Chapter 10. Cnut’s Interaction with Winchester: A Reassessment

Barbara Yorke

This chapter will examine the surviving references to Cnut and his involvement with Winchester, finding that it was a rather less significant place for him than has often been suggested – until the very end of his reign, when it was chosen as his burial place. The development of a family mausoleum for Cnut in Old Minster, Winchester, helped convey the message that his family were the legitimate successors of West Saxon kings who were also buried there. But who carried such ideas forward? The desire of modern commentators to connect Cnut with Winchester may have led to a downplaying of the role of his queen, Emma, whose links with the city, and alliances with certain bishops of Winchester, were more deeply rooted and longer-lasting.

Introduction

That Winchester was an important royal and ecclesiastical center by the time Cnut became king of England is already well established in the secondary literature. In histories of Winchester, Cnut takes his place within a succession of royal patrons of the city and its major ecclesiastical foundations.¹ In studies of Cnut’s reign, his relationship with Winchester has been used to illustrate how the king negotiated his relations with the Anglo-Saxon establishment, and how he situated himself as a Christian ruler in the West Saxon tradition through gifts to major churches.² Three factors, in particular, have made Cnut’s relationship with Winchester seem especially significant. First, there is his burial in the Anglo-Saxon cathedral known as the Old Minster (see Figure 10.1), together with members of his family, which revived a tradition of royal burial in Winchester that may stretch back to the seventh century.

Figure 10.1: The Winchester Cathedral mortuary chest bearing the names of King Cnut and Queen Emma. Photograph © John Crook.

Second, there is the undoubted fact that Winchester has produced a greater concentration of Scandinavian sculpture and artefacts dating to the first half of the eleventh century than anywhere else in southern England, with the possible exception of London (see Figures 10.3 and 10.5). Extrapolating from these finds and the long history of Winchester as a city with royal connections, Matthew Townend suggested that Winchester was the main center of court culture during the reign of Cnut, the place, in other words, where the skaldic poems composed during the 1020s in praise of Cnut should be contextualised.³ Finally, the one manuscript portrait of Cnut that has survived is to be found in a Winchester manuscript. This is the famous illustration that appears as the frontispiece to the Liber Vitae of New Minster, in Winchester, of Cnut and his wife Emma (whom the English called Ælfgifu) presenting a golden cross to this monastery (Figure 10.2).⁴ The frequent reproduction of this illustration in books and articles relating to Cnut, together with that of the mortuary chest bearing his name from Winchester cathedral (Figure 10.1), has served to reinforce an impression of the centrality of Winchester to his reign.

Figure 10.2: Cnut the Great and Queen Emma present a cross to the New Minster, Winchester. Vitae of the New Minster 1031, prefatory image, BL Stowe 944, fol 6r. Photograph: British Library.

Is there anything that a chapter on Cnut and Winchester can add to this well-established story? Although certain “facts,” such as his burial in the city and the presence there of Scandinavian sculpture, are unassailable, there are other “facts” which have perhaps been too readily assumed rather than demonstrated. How often can Cnut be shown to have been in Winchester? Were there periods of his reign in which Winchester was more significant to him than in others? How did his patronage of Winchester’s religious houses compare with that of other major ecclesiastical communities? Can we distinguish Cnut’s role in Winchester from what the bishops and abbots of Winchester wished it to be, either during his reign or retrospectively? Do we need to distinguish Cnut’s role in Winchester from those of others associated with him, such as Queen Emma, their son Harthacnut, and Earl Godwine of Wessex? These are some of the issues that will be explored below, issues that must be considered before we can judge as fully as is possible the relationship between Cnut and Winchester.

Winchester before Cnut

Before going further into this analysis, it is necessary to review something of Winchester’s history prior to Cnut’s succession and to consider how the city would have appeared to him. Fortunately, it is not necessary to discuss the earlier Anglo-Saxon evidence in detail because we have the excellent overviews of Martin Biddle, whose major research excavations in the city between 1961 and 1971 provide the foundation for much of what can be said about its early history.⁵ Equally important are surviving documents produced by Winchester’s two major male religious houses, the Old and New Minsters, though one also has to recognize that these houses were not above adjusting aspects of their history to reflect changing circumstances, or ideals, rather than reality.⁶ We can note the importance of Winchester in the Roman past as Venta Belgarum, and how its Roman origins are likely to have been a major reason for the choice of Winchester as the new center of the West Saxon see ca. 660, when its location at Dorchester-on-Thames was no longer tenable.⁷ Although the Roman street system was lost during the major retraction of settlement in the fifth and sixth centuries, its walls were a more enduring legacy and a major reason for Winchester becoming a major defensive site (“burh”) during the period of Viking attacks in the ninth century. Winchester is one of the largest burhs listed in the Burghal Hidage,⁸ and Martin Biddle’s excavations, combined with contemporary charter evidence, have suggested that a grid of streets was laid out at the same time as the refurbishment of defenses (Map 10.1).⁹ King Alfred (871–899) was the obvious choice to be credited as the progenitor of the scheme, but more recent excavations at Staple Gardens in the north-west of the walled city, and in particular a series of radio-carbon dates from the site, have suggested that the refurbishment of Winchester began earlier: around the middle of the ninth century, that is, probably during the reigns of Alfred’s father, Æthelwulf (839–858), and his elder brothers Æthelbald (855–860) and Æthelbert (860–865).¹⁰ Some of the work is likely to have been carried out during the time when Swithun was bishop of Winchester (852–862). An eleventh-century Latin poem credits Swithun with the rebuilding of the town’s east gate.¹¹ King Alfred undoubtedly deserves credit for establishing an integrated system of burhs garrisoned from the surrounding countryside for which Winchester may have provided a blueprint.¹²

The family of Alfred also founded major new religious houses in the city; here the main initiator was Alfred’s son, King Edward the Elder (899–924). Edward’s mother, Ealhswith, following her husband’s death, began the foundation of a nunnery on an estate she possessed in the city. However, as Ealhswith herself died in 901, much of the work on the Nunnaminster is likely to have been carried forward by her son Edward.¹³ Edward was the active founder of New Minster immediately to the north of the cathedral site of Old Minster (see Map 10.1), though the new religious community may have been developed from a more modest foundation created by Alfred for his Frankish adviser Grimbald.¹⁴ New Minster seems to have been intended from the first to be the burial church of Edward and his family, and the body of Alfred was moved there from Old Minster, which had previously been used intermittently for royal burials.¹⁵

Map 10.1: Plan of Late Saxon Winchester (north at the top). © Martin Biddle.

