Caitlin Ellis
The abiding stereotype of the Vikings has been of pagan warriors who were ignorant of, and hostile to, Christianity.1 This simplistic view, influenced by the rhetoric of writings from those being attacked by raiders, does not take into account developments over time or the fact that Christianity could be attractive or useful to some Scandinavians, particularly rulers. There has been increasing scholarly recognition that the Christianization of Scandinavia was a long process, involving the gradual build-up of familiarity with Christianity – which resonates with some of the arguments below – through general contact and trade with Christians as well as through missionary activity. The focus has usually been on the conversion itself rather than on the establishment of church institutions. Debate has centered on the different influences on Christianization, whether from the continent, especially the see of Hamburg-Bremen, or from England, or from native impetus. The reality was that all these influences and factors played a role.
Overall, as scholarship on the kingship of Cnut has traditionally either been somewhat Anglocentric or somewhat Scandinavia-centric, some increased communication between the two fields is desirable – the same can also be said of scholarship on his relations with the Church specifically. Some of the major works are discussed below. This chapter aims to view this aspect of Cnut’s reign holistically, since national biases can give us only a partial, incomplete, picture. Such a divide can also be detected in the surviving sources, since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Encomium Emmae Reginae emphasize Cnut’s model Christian kingship, whereas Norse sources, particularly skaldic verse, depict him as a traditional Scandinavian ruler. There has also been an understandable trend in the scholarship for biographies of individual kings; this chapter will place Cnut in the broader context of his predecessors. It will also provide an overview of his relations with the Church, where others have focused on individual aspects (for example, Cnut’s patronage of manuscript production).
Cnut and the Church: Research Overview
The reputation of Cnut, king of England and Denmark, as an ecclesiastical patron in England, following the West Saxon model, is vividly exemplified by the image of him in the Liber Vitae of the New Minster at Winchester, which echoes that of King Edgar in the earlier New Minster Charter (see Figure 10.2). According to Timothy Bolton, “more evidence of Cnut’s interaction with the English Church survives than for any other King of Anglo-Saxon England,” and historians have had to account for this somehow.2 These historians generally fall into two camps, as will be discussed below. Both camps have largely focused on Cnut’s gifts to the Church and his symbolic gestures towards Christianity. He also displayed an interest in church organization in both England and Denmark.3 I will consider Cnut’s forays into ecclesiastical matters, beginning with the roots of his own Christianity, and proceeding to discuss three key points that structured the Church in his domains. These are, first, Cnut’s relations with bishops, which partly continued his father’s policy, with a case study on Orkney and a particular bishop; second, the patronage and manipulation of saints’ cults; and third and last, the discourse of Christian kingship in terms of Cnut’s apparent lack of engagement with the penitential tradition, which was so visible in Æthelred’s reign. Perhaps understandably, studies focusing on pre-Conquest England have rarely delved into Scandinavian matters and sources in depth, whereas, likewise, studies on Scandinavia that encompass Cnut have seldom fully appreciated the English dimension to his reign.4 This division of interest can impede scholarly attempts to assess the influences on Cnut’s kingship and his Christianity. In the following, I shall contextualize aspects of Cnut’s reign more fully by drawing comparisons with previous kings of both Denmark and England. In so doing, I will correct some perhaps old-fashioned views of Cnut.
Some scholarship in the twentieth century, now outdated, viewed Cnut as a king who was not far from being a hapless heathen and allowed himself to be molded by others into an acceptable Christian monarch. According to Frank Stenton, Cnut’s “relations with his bishop and abbots were those of a pupil towards the teachers who had introduced him to the mysteries of a civilization higher than his own.”5 He alleges further that “[a]s a reward for his obedience to their teaching, [Cnut’s] rule in England came to be regarded through a haze of kindly tradition.”6 Many scholars have attributed Cnut’s Christian kingship to the influence of Wulfstan, archbishop of York. For example, Dorothy Bethurum claimed that the “young barbarian … put himself under Wulfstan’s tutelage.”7 Frank Barlow even argued that the level of Cnut’s gift-giving decreased after the death of Wulfstan in 1023,8 although Bolton has robustly and convincingly denied this.9 Some have claimed that Lyfing, archbishop of Canterbury at the start of Cnut’s reign, was as influential as Wulfstan.10 The credit for Cnut’s patronage has gone not only to churchmen, however. Cnut’s wife, Emma of Normandy, has also been seen to have guided him in this area.11 In considering gifts of de luxe manuscripts to churches, Heslop suggests that Cnut would have understood the benefit of showy munificence, “since distribution of treasure among adherents was a common enough practice in the Viking world,” but that the “religious dimension is more likely to have been his wife’s contribution to the policy.”12 Emma’s Norman descent is apparently considered to imbue her automatically with the appropriate Christian credentials. These figures certainly played their parts in Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy, and notably Wulfstan, who shaped Cnut’s law codes. However, one might find it difficult to imagine the hardened warrior Cnut – the man who had eliminated untrustworthy figures such as Eadric Streona – being cowed by clerics, or indeed by his wife, into compliance.
