquest, was burdensome. He dismissed them, and in their place created the new military organization called the Tinglid, with a nucleus, the Hird, which was the king's special guard. The new army was constituted in the form of a knightly brotherhood, governed by its own very severe law, called the Vederlag.
The Danish crown having fallen 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 king of Germany Conrad II, from whom he obtained the cession of part of Schleswig. Then, taking advantage of the reaction that in Norway, land of his forebears, the religious policy of King Olaf (v.) had aroused, through the almost forced introduction of Christianity, he attacked his rival. But, having met with this one's strong resistance, and having allied himself with the Swedish king Anund Jacob, in the naval battle at the mouth of the Helge he desisted from the struggle, in order to attain his goal by simpler political means. And, in fact, having come to Rome in 1027 for the coronation of Conrad II, the agreement with the Pope and the Emperor for the attack on Norway was the cause of Olaf's being sent into exile and of his recognition.
The work of the conquering king, which marked the highest moment of Viking and Danish expansion, was accomplished: but it did not last. If C. was able to strengthen the Church in the lands of the north and, through the new breadth of relations, to permeate England with Nordic customs, at his death, which occurred on 12 Nov. 1035, there was a return to the division of the three crowns. His son Sweyn succeeded him in Norway, his other son Harold Harefoot in England, and finally the third, Harthacnut, in Denmark. All three had a brief life and reign.
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Pier Fausto Palumbo