New Minster seems to have been a major basilican church of Carolingian type, while Old Minster beside it was a smaller, cruciform church built at the time of its foundation in the seventh century (although it seems to have been given a more impressive western façade soon after the foundation of New Minster).¹⁶ The major rebuilding of Old Minster occurred during the episcopate of the formidable Bishop Æthelwold (963–984), who reformed all three major religious communities in Winchester as monastic foundations and spearheaded major ecclesiastical reforms in the country as a whole.¹⁷ Kings were patrons of Æthelwold, but he was undoubtedly the main architect of the transformation of the religious quarter of Winchester. One may note here that although both kings and bishops were major patrons in Winchester, relations between them were not always harmonious. A significant factor in Edward’s foundation of New Minster may have been the poor relations of both his father and himself with Bishop Denewulf of Winchester (878×879–908).¹⁸ The support of Denewulf’s successor Frithestan (909–932×933) for the sons from King Edward’s second marriage may have been a significant reason why two sons from Edward’s first and third marriages were buried outside Winchester, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire and Glastonbury in Somerset respectively.¹⁹ One could go on, if space permitted, but it is perhaps sufficient to say that there were turbulent politics during the tenth century in which the bishops of Winchester were often closely involved, as were leading families among the nobility, for some of whom Winchester was also a major religious and political centre.

Whether Cnut was aware of such undercurrents we do not know, but he could readily have been informed of them by his Anglo-Saxon advisers, not to mention his wife, Emma, who had been married previously to King Æthelred II (978–1016) and had received from him an estate in the center of Winchester in 1012.²⁰ In appearance, Winchester would have conformed to many of Cnut’s expectations of a royal centre, having many of the main features of the royal residence of Jelling in Denmark: defenses, monumental religious structures, royal burials, service industries.²¹ As he traveled further within Europe, Cnut would have appreciated the architectural similarities of Winchester with other leading centres of Roman origin. He would even recognize among the dedications of Winchester’s churches some, such as St. Lawrence, St. George, St. Pantaleon, and St. Maurice and his Companions, that were also favored in Ottonian centres, which may have been a sign of the West Saxon dynasty’s wider family connections.²² Winchester would have been the largest town that Cnut encountered in southern England, apart from London, and the latter may not have possessed such impressive ecclesiastical architecture. Specialist craftsmen, merchants, pilgrims, and people from the linked country estates would have been part of its admixture of inhabitants, together with clerics, nuns, and those associated with the administration of the shire.²³ Winchester had a number of potential uses or significances for the new Anglo-Danish regime, but how did Cnut make use of it?

Cnut in Winchester

There almost certainly was a royal residence in Winchester before the time of Cnut, but its existence may only be inferred rather than demonstrated from the surviving written and archaeological evidence.²⁴ Direct references to a royal residence come from the reigns of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066) and William I (1066–1087); records of the latter’s extensions to the Anglo-Saxon royal palace imply that it lay immediately to the west of the Old and New Minsters (see Map 10.1). The public land, for which Edward the Elder needed the permission of the witan before it could be used for the building of New Minster, may have been part of the royal palace site, and the siting of New Minster so close to Old Minster may have been due to the presence of the palace site immediately to the west.²⁵ As Martin Biddle has argued, it is plausible that Winchester possessed a royal residence from the seventh century, when Old Minster was founded, but there has not been the opportunity to examine the putative site archaeologically; as it now lies within the cathedral cemetery, and probably partly under the war memorial, excavation seems a remote possibility. One can point to various occasions of royal assembly prior to the reign of Cnut when use of a royal residence in Winchester would have been appropriate, but one should also note the presence of royal vills within a few miles of the city, for instance, at Kings Worthy and King’s Somborne.²⁶

One apparently promising reference to Cnut using Winchester as a royal residence should probably be discarded. This is the reference in the late-twelfth-century Winchester Annals of Richard of Devizes, a monk of Winchester cathedral, to Cnut choosing Winchester as his main residence (“regni sui solium habuit in Wintonia”).²⁷ Some of the historical entries in the Winchester Annals were taken from known sources such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, while others (such as the Winchester residence reference) appear plausible, but John Gillingham has demonstrated that it would be unwise to treat the unique material in the Annals as reliable.²⁸ He has shown that Richard was heavily influenced by the pseudo-historical work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose approach he sought to blend with Winchester traditions. Although in modern times the historical sections of the Winchester Annals have been printed separately from the seemingly more fantastical earlier sections (that included, for instance, Cerdic’s rededication of a Roman temple in his “capital of Winchester” to Woden), Gillingham shows how similar preoccupations unite all parts of the work. These include locating within Winchester notable events, such as the recognition of Egbert’s bretwalda-ship in 825, that are not claimed for other places. Richard’s claim that Winchester was Cnut’s seat has verbal echoes of a comparable claim in the Encomium Emmae Reginae that refers to London.²⁹

Putting the Winchester Annals to one side, we are left with a meager haul of references to Cnut’s presence in Winchester, although the number is greater than for some earlier kings, especially when it is borne in mind that Cnut spent a considerable part of his reign abroad and that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entries for his reign are brief. When it is noted that we possess only one direct reference to King Alfred having been in the city, it can be appreciated that the references we do possess for Cnut may well stand for more numerous unrecorded visits. Nevertheless, as they stand, they suggest that Cnut was most engaged with Winchester at the beginning and towards the end of his reign.

The most significant reference to Cnut’s presence in Winchester occurs in the preface to his law code I–II Cnut, which indicates that it was issued at a council held at Christmas in Winchester.³⁰ Patrick Wormald estimated that the year must have been either 1020 or 1021.³¹ The law code was in effect a codification and guarantee of existing Anglo-Saxon law, brought together by Archbishop Wulfstan of York, who had played such a major role in producing the legislation of Cnut’s Anglo-Saxon predecessor Æthelred II. The Winchester assembly may be viewed as the successor to the assembly at Oxford in 1018, at which the Danes and the English reached agreement and Cnut agreed to honor the laws of Æthelred’s father, King Edgar (957–975). Cnut’s “Letter to the English” of 1020 also promised to uphold established Anglo-Saxon law and traditions.³² The Winchester assembly of 1020 or 1021 can therefore be seen as a final stage in the normalization of Cnut’s rule in England. The timing of the assembly at a major Christian festival underscored the binding nature of the agreement between Cnut and his English subjects. It was highly appropriate that it should have been held in the premier see of the West Saxons, where both Edgar and Æthelred II as kings of the English had presided over major assemblies.³³