In more recent scholarship an alternative view of the background to Cnut’s ecclesiastical patronage has emerged. In 1993 M. K. Lawson initiated the case that church patronage was useful to Cnut for political ends.13 Bolton, in 2009, drew attention to ways in which Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy reinforced his authority on a regional basis, undercut his enemies or curried favor where appropriate.14 It is notable, though, that a certain extra degree of cynicism is applied by some to Cnut’s church patronage, who imply that his belief was not genuine and his gifts to the Church were motivated only by cunning in order to secure his own position. While we can never look directly into the mind of a medieval person and in so doing accurately assess the sincerity of their faith, the same cynicism is not so often applied to Cnut’s West Saxon predecessors, such as Edgar. If we assume that Cnut’s only motivation for church patronage was political scheming, we should perhaps also extend this assumption to other English monarchs.
A prime example of this is King Edgar (r. 957–975), famously a patron of monastic reform, whose reign witnessed a proliferation of Benedictine houses. The reform in England had a particularly strong royal involvement, in comparison to the contemporary Continent, where there was a greater degree of aristocratic participation.15 The Regularis Concordia, composed during Edgar’s reign, states that royal approval should be sought in abbatial elections and that prayers for the king and queen should be offered frequently.16 The Fens, the marshlands of eastern England, was one of the areas with the largest number of Benedictine monasteries during Edgar’s reign;17 it seems likely that the king wanted to extend his own influence into the fenland area where his dynasty held little land. Religious foundations looked to the king for gifts and wealth as well as for protection, and the king might expect them to take heed of his wishes in return. As George Molyneaux observes, in the latter half of the tenth century large tracts of land had been taken from powerful lay individuals and given to institutions which were often connected to the West Saxon royal house, strengthening royal control in particular areas.18 Although it might not have been his primary motivation, in the process of promoting the monastic reform movement Edgar was definitely strengthening his allies financially. With the kingdom of England newly coalescing, English reform was also more concerned with standardizing practice than its Continental counterpart at the time. In the words of Levi Roach, English reform offered “a blueprint for unity; it provided an ideological underpinning for administrative centralization.”19 A monarch steeped in a centuries-long tradition of Christianity, such as Edgar, could be just as likely to benefit from aspects of his ecclesiastical policy as a new conqueror, such as Cnut, from a less Christianized land.
Thus, although these two views of Cnut in his religious dealings – the clueless pagan steered by others or the skillful politician feigning piety to further his own goals – are at extremes, they both, maybe unconsciously, owe something to the implicit perception of Cnut, and perhaps of Scandinavians more generally, as heathens. Indeed, in an otherwise excellent book, produced after the turn of the second millennium, Mary Frances Giandrea repeatedly and inexplicably makes this assumption. Referring to Cnut as “the former pagan,” she claims that, “as a recent convert to Christianity, Cnut was starting from scratch.”20 Furthermore, she asserts somewhat dramatically that “[a]s an outsider, and more importantly, a recently converted pagan, Cnut could have been a disaster.”21 It is unclear upon what evidence she is basing this assumption of Cnut’s previous paganism. Admittedly, at least one of Cnut’s contemporaries had apparently assumed him to be a pagan. In the 1020s, Fulbert of Chartres wrote to the king that “te quem paganorum principem audieramus, non modo Christianum, uerum etiam erga ecclesias atque Dei seruos benignissmum largitorem agnoscimus” (you, whom we had heard to be a pagan prince, we now know to be not only a Christian, but also a most generous donor to churches and God’s servants).22 Cnut had proved his piety through his donation to Chartres and other institutions. Modern historians should likewise weigh up the evidence for Cnut’s commitment to Christianity. Given the decades of Christianity in Denmark, there may be a note of humor in Fulbert here, but whether it is humor or a genuine misapprehension, his statement surely derives from the stereotype of pagan Northmen.
