Canute, Viking Invasions

In 1016, Canute was crowned king of England. A short period of bloodshed ensued, and most of the remaining House of Wessex were put to death. Only a few, including Edward, Aethelred’s younger son, managed to flee to safety in Normandy. The new king married Aethelred’s widow Emma, and imposed a staggering Danegeld payment of £72,000 on the English. This was institutionalised as the heregeld, an annual tax collected to pay for a standing army. Canute then began installing Norse earls into the old Saxon provinces. In Mercia, Eadric finally met his end, executed by Canute and replaced with a more trustworthy deputy.

In 1018, Canute inherited the throne of Denmark. He spent the next few years in Scandinavia, eventually managing to get himself crowned king of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. Twelve years after ascending to the English throne, Canute controlled a large North Sea Empire. This was a huge boon for traders, and now that peace had returned, English ports such as Bristol and London once again enjoyed access to the great Eurasian trade routes plied by Scandinavian merchants. 

Canute was also, unlike his father, a Christian. During this time, the faith had spread far among the Vikings, thanks especially to Olaf Tryggvason, following his treaty with Aethelred. Slowly but surely, the Vikings were becoming integrated into Christendom. The worst of the great Viking raids in Western Europe were coming to an end, and settled kings were keen to accept the Norsemen into the Christian brotherhood and the institutions of the Catholic Church, if only for the fact that it was forbidden to shed the blood of fellow Christians.

Canute seems to have taken his faith seriously. A famous story has the king feeling fed up with his obsequious courtiers. One day, he bullied them into agreeing that if he asked the sea to stop coming in, it would obey. Canute had his throne set up on the beach and issued stern orders to the sea to go back out until he got his feet wet. The point was simple: though he was king and held earthly authority, not even he could defy the laws of God that governed the natural world. 

Beyond this, Canute gave endowments to monasteries and rebuilt those that had suffered from Viking raids. Then, in 1028, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, the centre of Western Christianity. After his meeting with the Pope, his message to the other Christian kings of Europe was clear: the North Sea Empire was a paid-up member of the Christian community, and the Vikings were no longer the terrifying Pagan marauders of an earlier age. 

Rather than importing the Scandinavian way of doing things, Canute ruled using the laws, customs and bureaucracy established under Alfred and Aethelstan. This, along with his centralisation projects and establishment of a standing army, created a more cohesive idea of what England meant as both a polity and a national identity. 

Canute’s subjects enjoyed a long, peaceful reign, highly unusual for the period. What’s more, on his death, there was a smooth transition of power. As his son Harold Harefoot took the throne, it seemed like the North Sea Empire was here to stay. At our story’s end, the Vikings rule in England, but in their laws, religion, alliances, and customs, they resemble their English subjects more than their reaving ancestors.

After Harold’s death, Canute’s other son, Harthacanute, claimed the English throne. Harthacanute died two years later, and in the ensuing chaos, the great North Sea Empire broke up. Aethelred’s son Edward the Confessor returned from Norman exile and restored the House of Wessex. The Saxons were in control once again, but rumours abounded, especially on the continent, that the new English king had promised the Norman duke William the Bastard his throne. One age comes to an end, whilst another waits in the wings. The Normans, the last and greatest of the Vikings, prepare to make their entrance.