The two other potential references to Cnut being in Winchester are of less moment and less certainty, and relate to his patronage of the Winchester minsters; this will be discussed more fully in the next section. Goscelin’s late-eleventh-century account of the translation and miracles of St. Mildrith (also known as Mildreth, or Mildred) records, as an example of Cnut’s piety, that on one occasion when celebrating Easter in Old Minster, Winchester, Cnut refused to wear his crown and placed it on a crucifix, on Christ’s head, instead.³⁴ Goscelin appears to date the event to 1035,³⁵ but Richard Sharpe has argued that Goscelin’s rather confused chronology would better fit the date 1030.³⁶ Goscelin follows Cnut’s crowning of the crucifix with an account of a visit by him to Rome during which Mildrith saved Cnut from drowning.³⁷ Cnut is known to have visited Rome in 1027, so if Goscelin’s account is to be trusted, the king must have made a second visit to Rome in 1030 or 1035 that is not otherwise recorded.³⁸ There are records of visits by Cnut to Saint-Omer and Cologne that cannot be easily fitted with the 1027 visit to Rome, and so could support the idea of a second visit there, while the D version of the Chronicle for 1031, although it has been suggested that its record is for 1027 misplaced, records a visit to Rome.³⁹ One can see that Goscelin’s account is somewhat problematic, and it is not clear what his source of information was. It may have been one of the oral traditions surrounding Cnut as a pious Christian king that were picked up, and developed further, by Anglo-Norman historians such as Henry of Huntingdon, who is otherwise the main source of the story in which Cnut fails to turn the tide.⁴⁰ Although it is plausible that Cnut celebrated Easter in Old Minster towards the end of his reign, the Translatio of St. Mildrith can hardly be seen as cast-iron evidence for his presence in the city.

A final possible record of a visit by Cnut to Winchester is also problematic. The frontispiece of the Liber Vitae of New Minster, believed to have been produced in 1031, shows Cnut and Emma presenting a large gold cross to the admiring New Minster community with the support and approval of God, his angels, the Virgin Mary, and St. Peter (Figure 10.2). But does the illustration record an actual ceremony at which Cnut and Emma made the gift? The Liber Vitae itself provides no help with the interpretation of the image, and it can only be an inference that, as the gift of the cross is recorded in the frontispiece, it was linked directly with the production of the Liber Vitae.⁴¹ A lavish ceremony of presentation could be seen as part of a narrative of ostentatious piety that has been identified as a feature of Cnut’s kingship.⁴² The frontispiece presents Cnut and Emma modeled on Ottonian donor portraits, and the act of cross-giving, like the alleged crowning of the crucifix, could be seen as fitting with influences on Cnut’s performance of kingship from Ottonian imperial piety in the latter part of his reign, after his journey to Rome in 1027 and attendance at the coronation of Conrad II.⁴³ However, both the possible performances of ostentatious piety by Cnut on visits to Winchester are plausible but not proven.

Cnut’s Patronage of the Winchester Minsters

Charters provide a means of assessing how Cnut’s patronage of the Winchester minsters can be compared with his support for other major ecclesiastical communities in England, although Cnut was not especially generous in his land grants to English churches. The Winchester religious houses may have been included in the submission to Cnut at Southampton immediately after the death of King Æthelred: this submission is recorded by John of Worcester.⁴⁴ Subsequently, “Wessex” submitted to Edmund Ironside, but John of Worcester believed that the men of Hampshire and Wiltshire fought on the Danish side at the battle of Assandun in 1016, in which their ealdorman Ælfric was killed.⁴⁵ The Winchester religious communities do not seem to have been among those which Cnut considered had opposed him;⁴⁶ no reparations are recorded, but he does not seem to have conspicuously rewarded them either. New Minster did succeed in 1019 in securing the restoration of an estate at Drayton, Hampshire, which Cnut had given to a lay claimant, probably a kinsman of the original donors, soon after he had come to power.⁴⁷ Abbot Byrtmær of New Minster is attested as first or second of the listed abbots in charters of Cnut (until his death in 1030), a ranking that implies that he had a significant role in the witan,⁴⁸ but New Minster received no further gifts of land. Old Minster’s only recorded gift of land from Cnut was a modest estate of three hides at Bishop’s Hull in Somerset granted in 1033.⁴⁹ A renewal of Old Minster’s privileges is dated to 1035, but seemingly contained no new grants of land.⁵⁰ The renewal may well have a genuine basis, but like a number of such Old Minster records of grants of privileges it seems to show signs of later improvement.

Winchester seems to have fared better from gifts of treasure. The gift of the gold cross to New Minster has already been mentioned. Although the cross is shown as a plain gold object (Figure 10.2), it is usually assumed to be identical to the great jeweled cross of gold and silver that was destroyed in the siege of Winchester in 1141.⁵¹ William of Malmesbury recorded that, after it was damaged in the siege, its remains yielded five hundred marks of silver and thirty of gold.⁵² Relic donations made by Cnut and Emma are also recorded in the New Minster Liber Vitae.⁵³ A sixteenth-century manuscript records that Cnut also gave “duas imagines magnas auro argentoque bene ornatus” (two large statues beautifully decorated in gold and silver) and four fine vestments.⁵⁴ It has also been suggested that the splendidly decorated Grimbald Gospels, which were certainly in the possession of New Minster in the eleventh century, were a gift from Cnut.⁵⁵ They are among the de luxe manuscripts produced by Eadui Basan at Canterbury, which Sandy Heslop has suggested were commissioned by Cnut and Emma.⁵⁶ Not surprisingly, Cnut and Emma were among the patrons to be remembered in the prayers of the New Minster community, as was also Cnut’s sister Santslave (Świętosława).⁵⁷

Old Minster is also said to have received generous gifts from Cnut. The Winchester Annals record the gift of a richly decorated shrine for the relics of St. Birinus, the founder of the West Saxon see at Dorchester-on-Thames, whose relics had been moved to Winchester by the early eighth century, as well as a large effigy and silver candelabrum.⁵⁸ Admittedly, the Winchester Annals have already been referred to as a potentially unreliable source of information, but their claim here is commensurate with the type of gifts recorded for New Minster. William of Malmesbury commented that Cnut “Wintoniae maxime munificentiae suae magnificentiam ostendit, ubi tanta intulit ut moles metallorum terreat aduenarum animos, splendor gemmarum reuerberet intuentium oculos” (exhibited especially at Winchester the munificence of his generosity, where his offerings were such that strangers were alarmed by the masses of precious metal and their eyes dazzled as they look at the flashing gems.)⁵⁹ However, William goes on to say that such gifts were actually organized by Queen Emma from the treasure that was at her disposal.