Haraldr Bluetooth, Sveinn Forkbeard, and Cnut’s Christian Roots
Cnut was in fact a third-generation Christian. The details of his matrilineal heritage are uncertain, due to the terseness of the historical record on the subject, but Cnut’s mother, a Polish princess, was presumably a Christian. She is mentioned briefly by the author of the Encomium Emmae Reginae, by Adam of Bremen in his Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum and by Thietmar of Merseburg in his Chronicon (see later Morawiec, pp. 419–24, and Gazzoli, pp. 410–11). Although we have little reliable information about Cnut’s mother, and cannot even be certain of her name, there is general agreement that she was a daughter of Mieszko I (ca. 960–992), founder of the Piast dynasty.23 Mieszko’s own baptism, along with that of much of his court, probably in 966, is seen as a major turning point in the Christianization of Poland.24
There is more evidence for Christianity on the patrilineal side. Cnut’s grandfather, Haraldr blátǫnn (“Bluetooth”) Gormsson, had been the first ruling Danish king to be converted to Christianity, in the 960s.25 He famously claimed to have converted his people on the Jelling stone, referring to himself as “sa | haraltr [:] ias: sąʀ · uan · tanmaurk ala · auknuruiakaukt(a)ni(karþi)kristną” (that Haraldr who won the whole of Denmark for himself, and Norway, and made the Danes Christian).26 This inscription was not his only symbolically Christian gesture. Haraldr moved his father Gormr’s remains to the new and impressive 30 m by 14 m wooden church constructed at Jelling to give him a Christian rather than pagan burial. Haraldr also minted Cross pennies – the first overtly Christian Danish coinage – most likely at the emporium of Haithabu (or Hedeby) in ca. 975/980.27 This short-lived issue represents a clear effort to proclaim Denmark’s status as an independent, Christian land. Given the brief appearance of this coinage, it might seem that it was issued in reaction to the German invasion of Otto II in 973. Such an impetus to reaffirm Christianity and political sovereignty might be seen to take its inspiration from the maxim provided by St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:17: “and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”28 Conversion had previously been used as an excuse for invasion, for example by Charlemagne when converting Saxons and Frisians. However, the threat of invasion facing the Danes has often been overestimated: Thietmar’s account of Otto’s invasion seems to describe something more like a border skirmish, while Denmark seems to have been low on the list of foreign-policy priorities for the Ottonian emperors.29 Jens Christian Moesgaard suggests that the purpose behind the production of Haraldr’s Cross coinage was to pay the troops and secure the support of magnates across the country; perhaps this accounts for the widespread distribution of the coinage during his construction program to create a new, stronger military infrastructure.30 For the present discussion, it is more significant that Haraldr chose to embrace the Christian imagery and ideology of kingship.
There is thus tangible evidence of Cnut’s Christian heritage. However, even if he had been born a pagan of pagan ancestors, he would not have been as unfamiliar with Christianity as is implied by some of the interpretations cited above, which suggest that other people had to steer him towards proper Christian kingship. Before he gained the throne in 1016, Cnut had already spent some time in England; on his first appearance in English history he was left in command of the fleet and hostages at Gainsborough in the absence of his father Sveinn tjúguskegg (“Forkbeard”) Haraldsson.31 Furthermore, England had had a notable influence on Christianity in Scandinavia itself from the outset.32 For over two centuries Scandinavians themselves had been traveling back and forth between Scandinavia, Britain, Ireland, Frankia, Normandy, and Brittany. Thereby they could not have failed to amass a basic knowledge of the Christian church, regardless of whether they were converted or not.
Adam of Bremen’s account of Sveinn Forkbeard’s accession, by which he takes the throne from his father Haraldr as part of a pagan uprising, may have influenced this misperception of both Sveinn and, by extension, his son Cnut. Adam relates that Sveinn led a great persecution of the Christians in Denmark.33 His account is prejudiced throughout against Sveinn, referring to this king’s “crudelitate ac perfidia” (cruelty and perfidy).34 It was influential in the portrayal of Sveinn in later sources too, particularly Sven Aggesen’s Brevis historia regum Dacie and Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, which drew on Adam for information. While Sveinn may have succeeded his father as a result of a rebellion, the motivations for such a rebellion were highly unlikely to have been theological. There is no other evidence for a pagan reaction resulting in an official end to Christianity in Denmark.35 Furthermore, even Adam has to admit that Sveinn did become a Christian later in his reign, when “reversus in semetipsum peccata sua pre oculis habuit penitensque oravit ad Dominum” (returning to himself, he considered his sins and in contrition prayed to the Lord.)36 Adam attributes Sveinn’s change of heart to his suffering a series of defeats at the hands of the Swedes, events for which there is no corroborating evidence; at the time that Adam claims Sveinn was vanquished and in