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, born about 995. He accompanied his father on the invasion of England in 1013 and succeeded him on the throne the following year. He continued the struggle in the island until, in 1016, upon the death of King Æthelred, his rule was acknowledged; he secured it by marrying Æthelred’s widow, Emma of Normandy.
Once the work of internal consolidation was completed, Canute found himself facing the restlessness of his warriors, who chafed at inactivity after the conquest. He dismissed them and in their place created a new military organization called the Thinglid, with a core, the Hird, which became the king’s special bodyguard. The new army was formed as a knightly brotherhood governed by its own extremely strict law, the Vederlag.
When the Danish crown fell vacant in 1020, Canute returned to his ancestral homeland and was recognized as king; the regency in England was entrusted, instead of to the loyal Thorkell the Long, to a native, Godwin. In the years that followed the expansionist drive 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 in Norway—land of his ancestors—against King Olaf’s religious policy (v.), which had forcibly introduced Christianity, Canute attacked his rival. Meeting strong resistance, allied with the Swedish king Anund Jacob at the naval battle at the mouth of the Helge, he desisted from the struggle and sought to achieve his aim by simpler political means. Indeed, when he went to Rome in 1027 for the coronation of Conrad II, an agreement with the Pope and the emperor to attack Norway resulted in Olaf’s exile and recognition of Canute’s authority.
The work of the conquering king, which marked the high point of Viking and Danish expansion, was complete; yet it was not lasting. Though Canute was able to strengthen the Church in the northern lands and, through wider intercourse, to infuse England with Nordic customs, upon his death on 12 November 1035 the three crowns split apart once more. His son Sweyn succeeded him in Norway, his other son Harold Harefoot in England, and a third son, Hardecanute, in Denmark; all three had short lives and brief reigns.