The Winchester minsters may have received some dazzling treasures (perhaps especially because of Emma’s links with Winchester, which are considered more fully below), but the grants of land that would have come directly from Cnut, approved by the witan, are decidedly meager. Other communities were more favored, especially those with saints in whom Cnut seems to have been particularly interested, such as St. Cuthbert at Durham and St. Edmund at Bury.⁶⁰ The recipient of Cnut’s greatest ecclesiastical patronage was undoubtedly Canterbury, to which the relics of Archbishop Ælfheah, slain by the Danish army in London in 1012, were translated with much pomp and ceremony by Cnut, Emma, and their son Harthacnut in 1023.⁶¹ A major factor in Cnut’s favoritism towards Canterbury must have been his good working relationship with both Archbishop Lyfing (1013–1020) and his successor Æthelnoth (1020–1038), for all the likelihood that the latter was the brother of Ealdorman Æthelweard of western Wessex, who had been outlawed by Cnut in 1020.⁶² Both Lyfing and Æthelnoth were the recipients of far more generous grants of land than had been made to Winchester.⁶³ Cnut is said to have made a visit to Christ Church sometime between 1017 and 1020, during which he laid a charter guaranteeing the archbishop’s freedoms on the altar of Christ Church.⁶⁴ Æthelnoth was the recipient of even more generous gifts: five separate estates and, it would appear, substantial rights in the port of Sandwich and a royal crown.⁶⁵ It would also appear that Æthelnoth acted as de facto earl in Kent.⁶⁶ St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, received a coveted gift of the former royal nunnery site at Minster-in-Thanet including the relics of its premier saint Mildrith.⁶⁷ Without the existing ties to the Wessex heartland of his Anglo-Saxon predecessors, it must have seemed appropriate to Cnut to focus his patronage on the leader of the English church. Canterbury was undoubtedly the preeminent focus of his involvement with the Church in southern England.

Winchester as Burial Place of Cnut and his Family

There was one aspect of Winchester that does seem to have been of personal significance to Cnut, and that was its history as a place of royal burial. Winchester had been used intermittently for royal burial probably since the seventh century and certainly from the eighth, but its use had never been exclusive and a range of other religious foundations in Wessex had also been used. There was a significant concentration of royal burials at New Minster, which seems to have been founded by King Edward the Elder (899–924) to serve as a place of burial for himself, his father King Alfred (871–899), and his mother Ealhswith, plus other members of his immediate family.⁶⁸ The burials appear to have been grouped in or around a tomb-structure (“sacellum”) that contained the body of Alfred.⁶⁹ However, with the exception of the burial of King Eadwig (955–957), no other rulers from the dynasty had been buried at New Minster. Use of Old Minster for royal burial had been more intermittent, and the most recent king to be interred there was Eadred (946–955).⁷⁰ Among Cnut’s more immediate predecessors, King Edgar (957–975) had been buried at Glastonbury, which already housed the body of his father, King Edmund I (939–946).⁷¹ In 1016 they were joined by the body of Edgar’s grandson, King Edmund II Ironside, who had ruled for a few months in that year.⁷² Edmund’s father, and the first husband of Emma, King Æthelred II (978–1016), had been buried in St. Paul’s, London,⁷³ probably not from any particular connection with the foundation, but rather because he had died in London while Cnut and Edmund Ironside were disputing the throne. It was the first burial of a king of the West Saxon dynasty outside the Wessex heartlands.

It seems likely that the concentration of burials of members of Cnut’s family in Old Minster was intended to emulate that of Edward the Elder’s family in New Minster. Edward may have been making a political statement through his choice of burials in New Minster, founded at a time when his cousin Æthelwold was still at large and disputing his claim to the throne.⁷⁴ The new family mausoleum at New Minster can be seen as a claim that from then on, only descendants of King Alfred had the right to rule the enlarged kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons that had come together during his reign. The body of King Alfred was moved from the Old Minster, where it had been placed after his death in 899, to New Minster at (it would seem from a charter reference⁷⁵) at the earliest opportunity. Left behind at Old Minster was King Æthelwulf (839–858), the father of Alfred and grandfather of both Edward and Æthelwold, together with some earlier representatives of the West Saxon royal house.⁷⁶ The burials of the family of Cnut at Old Minster could similarly have been read as marking the start of a new dynasty, but one that was connected to earlier rulers and in lawful succession to them. Cnut was buried in Old Minster in 1035 and was subsequently joined by his son Harthacnut (d. 1042), his wife Emma (d. 1052), and nephew Beorn (d. 1049) (see Table 10.1).⁷⁷ Cnut’s family burial place, like that of Edward the Elder, may also have been inaugurated by the transfer of a significant royal figure, that of the king with whom he had ruled briefly, Edmund Ironside. Burial alongside Edmund’s body would have provided a tangible demonstration that members of the Anglo-Danish dynasty were legitimate successors of the West Saxon royal house. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Edmund was buried at Glastonbury in 1016, but there was a strong medieval tradition in Winchester that Edmund was buried in the cathedral; a Purbeck marble slab within the presbytery, probably of later twelfth-century date, records that “Hic iacet Edmundus rex Eþeldredi regis filius” (Here lies King Edmund son of King Æthelred) (see Figure 10.3).⁷⁸ There are similar inscriptions recording the burials of Earl Beorn (nephew of Cnut) and Duke Richard (son of William I).⁷⁹

Edmund Ironside, son of Æthelred II. Photograph © John Crook.

Figure 10.3: The second half of the inscriptions of the later-twelfth-century Purbeck marble tomb-slabs for (upper) Earl Beorn and Richard, son of William I, and (lower).

The case for the genuineness of the tradition of Edmund’s burial, or rather reburial, in Winchester has been made by Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle and need not be rehearsed in detail here. William of Malmesbury records that in 1032 Cnut visited the grave of Edmund Ironside on November 30, the anniversary of Edmund’s death, and laid a pallium decorated with peacocks on his tomb.⁸⁰ This would have been a likely occasion for the remains of Edmund, or some of them, to have been transferred to Winchester. The inclusion of Edmund in Cnut’s family group recalls the claim in the D version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that in their meeting at Alney in 1016 Cnut and Edmund “wurdon feolagan ⁊ wedbroðra” (became partners and sworn brothers).⁸¹ In a charter of privileges for Glastonbury Cnut is said to have made the grant “indulgentiam criminum meorum et relaxationem peccaminum fratris mei regis Eadmundi” (for the indulgence of my transgressions and the forgiveness of the sins of my brother King Edmund).⁸² The charter is undoubtedly spurious, but may have a genuine basis. The claim that Cnut regarded Edmund as a brother is also made by William of Malmesbury.⁸³

It seems likely that the burials of the family of Cnut were made originally in the eastern arm of the Old Minster. It was near there that the famous panel from a frieze was excavated. It has been interpreted by the Biddles as a scene from the legend of Sigmundr, which is elsewhere known from the Vǫlsunga Saga, and as one likely to have been linked with the family’s place of burial (see Figure 10.4).⁸⁴

Figure 10.4: Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture from Old Minster, Winchester, showing what may be the episode of Sigmund and the wolf known from Vǫlsunga saga. Photograph © John Crook.