exile, he was leading Viking attacks on England, and was thus strong enough to entrust his Danish kingdom to others. It seems that Adam is forced to acknowledge Sveinn’s (renewed) Christianity in his narrative just when he is about to relate Sveinn’s victory at the Battle of Svǫlðr in 1000. Here Sveinn’s defeat of the missionary king of Norway, Óláfr Tryggvason, surely meant that God was on his side. Adam’s account continues by suggesting that Sveinn actively promoted Christianity in Norway afterwards.37 The Encomium Emmae Reginae describes Sveinn Forkbeard in a more uniformly positive light, although it can be seen as equally problematic in its efforts to give the best possible spin to the Anglo-Danish hegemony. It portrays Sveinn as a religious man loved by his people: “Tantam deinde illi gratiam diuina concessit uirtus, ut etiam puerulus intimo affectu diligeretur ab omnibus” (The divine power granted him such great favour, that even as a boy he was held by all in close affection).38
In reality, Sveinn was the first Scandinavian king to be born into the Christian faith. Sveinn minted a coinage in around 995; like that of his father it employed Christian imagery. The obverse has the slightly incorrect ZVEN REX AD DENER (“Sveinn king of the Danes” or “Sveinn king of Denmark”).39 Apart from the runic inscriptions at Jelling, the legend on these coins represents the only surviving use of “Danes” or “Denmark” in a Danish source from the tenth century.40 The reverse has C-R-U-X set in the arms of a cross. These coins are modeled closely on Æthelred’s CRUX type coinage, struck between ca. 991 and ca. 997.41 Only a limited number of Sveinn’s coins were produced, so their production cannot have had a purely economic motivation.42 It seems therefore that Sveinn was keen to assert his kingship and his Christianity together.
Adam’s negative portrayal of an irreligious Sveinn seems to have had two motivations. Firstly, it is possible that Sveinn Ástríðarson (or Svend Estridsen), the Danish king who was one of Adam’s sources, hoped that Haraldr Bluetooth, his great-grandfather, would be made a saint, and so was prepared to downplay or vilify his namesake, the son who had exiled Haraldr and replaced him.43 Secondly, Sveinn Forkbeard did refute Hamburg-Bremen’s claims to jurisdiction over the Danish church. Following a devastating Viking raid on Hamburg in 845, the noted missionary Anskar (or Ansgar), bishop of Hamburg, received the additional see of Bremen, presumably in an effort to restore its fortunes, and so formed a joint archbishopric, Hamburg-Bremen. Based on apparent imperial and papal privileges, this archbishopric claimed jurisdiction over Scandinavia and the Slavic lands, but the documentary evidence for this is contested.44 Hamburg-Bremen’s assertions in this regard were also connected to its rivalry with Mainz and Cologne, two archbishoprics on the Rhine.45 In 948, bishops had been appointed to the three new Danish sees of Schleswig, Ribe, and Aarhus, presumably by Hamburg-Bremen in an attempt to swell the ranks of its suffragans.46 It is likely that they were not able to take up physical residence in these sees until Haraldr Bluetooth’s conversion, when a fourth bishopric in Odense was created.47 Sveinn Forkbeard must have expelled these four bishops early in his reign, and at any rate no later than 988, since Otto III provided for their maintenance outside Denmark by a privilege of March 18, 988; Michael Gelting concludes from this provision that their exile was not seen as temporary.48 Although the privilege itself does not specify exile, it does seem likely that they were often absent from Denmark.49 According to Adam, only a few of Hamburg-Bremen’s missionary bishops were able to operate in Denmark; perhaps, in fact, only one, Odinkar the Elder, who was a member of a wealthy and aristocratic Danish family and therefore a special case.50 While Sveinn bypassed Hamburg-Bremen in sourcing his bishops, it appears from a recent case by Bolton that the Danish court had court chaplains from Sveinn’s reign onwards, even before he invaded England.51
There is further evidence of Sveinn’s Christian kingship in that his ecclesiastical policy extended to endowments. The two church buildings that the missionary Anskar had consecrated in Denmark during the ninth century were dedicated to the Virgin Mary, thus imitating the dedication of the archbishopric’s main church in Hamburg.52 This is not surprising, given that Anskar was an archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen.53 However, during the reign of Sveinn, new churches at Roskilde and Lund were dedicated to the Holy Trinity in imitation of the royal church in Winchester. The Encomium Emmae Reginae relates that Sveinn’s body was placed “in monasterio in honore Sanctae Trinitatis ab eodem rege constructo, in sepulchro quod sibi parauerat” (in the monastery which the same king had built in honour of the Holy Trinity, in the sepulchre which he had prepared for himself).54 Admittedly, the scale of such endowments by rulers in Scandinavia does not compare with the scale of those by English and Continental rulers. Lesley Abrams has observed that, in comparison to the rule of English kings, the kingship of tenth- and eleventh-century Scandinavia was institutionally weaker and lacked royally owned estates which could have been granted to churches.55 Cnut’s showy patronage, compared with that of his Danish predecessors, was enabled during his rule of England by that kingdom’s wealth.