The connections of that legend with characters in the extended West Saxon royal genealogy (and allusions to it in the poem Beowulf) would have been another means of linking the Danish and West Saxon dynasties. The burials of the family of Cnut may then have been transferred intact from the Old Minster to the cathedral in 1093.⁸⁵ The body of Richard, the second son of William I who was killed in an accident in the New Forest in ca. 1070, had probably been added to the group (see Table 10.1), and transferred with them.⁸⁶

Table 10.1:Genealogy showing the relationships of Edmund Ironside, the family of Cnut and the early Norman kings (with those buried in Old Minster, Winchester underlined).

Subsequently associated with them was the body of Richard’s brother, William II Rufus (1087–1100), who was killed in the New Forest.⁸⁷ In this way, the Normans in turn stressed their legitimate rights to the English throne through burial associations with their Anglo-Danish connections.

The plans for a special burial place for Cnut in Old Minster would have been aided by the appointment in 1032 of Ælfwine, a former royal priest, as bishop of Winchester.⁸⁸ Indeed, one might ask at this point whose idea the family burial place in Old Minster was. Was Ælfwine appointed to Winchester to carry the plan through, or was it an idea that emerged after his appointment, perhaps at his own suggestion? Was his appointment the trigger for its inauguration through the transfer of the remains of Edmund Ironside to Winchester, or did Cnut or those around him, such as Queen Emma, already have reasons to be concerned about his health by 1032, prompting their thoughts to turn to making provision for a suitable burial place and ensuring the succession?

Cnut’s Inner Circle and Winchester

As we have seen, it is not possible to demonstrate conclusively that Cnut was in Winchester between the major assembly there in 1020 or 1021 and the taking of his body there for burial in 1035, from the location of his death, Shaftesbury Abbey. However, some of Cnut’s close associates had much deeper connections with Winchester that stretched beyond his reign. His wife Emma had had links with the city since 1012, when she was given a substantial holding in the center of Winchester by her husband, Æthelred II; this was subsequently known as the “manor of Goodbegot” (Figure 10.5).⁸⁹

Figure 10.5: The site of Queen Emma’s manor of Goodbegot in High Street, Winchester today. Photograph © Barbara Yorke.

The gift was made in 1012 at the height of the Scandinavian attacks and so may have been intended to provide the queen with a safe haven in the walled city. Situated in the High Street, it could also have made a lucrative contribution to her revenue. It is not clear whether Emma lived on this site during all her visits to Winchester, or whether we should envisage her dwelling in the elusive royal palace. After Cnut died, Emma took to Winchester not only his body, but also his treasury, as well as the housecarls who supported the succession of their son Harthacnut.⁹⁰ We can be certain of the presence of a body of housecarls within Winchester at this time, and any monuments that might be associated with them from Winchester, such as the fragment of a runic inscription from a gravestone from the church of St. Maurice (Figure 10.6), could likewise date from the period immediately after the death of Cnut rather than from his reign itself.⁹¹

Figure 10.6: Fragmentary runic inscription from church of St. Maurice, Winchester. Photograph © Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture: photographer Simon I. Hill.

Although Emma was obliged to withdraw to Flanders in 1037, after the full accession of Harthacnut in 1040 she was able to return, and may have based herself in Winchester again.⁹² She was certainly there in 1043, when Edward the Confessor, her son by her first husband King Æthelred II, came to her unexpectedly and together with his men, in the words of the D version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

bereafedan hi æt eallon þan gærsaman þe heo ahte, þa wæron unatellendlice, for þan þe heo wæs æror þam cynge hire suna swiŏe heard, þæt heo him læsse dyde þonne he wolde, ær þam þe he cyng wære. ⁊ eac syððan ⁊ leton hi þaer siððan binnan sittan.⁹³

[deprived her of all the treasures which she owned, and which were beyond counting, because she had formerly been very hard to the king, her son, in that she did less for him than before he became king and afterwards as well. And they allowed her to stay there afterwards.]⁹⁴

It was presumably in Winchester that she died in 1052 and then was buried with Cnut in the Old Minster (see Figure 10.1).

Emma was remembered as a great patron of both the Old and New Minsters. The anniversary of her death was observed at both throughout the Middle Ages, and was commemorated in the cathedral with gifts to the poor.⁹⁵ In addition to the gifts that she had made jointly with Cnut, which William of Malmesbury believed had been largely on Emma’s own initiative, she was also remembered for her own gifts, perhaps made after Cnut’s death.⁹⁶ She was remembered at New Minster for the gift of her “Greek” shrine with many relics, including the head of St. Valentine, and an estate of thirty hides at Piddletrenthide in Dorset.⁹⁷ Old Minster received major gifts of silver, gold, and textiles, and on her death, an estate at Hayling Island, Hampshire, and part of her tenement in the city, which became known as the “manor of Goodbegot,” a much valued and profitable donation.⁹⁸ The depiction of her with Cnut in the Liber Vitae of New Minster suggests the type of support she in turn received from Winchester’s religious leaders. The donor portrait may well have been based on Ottonian models, but certain features particularly bolster the position of Emma. The veil an angel holds above her head may allude to her Christian marriage to Cnut, which Emma and her supporters would have wished to contrast with Cnut’s earlier union with Ælfgifu of Northampton, the mother of Harald Harefoot; that union may not have had the same sort of religious component.⁹⁹ Although Cnut is the more prominent figure, it is Emma who is in the more privileged position on the right of Christ, the place usually given to the emperors in the Ottonian donor portraits.¹⁰⁰ This is, of course, the position of the Virgin Mary in standard Crucifixion scenes, which may in part have provided the model for the presentation of Emma and Cnut.¹⁰¹ In the Liber Vitae depiction, Mary stands above Emma, intervening on her behalf (Figure 10.2). Winchester had already played a significant part in developing the depiction of Mary as queen of heaven, and this has been linked with the political support provided by Bishop Æthelwold for Queen Ælfthryth in the reign of King Edgar.¹⁰² A case for the succession of Ælfthryth’s son Æthelred, instead of his elder brother Edward by a first wife, was developed at Winchester on the grounds that Ælfthryth alone was a consecrated queen. Something very similar may have been going on in Winchester towards the end of Cnut’s reign. The superior position of Emma, and consequently the right of her son Harthacnut to succeed in preference to his older half-brother Harald, seems to have been supported by the Winchester church leaders – although it is by no means certain that this was also Cnut’s view.

Emma seems to have been closely associated with Bishop Ælfwine, who oversaw the creation of the special burial place for Cnut and Emma’s family in the Old Minster. Their close relations may date from before his appointment to Winchester. A letter preserved in a manuscript that may have been copied at Abingdon is addressed to a priest “Ælf.,” who is believed to be Ælfwine before his appointment as bishop. It refers to him as being privy to royal councils and in a position to request favors from the queen.¹⁰³ The later gossip at Winchester, repeated by Richard of Devizes in the (unreliable) Winchester Annals, was that the relationship was scandalous, and that Emma had had to clear herself of an accusation of adultery through the ordeal of walking on hot ploughshares.¹⁰⁴ The appointment of Ælfwine, in which Emma well have had a hand, may have been resented by the monks of Winchester because he was not one of their number and not himself a monk.¹⁰⁵ The monks of Canterbury also reported unkind gossip about Emma, and Goscelin had heard that she had intrigued with King Magnús Óláfsson of Norway to depose her son, Edward the Confessor.¹⁰⁶ Perhaps they resented the fact that after Cnut’s early patronage of Canterbury, the balance had shifted by the end of the reign towards Winchester as a major recipient of gifts in the name of Cnut; perhaps they attributed this to Emma’s influence.

Another major figure with interests in Winchester was Godwine, earl of Wessex. Even before he was taken up by Cnut, Godwine seems to have had strong family connections in Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent.¹⁰⁷ He was first appointed an earl, probably for these areas, in 1018 and then for the whole of Wessex after the fall of Ealdorman Æthelweard in 1020. He was brought into the family of Cnut when he married Gytha, the sister of Earl Úlfr who had married Cnut’s sister Ástríðr (see Table 10.1). Winchester would have been one of the major centres of Godwine’s earldom. A writ from King Edward the Confessor confirming his mother’s gifts to Old Minster was addressed to “Stigand bisceop ⁊ Godƿine eorl ⁊ ealle þa burhmen” (Bishop Stigand and Earl Godwine and all the citizens in Winchester).¹⁰⁸ It is very likely that Godwine had Danes in his entourage or employ, and, when thinking about Danish influences in Winchester, Godwine should be considered as a possible patron in addition to Cnut or Harthacnut. He could, for instance, have been the earl referred to in the Old English inscription associated with the tomb of “Gunni eorles feolaga” (Gunni the eorl’s companion) from the Old Minster cemetery.¹⁰⁹ Godwine himself died in Winchester on Easter Monday, 1053, after collapsing at a feast in the royal palace.¹¹⁰ He was buried in Old Minster, though not, as far as we know, as part of Cnut’s family group. One should also remember that Winchester was a focus for many noble families whose members might have positions in the minsters or roles in royal administration. Winchester had been a highly political place throughout the tenth century, and many of those who had major connections with the town were closely involved in the various crises affecting the royal house.¹¹¹

Conclusion: A Paradox

A detailed examination of the interactions of Cnut with Winchester not only allows those relations to come into clearer focus, but also contributes to our understanding of the reign of Cnut, as well as to the development of Winchester as an early medieval centre. Cnut’s known patronage of Winchester seems to have fallen into two distinct phases. The first occurred near the beginning of his reign, when Cnut was building his relations with the Anglo-Saxon establishment. The issuing of a law code in the Anglo-Saxon tradition at a council in Winchester in 1020 or 1021 was a clear demonstration of his stated aim of reconciliation with his Anglo-Saxon subjects. The restoration of an estate to New Minster enabled him to demonstrate his willingness to act as a protector of major churches if they accepted the new regime. Thereafter, as far as we can see, Cnut had little certain direct involvement with Winchester until 1032, when the royal priest Ælfwine was appointed its bishop. This is also when plans began to be put in place for a mausoleum for Cnut and his family within Old Minster, one that appears to have been inaugurated by the transfer of the body of his fictive “brother” Edmund Ironside. This marked a significant new stage in Winchester’s royal associations, whose apogee could be seen to be King Edward the Confessor’s consecration as king in Winchester in 1043.¹¹² King Æthelwulf, his sons, and his grandson Edward the Elder may have been aiming for something similar for Winchester, and the family mausoleum devised by the same Edward at New Minster was almost certainly the model for Cnut’s in Old Minster. But the death of Edward’s son Ælfweard affected plans for the succession, and his immediate successors were not buried in the city. During the episcopate of Æthelwold (963–984), the city was more closely associated with him and with monastic reform than with the royal house. At the end of his reign, Cnut inaugurated a new phase in which Winchester had a symbolic importance for whoever was ruling England, and thus ensured that Winchester received attention from the early Norman kings. To help ensure the succession, it was desirable to stress Cnut’s links with the West Saxon dynasty; then, in turn, the Normans wished to stress their links with the Anglo-Danish house. Thus, Winchester came to be seen as synonymous with Anglo-Saxon royal power, although in reality its royal links had been more varied and intermittent.

In spite of the importance of Winchester in the plans for continuity of the Danish succession within England, Cnut’s gifts of land to the Winchester minsters can only be described as ungenerous in comparison with gifts to other favored communities. The Winchester minsters did well for treasure, though, perhaps because Emma was in fact the one who was responsible for its distribution.¹¹³ Emma seems to have been more closely linked with Winchester than Cnut was; it was certainly where she was based after the death of Cnut and it became the center of her operations on behalf of Harthacnut. Arranging family commemoration was also a traditional role for women in the early Middle Ages,¹¹⁴ and Emma is a potential candidate for the inspiration behind the Old Minster mausoleum. These possible roles of Emma are a reminder that references to Cnut’s relations with a place could also be shorthand for those acting on his behalf. Recent studies have sought to give Cnut agency, but there is a danger that the desire to put a biographical subject center stage ends up masking the roles of others.¹¹⁵ Cnut himself is a shadowy figure in Winchester’s history, only known definitely to have been in the town at the great assembly that produced the law codes I and II Cnut. Danish influences that have been recognized in Winchester would almost certainly not have been there if Cnut had not become king of England, but they are not necessarily evidence for his direct involvement with the city, and do not have to date only from his reign. We are left with a paradox. Cnut’s reign was undoubtedly important in redefining Winchester as a royal city, but Cnut in his lifetime may have had only a limited interaction with the town.