While the evidence for Christianity in Denmark is more limited than in England, and while Denmark’s conversion did not lead to immediate and complete Christianization,56 it is possible to trace a Danish royal tradition of Christianity. During the reigns of Cnut and his predecessors, the fact that Christianity was newer and less established in Denmark made its connections to kingship stronger.57 Conversion was largely top-down; the turning point was Haraldr Bluetooth’s official acceptance of Christianity. Since church organization was less established here than in England and other parts of Europe, Danish kings may have had ample opportunity for control.
The Episcopal Policy of Sveinn and Cnut
Much to the chagrin of Adam of Bremen, Sveinn did not turn to Hamburg-Bremen for new bishops but brought in his own from England. This happened at the time of Sveinn’s recurrent raids there, even before he had conquered the kingdom. Sveinn and Cnut presumably did not see it as a disjuncture that their rule involved raiding, attacking, and impoverishing Christians abroad even while they were active in establishing their own church. Christian kings were no less prone to attacking one another throughout this period.58 During Sveinn’s reign in Denmark, Adam refers in particular to a bishop named Gotebald, who had been sent to Skåne from England.59 Gotebald, whose name seems more Continental than English, has sometimes been considered the first bishop of Lund because he is named in the necrology of Lund Cathedral, but he and another early cleric are referred to simply as bishops, whereas Henry, whom we shall hear more of later, is dubbed “primus nostrę ęcclesię episcopus” (the first bishop of our church).60 From this and Adam’s account it seems likely that Gotebald, trained in England, became an itinerant missionary bishop based in Skåne.61
The fact that Christianity was recently established in Scandinavia meant that it was more closely associated with royalty than in England, which already had a sophisticated church organization and administration.62 The missionary bishops who had come from outside Denmark in Sveinn’s reign seem to have lacked fixed dioceses. They may have been itinerant along with the royal court, especially if Christianity was the preserve of the aristocracy.63 Thus these bishops were reliant on the king; this state of affairs largely continued even later in the eleventh century and into the twelfth century, when they had amassed greater resources and estates.64
Like Sveinn before him, Cnut brought clerics into Denmark from England. Adam of Bremen records that “episcopos ab Anglia multos adduxit in Daniam” (he introduced many bishops from England into Denmark) and appointed three of them to Fyn (Funen), Roskilde, and Skåne.65 In addition, Odinkar the Younger, bishop of Ribe and a native Dane, had been educated in England at Cnut’s suggestion.66 It was perhaps only natural for Cnut to make use of the English church, which was both long-standing and under his dominion, while the Scandinavian church was still in its relative infancy. Similarly, Cnut drew on the resources of the church of other regions, as some of the bishops he sent to Denmark seem to have been Lotharingian.67 The main influence seems to have been English, however. A new diocesan structure for Denmark was probably established early in Cnut’s reign. Four bishoprics were put in place, one for each of the main provinces: Jylland, Fyn, Sjælland, and Skåne.68 This was perhaps following the English pattern of regional archbishoprics, which gave Canterbury jurisdiction over the south of England and York over the north.
At least one bishop for Denmark, Gerbrand, had been consecrated by Archbishop Æthelnoth of Canterbury under the authority of Cnut. Attending an English royal assembly in 1022, Gerbrand witnessed a charter as “Gerbrandus Roscylde parochie Danorum gente” (Gerbrand of Roskilde parish of the Danish people).69 Indeed, excluding the king and queen, this Danish bishop takes third place in the witness-list, preceded only by the archbishops of York and Canterbury, in that order. This is a remarkable position for someone who had presumably not been active in the English court for any great period of time. L. M. Larson postulated that it was Cnut’s intention for Æthelnoth of Canterbury to be archbishop not only of the English, but also of the Danish church.70 Noting that the building of a stone church was begun in Roskilde during Cnut’s lifetime, Niels Lund has suggested that Cnut hoped to elevate Roskilde to an archbishopric.71 There is not enough available evidence to confirm this suggestion, but it seems certain that Cnut hoped to increase ties between the Danish and English churches. The timing of Gerbrand’s consecration is particularly significant as well: he appears in the charter two years after the new archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelnoth, had been appointed in 1020, but before he received his pallium from Rome.72 Bolton has observed that Cnut, for all that he inherited from Æthelred elderly incumbent archbishops of Canterbury and York whose backing he won for the remainder of their time in office, used their deaths as opportunities to intervene directly and install his own supporters.73 Æthelnoth, the new archbishop of Canterbury, might have been more amenable to Cnut’s ambitions for Denmark. Whatever the truth of the matter, Adam, if he is to be believed, tells us that Hamburg-Bremen considered Canterbury’s consecration of Gerbrand enough of a threat to intervene. Adam says that Unwan, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, had Bishop Gerbrand captured, whereupon Gerbrand, “quod necessitas persuasit” (persuaded by necessity), gave him a promise of loyalty.74 Later, Gerbrand’s successor in Roskilde, Bishop Avoco, was consecrated by Archbishop Libentius of Hamburg-Bremen (1029–1032), Unwan’s successor.