Notes

1

Turner, Winchester, 11–19; Beaumont James, Winchester, 62–64; Ottaway, Winchester, 205–10.

2

Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 82–91, 133–60; Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 45–52, 94–106.

3

Townend, “Contextualising the Knútsdrápur.”

4

British Library, London, Stowe 944; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes.

5

In addition to the annual interim reports published in The Antiquaries Journal (1964–1975), see in particular Biddle, “Winchester: Development of an Early Capital” and “Study of Winchester,” and Biddle and Keene, Winchester Town Atlas; see also Ottaway, Winchester.

6

Miller, Charters of New Minster; Rumble, Property and Piety; the charters of Old Minster have not yet been published in their entirety, but have been studied in detail in Rumble, Codex Wintoniensis.

7

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Venta to Wintancaestir”; Ottaway, Winchester, 75–204.

8

Defence of Wessex, ed. Hill and Rumble.

9

Biddle, “Study of Winchester,” 119–26; Ottaway, Winchester, 205–19.

10

Ford and Teague, Winchester, A City in the Making, esp. 187–211.

11

Cult of St. Swithun, ed. Lapidge, 781–82.

12

Brooks, “Crucible of Defeat.”

13

Scobie and Qualmann, Nunnaminster; Foot, Veiled Women II, 243–52; Rumble, Property and Piety, 45–49; Ottaway, Winchester, 226–27.

14

Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 1–7; Rumble, Property and Piety, 50–64; Miller, Charters of New Minster, xxv–xxviii, 12–45 (nos. 2–7).

15

The burial of Æthelwulf is uniquely described in the Annals of St. Neots as having been in Steyning in Sussex, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 855 records his burial place as Winchester. The implication can perhaps be drawn that Æthelwulf’s body had been transferred from Steyning to Winchester by the time the Chronicle annals had been compiled in early 890s.

16

Ottaway, Winchester, 222–25.

17

Biddle, “Felix Urbs Winthonia”; Bishop Æthelwold, ed. Yorke.

18

Yorke, “Bishops of Winchester, Kings of Wessex.”

19

Yorke, “Æthelwold and Politics,” 70–74; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 8–14; Marafioti, The King’s Body, 56–80.

20

Goodman, Goodbegot; Rumble, Property and Piety, 215–19; Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, esp. 220–24.

21

Kähler Holst, Dengsø Jessen, Wulf Andersen, and Pedersen, “Late Viking Royal Constructions.”

22

Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester, I, 106–28; Dome – Gräber – Grabungen, ed. Freund and Köster.

23

Ottaway, Winchester, 209–64.

24

Biddle and Keene, Winchester in the Early Middle Ages, 289–91. See Lapidge, ed., Cult of St. Swithun, 296, n. 194, for an explanation that what was held to be a reference to a palatium in Winchester in Lantfred’s Translatio et Miracula s. Swithuni (chap. 10) might actually refer to a residence not in Winchester. Kolz, in “Kingship and Palaces,” 323, suggests that palatium in that context meant “‘the court’ as a collection of people, and not the palace as a building.”

25

Rumble, Property and Piety, 50–56.

26

Roach, Kingship and Consent.

27

Annales Monasterii de Wintonia, ed. Luard, 15.

28

Gillingham, “Richard of Devizes.”

29

Encomium, ed. Campbell, 22–25; in addition, there are verbal echoes of the coronation ordo in which the king was installed in hoc regni solio; see further Marafioti, The King’s Body, 95.

30

Whitelock, “Laws of Wulfstan,” 444–52; Wormald, Making of English Law, 345–66; Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 61–63. See also Stafford, “Laws of Cnut,” 179, for a reading that would argue for a preceding meeting of the witan in Winchester, where Cnut might have promulgated part of II Cnut as a condition for his acceptance as king of England.

31

Wormald, Making of English Law, 345.

32

Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 56–64, 82–89.

33

Roach, Kingship and Consent, 22–23.

34

Rollason, “Goscelin’s Account of St. Mildrith,” 162–65 (chap. 6).

35

Barlow, “Two Notes: Cnut’s Second Pilgrimage.”

36

Sharpe, “Date of St. Mildreth’s Translation.”

37

Rollason, “Goscelin’s Account of St. Mildrith,” 167–68 (chap. 10).

38

Barlow, “Two Notes: Cnut’s Second Pilgrimage.”

39

ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 65 (s.a. 1031); Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 102–4; Hare, “Cnut and Lotharingia,” 269–77.

40

Historia Anglorum, ed. Greenway, VI, 17, 368–69; Bolton, Cnut the Great, Appendix 1, 214–16. See below for Cnut’s exceptionally good relations with Canterbury, which might help explain the positive cultivation of his memory there.

41

Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 39–47, for a full discussion of the possibilities.

42

Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 117–60; Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 77–106; Treharne, “Performance of Piety.”

43

Gerchow, “Prayers for Cnut,” 222–34, Treharne, “Performance of Piety.” See further discussion of the depiction below.

44

Chronicle, ed. Darlington and McGurk, 484–85.

45

Chronicle, ed. Darlington and McGurk, 486–87; see also ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 61 (s.a. 1016).

46

Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 86–93.

47

Charters of New Minster, ed. Miller, 159–64 (no. 33). This transaction is considered in greater detail in the chapter by Ryan Lavelle in this volume, pp. 169–89.

48

Charters of New Minster, ed. Miller, xxxiii. It may not be coincidence that the monasteries of New Minster and Glastonbury, whose abbots consistently head the lists attesting abbots, contained the greatest concentrations of recent royal burials. For the significance attached to royal burials in this period, see Marafioti, The King’s Body.

49

Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, S 972.

50

Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, S 976.

51

Historia Novella, ed. King, 102–5; Chronicle, III, ed. McGurk, 302–3.

52

Historia Novella, ed. King, 102–5 (chap. 55); Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 41, citing BL Cotton MS. Vespasian D.IX, fol. 33v.

53

Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 105–6; some of the relics may have been embedded in the cross.

54

BL Cotton MS. Vespasian D.IX, fol. 32rv; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 41, n. 179.

55

Pratt, “Kings and Books,” 366–71.