Towards the end of Cnut’s reign there seems to have been a change in policy. As has often been recognised, Cnut’s dealings with Emperor Conrad were probably the primary reason that Cnut came to terms with Hamburg-Bremen. Whatever Cnut’s previous plans for linking the churches under his rule, for him an alliance with Germany was a higher ambition. Following the coronation of Emperor Conrad II in Rome on March 26, 1027, Cnut walked next to the emperor and Rudolph of Burgundy in the procession.75 As Cnut’s Letter of 1027 relates, he secured reductions in tolls for merchants and pilgrims from England and Scandinavia traveling to Rome.76 He also set in motion a powerful alliance, with an agreement that, once both were old enough, Cnut’s daughter would marry Conrad’s son. Adam claims that Archbishop Unwan was central to instigating the rapprochement between the Anglo-Danish king and the emperor. The precise nature of the presumed agreement on ecclesiastical matters is unclear, but Cnut presumably agreed to acknowledge Hamburg-Bremen in some way, while Hamburg-Bremen agreed to accept Cnut’s English-consecrated bishops. Perhaps Cnut’s international standing made him secure enough to make this concession. Unlike his father and grandfather before him, Cnut was too powerful to be concerned that recognizing the ecclesiastical authority of the imperial see of Hamburg-Bremen might amount to recognizing the political authority of the German emperor.77
Orkney and the Bursting Bishop Henry
As well as having a bearing on his wider policies of episcopal organization and relations with European churches, Cnut’s international standing may have had a smaller-scale impact in bringing more marginal areas of Britain into the orbit of the English archbishops. Cnut’s rule of England alongside his position in Scandinavia might have brought the earldom of Orkney to the attention of the English church. Authority over Orkney, which was Norse-speaking, had long been claimed by kings of Norway and so, in theory, Cnut’s claims to be overlord of Norway may have included an assumption that he ruled Orkney as well. While it is arguable that the English church was seeking to expand into this traditionally Scandinavian area under Cnut’s rule specifically, its position may have needed shoring up at home. A comparison can be drawn here with a trend detectable in Æthelred’s reign, during which bishoprics were strengthened in response to the escalation of Viking activities. In 995 Æthelred approved the relocation of the bishopric of Norham to Durham (see Map III.1);78 the previous year there had been a Viking raid on Lindisfarne which may have encouraged the community of St. Cuthbert to transfer to a place of greater safety further inland. There was a Viking army at large in the country throughout the period 991–1005 and this threat must have been felt by contemporary ecclesiastics.79 Whereas Æthelred was on the defensive during his reign, including with regard to his ecclesiastical policy, Cnut was often on the offensive and sought to expand his influence. Although they were more difficult to control politically and militarily, geographically outlying or independently ruled regions such as Orkney provided opportunities for expansionist metropolitans to increase their own power and influence.
The official establishment of a bishopric in Orkney is usually attributed to Earl Þorfinnr Sigurðarson of Orkney, datable to his pilgrimage to Rome in around 1050. However, a missionary bishop appears to have been in Orkney even earlier: Henricus or Henry, who, according to Adam of Bremen, was treasurer to King Cnut and ended his days as bishop of Lund by exploding at a feast.80 Henry is usually supposed to have been in Orkney in around 1035, although Haki Antonsson observes that this dating “cannot be established with any certainty.”81 Although his name seems French or German, Henry has been assumed to be a man “of Anglo-Danish provenance.”82 If Cnut and the English church had been trying to interfere in ecclesiastical matters, Þorfinnr may have had this as one of his incentives for taking ecclesiastical matters into his own hands.
There is more information about Henry when he later served as bishop of Lund. According to Adam of Bremen, Henry was appointed there in around 1060 at the behest of King Sveinn Ástríðarson of Denmark.83 Gelting argues that Henry’s transfer from Orkney to Lund probably took place in the reign of Magnús inn góði (“the Good”) Óláfsson, king of Norway and Denmark (1035/1042–1047), rather than in that of Sveinn (1047–1076).84 Magnús seems to have made a concerted effort to increase his control over Orkney and backed one party in the disputed succession to the earldom, although his favored candidate was killed towards the end of his reign. According to Gelting, it was this “event which may have led the Norwegian-Danish king to find a safer see for a loyal Orcadian bishop.”85
A significant overhaul of the Danish diocesan structure occurred in 1059. New Danish bishops loyal to Adalbert, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, were appointed to each see after the previous bishops, loyal to the Danish king, had died or been removed on the grounds of uncanonical consecration. Adalbert, archbishop from 1043 to 1072, was particularly active in this way in attempting to extend the sway of his see. Although he met with only mixed success, in 1047 he did manage to obtain a letter of privilege from Pope Clement II, granting him authority over the lands of the North and the Baltic. Two subsequent popes, Leo IX and Victor II, confirmed these privileges in 1053 and 1055 respectively.86
The one obstacle to Adalbert’s plan was Henry of Lund, who, according to Gelting, “not only was alive, but was also canonically unimpeachable, for as former bishop of Orkney he had a proper ordination, probably from the Anglo-Saxon church.”87 Egino was made bishop of Dalby, only 11 km away; on Henry’s death (possibly as early as 1060), Egino moved to Lund, while Dalby ceased to be a bishopric and became a college of canons instead. It seems that Egino was either an auxiliary bishop at the chapel of the royal residence of Dalby, or a missionary bishop who was based at Dalby. Either way, it is probable that he was expected to succeed to the see of Lund after Henry. Gelting concludes that the most likely explanation for this curious situation is that “there never was, nor was intended to be, any diocese of Dalby.”88 Adam’s vividly negative depiction of Henry’s death in his Gesta is contextualized if we see that the bishop’s very existence was an obstacle to the ambitions of Hamburg-Bremen: Henry, says Adam, brought Cnut’s “tesauros” (treasure) over to Denmark and “luxuriose vitam peregit. De quo narrant etiam, quod pestifera consuetudine delectatus inebriandi ventris tandem suffocatus crepuit” (spent his life in voluptuousness. About him it is even stated that, revelling in the pestiferous practice of drinking his belly full, he at last suffocated and burst).89
Henry had Anglo-Danish ties, nor does Adam locate his origin in Hamburg-Bremen, so it seems probable that he was sent to Lund by the English church. It has been assumed that earlier he was sent to Orkney by the archbishop of York.90 As a provenance for Henry, this northern English archbishopric is geographically closer to Orkney than is Canterbury, relatively speaking. However, if we associate Henry with Cnut, as Adam permits, this king’s efforts in connecting the Danish church to Canterbury make it plausible that Canterbury, not York, was Henry’s point of origin. Alternatively, York might have been responding to Cnut’s ecclesiastical impetus by adding Henry to its own suffragans. Although Wulfstan of York was influential in his day, York could never truly rival Canterbury’s jurisdiction. In the eleventh century Canterbury possessed twelve or thirteen English sees, placing it among the most extensive metropolitans in the Christian world. In comparison, York’s domain north of the Humber only included the see of Durham, placing it among the smallest metropolitans.91 Worcester was occasionally brought into York’s orbit: several archbishops of York held this see in plurality until the Pope ended the practice in 1061.92 This practice may have had an economic motivation, since Canterbury was far wealthier than its northern counterpart, while York needed reconstruction. York did consecrate bishops for Orkney in the 1070s, a period in which she claimed metropolitan status over mainland Scotland too; this claim was officially recognized in 1072, seemingly as a consolation prize for the concurrent reinforcement of Canterbury’s superiority. It remains unclear, however, whether these efforts by York had a precedent so early as the person of Henry.
Additionally, it is possible that Bishop Henry is identifiable with a “Heinrekr” named in Icelandic sources, who stayed in Iceland for two years, according to Ari Þorgilsson’s Íslendingabók (1122×1133).93 Heinrekr is also listed in Hungrvaka, the history of the Icelandic see of Skálholt, as one of the bishops who visited Iceland during the episcopacy of Ísleifr Gizurarson (1055/1056–1080).94 In Íslendingabók the list of foreign bishops appears just after the death of Óláfr Tryggvason in 1000 and before the episcopacy of Ísleifr more than fifty years later; directly after the list, Íslendingabók turns to the appointment of Skapti Þóroddsson as lawspeaker, an office he held from 1004 to 1030. It seems, therefore, that the thirteenth-century author of Hungrvaka dated Heinrekr’s stay in Iceland in the second half of the eleventh century, because he misplaced Ari’s list of foreign bishops in his reconstruction of the sequence of events in Iceland. In view of the long-standing connections between Iceland and Orkney, including the fairly frequent maritime traffic for trade, it is possible that a missionary bishop named Henry, who was probably sent from York or Canterbury and later served in Lund, spent time in both these Scandinavian settlements in the North Atlantic.