56

Heslop, “Deluxe Manuscripts,” but see also Gameson, “Earliest English Royal Books,” 20, for reservations about seeing Cnut as a commissioner of books.

57

Liber Vitae, ed., Keynes, 94–95; Keynes, “Cnut’s Earls,” 64–65; Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 215–16, for the identity of Cnut’s sister, on whom see also Morawiec, pp. 419–29, and Gazzoli, pp. 399–417, later in this volume.

58

Annales Monasterii, ed. Luard, 16.

59

Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, I, 322–23.

60

Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 121–22, 142–43.

61

ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 64 (s.a. 1023); (D), trans. Swanton, 156; “Translatio Sancti Ælegi,” ed. Rumble and trans. Morris. On the initial daring of this translation, see also Goeres and North in this volume, pp. 12–17.

62

Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 129–30, 147–50; Brooks, Church of Canterbury, 287–96; Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 78–83.

63

Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury II, ed. Brooks and Kelly, 1052–133.

64

Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury II, ed. Brooks and Kelly, 1058–62 (no. 145).

65

Charters of Christ Church, Canterbury II, ed. Brooks and Kelly, 1079–98 (no. 151).

66

Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 79–82.

67

Rollason, “Goscelin’s Account of St. Mildrith.”

68

Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 2–5; Charters of New Minster, ed. Miller, xxv–xxxi.

69

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Danish Royal Burials,” 213.

70

ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 45 (s.a. 955).

71

Marafioti, The King’s Body, 65–84.

72

ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 62 (s.a. 1016); (D), trans. Swanton, 113 (s.a. 1016); Marafioti, The King’s Body, 84–98.

73

Keynes, “Burial of King Æthelred at St. Paul’s.”

74

Yorke, “Bishops of Winchester”; Lavelle, “Politics of Rebellion.”

75

Charters of New Minster, ed. Miller, 26–30 (no. 4).

76

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. Whitelock, Douglas, and Tucker (s.a. 855); Yorke, “Burial of Kings.”

77

Crook, “‘A Worthy Antiquity’”; Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Danish Royal Burials.”

78

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Danish Royal Burials,” 224–27.

79

All manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that record the murder of Earl Beorn in 1049 also record that his body was disinterred and taken to Old Minster for burial “with Cnut his uncle.” See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. Whitelock, Douglas, and Tucker, 113–14 (s.a. 1049).

80

Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, I, 330–31 (chap. 184).

81

ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 62 (s.a. 1016); (D), trans. Swanton, 152 (s.a. 1016: “became partners and pledged-brothers”).

82

Charters of Glastonbury Abbey, ed. Kelly, 528–32 (no. 61).

83

Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, I, 330–31 (chap. 184); possibly William was drawing on the charter evidence.

84

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Excavated Sculpture from Winchester,” 314–22 (no. 88). On this see also Simon Thomson in this volume, pp. 235–53.

85

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Danish Royal Burials,” 219–28.

86

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Danish Royal Burials,” 224.

87

Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History V, ed. Chibnall, 282–83 (X.xiv); Barlow, William Rufus, 419.

88

Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 149; Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 101–2. In “Goscelin’s Account of St. Mildrith,” ed. Rollason, 166, Ælfwine is descibed as the amicus of King Cnut.

89

Goodman, Manor of Goodbegot; Rumble, Property and Piety, 215–19. The part of the “haga” (tenement) that Emma (as Queen Ælfgifu) bequeathed to Old Minster, Winchester, is referred to in a writ of Edward the Confessor, confirming the gift as Ælfrices gode begeaton, probably meaning something like “Ælfric’s good yield”: Biddle and Keene, Winchester in the Early Middle Ages, 158–59; Rumble, Property and Piety, 220–22 (no. 29; see also no. 96). Harmer renders this name “Ælfric Goodsgetter’s,” in Anglo-Saxon Writs, 383–85, 399 (no. 111), but the word be-gēate (wk. m.) is no nomen agentis; it is glossed “acquired property” in DOE (no. 269, 2): https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/; here it would have to be in the accusative plural.

90

ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 65 (s.a. 1035); Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. Whitelock, Douglas, and Tucker, 102–3 (s.a. 1035).

91

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Excavated Sculpture from Winchester,” 327–29.

92

ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 66 (s.a. 1040); Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, 246–48.

93

ASC (D), ed. Cubbin, 67 (s.a. 1043).

94

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. Whitelock, Douglas, and Tucker, 106 (s.a. 1043).

95

Goodman, Manor of Goodbegot, 5; Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 45–47, 94–95.

96

Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, I, 322–23.

97

Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, 40–41; he notes that, according to ASC (F), the gift of St. Valentine’s head was made for the soul of Harthacnut; ASC, trans. Swanton, 163, n. 13 (s.a. 1041).

98

Goodman, Manor of Goodbegot; Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, 399–400 (no. 111); Rumble, Property and Piety, 220–22; Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, 147–48. Other possible gifts of land, as well as treasure, are recorded in Annales Monasterii de Wintonia, ed. Luard, 18, 205, but the account is complicated by its inclusion of legendary material (see below).

99

Gerchow, “Prayers for Cnut,” 220–30; Bolton, “Ælfgifu of Northampton.”

100

Karkov, Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England, 123–33.

101

Owen-Crocker, “Pomp, Piety,” 42, 48–51.

102

Deshman, “Christus rex et magi reges,” 397–99; Deshman, Benedictional, 204–7; Yorke, “Æthelwold and Politics,” 82–85; Karkov, Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England, 111–14.

103

Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 149, and 255 for identification of the source.

104

Annales Monasterii de Wintonia, ed. Luard, 20–25.

105

One also wonders whether this gossip might have originated with Ælfgifu of Northampton or her supporters in revenge for the stories, promoted presumably by Emma and her supporters, that claimed Cnut was not the father of either of her sons: Encomium, ed. Campbell, 40–41; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. Whitelock, Douglas, and Tucker, 102–3 (s.a. 1035).

106

Rollason, “Goscelin’s Account of St. Mildrith,” 176–78 (chap. 18).

107

Keynes, “Cnut’s Earls,” 70–74.

108

Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, 399–400 (no. 111); Rumble, Property and Piety, 220–22.

109

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle, “Excavated Sculpture from Winchester,” 278–80 (no. 6).

110

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. Whitelock, Douglas, and Tucker, 127–28 (s.a. 1053).

111

Yorke, “Æthelwold and Politics.”

112

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, 107.

113

For queens as dispensers of treasure, see Stafford, Queens, Concubines, 99–114.

114

Van Houts, Memory and Gender, 65–92.

115

Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England; Bolton, Cnut the Great, esp. 6–9 for his biographical aims.