Cnut and the Cults of Saints
Another prominent feature of Christianity in this period was saints’ cults, which, like episcopal matters, could provide kings with the opportunity to become involved in ecclesiastical affairs. I will consider Cnut’s actions with regards to these cults, in comparison with Æthelred’s involvement with the cult of his murdered half-brother King Edward the Martyr (975–978). Although blame for Edward’s assassination would later fall on Æthelred and then, especially in the writings of Anglo-Norman historians, on his mother, Æthelthryth, no contemporary evidence clearly incriminates either of them.95 By the time we have any evidence of this cult, it was associated with royal patronage.96 This need not be surprising, since Edward had been an anointed king, a status that made his murder in 978 all the more shocking. Roach has noted that it was “no accident” that the cult should grow in popularity in proportion to Viking activity, since “such signs of divine displeasure must have made Edward’s death appear in a new light.”97 Cnut continued to patronize the cult of Edward, perhaps hoping to emphasize some continuity of the West Saxon royal line into his own reign. The same impulse may be detected in Cnut’s foundation in 1020 of a minster at Assandun, the site of his defeat of Edmund Ironside in 1016.98 This may seem incongruous, like Cnut’s patronage of the cult of St. Ælfheah, the archbishop of Canterbury whom a Viking army had martyred in 1012. It has already been noted that Sveinn and Cnut saw no problem with attacking Christians while being Christian themselves. The same would be true of a Danish king patronizing the cult of a saint killed by Viking raiders; this perhaps is an irony more apparent to modern scholars than to contemporary commentators. Cnut may not have associated himself with Ælfheah’s killers any more than a given English person would identify with the actions of any other group or faction within the realm. Nevertheless, the translation of Ælfheah’s relics from London, the cult’s centre, to Canterbury in 1023 was a shrewd political move by Cnut (see the Prologue, pp. 12–17). According to Nicole Marafioti, the translation helped “to defuse the impact” of these relics.99 Cnut’s patronage of Bury St. Edmunds reflects a similar attitude on his part to the cult of King Edmund of East Anglia, killed in around 870 by Vikings and rapidly proclaimed a martyr.100 St. Edmund’s was another instance of the sensitive management of a potentially embarrassing cult, although the chronological remove from his martyrdom presumably decreased its association with the Anglo-Danish regime; more generally, however, it was part of Cnut’s overall approach to Christian kingship.
Cnut had a particularly interesting relationship with another and, on the surface, perhaps similarly surprising, cult: that of St. Óláfr Haraldsson, king of Norway. Although Adam’s claim, that between the two kings “continuum fuit bellum, nec cessavit omnibus diebus vitae eorum” (there was continual war, and it did not cease all the days of their lives),101 is exaggerated, they certainly came into conflict. Cnut hoped to add Norway to the realms under his dominion. In his description of this conflict between the Danes and the Norwegians, Adam of Bremen sides with Óláfr against Cnut on the basis that Óláfr’s case was more justified, since he was fighting “pro libertate” (for freedom), whereas Cnut was fighting “pro imperio” (for dominion).102 The reality was more complicated. Óláfr Haraldsson had fought in England under Cnut, but began his reign in Norway in 1015, during the Danish invasion of England, with political backing from Æthelred, king of England, and with English ecclesiastical connections. Meanwhile, Cnut would not have been unjustified in believing that he had a right to the overlordship of Norway: it has been argued that his family originated there, as Adam may mean ,103 while we have seen that his grandfather Haraldr Bluetooth Gormsson proclaimed his hold over Norway on the Jelling Stone; moreover, Hákon inn ríki (“the Mighty”) Sigurðarson, earl of Hlaðir and ruler of Norway, had fought alongside Haraldr against the Germans. Cnut’s father Sveinn Forkbeard continued Haraldr’s policy, organized the downfall of Óláfr Tryggvason, and continued to rule Norway through the earls of Hlaðir. One generation later, Cnut bribed Norwegian magnates away from King Óláfr Haraldsson, thus squeezing his power ever more, until the internal opposition to Óláfr became insurmountable and he fled Norway for Kyiv in 1028 (see Crawford, pp. 435–36). The importance of Norway to Cnut is particularly apparent in his takeover of this realm: it was Cnut’s only self-generated conquest and the great effort he expended indicates its importance to him. The accumulated cost of bribes to the Norwegian aristocracy in 1026–1028, the repeated military campaigns, and the propaganda campaign of 1028–1029 all suggest strongly that, as Bolton says, “Norway was won at a substantial financial loss.”104
Cnut was not directly involved in the death of Óláfr Haraldsson at the Battle of Stiklastaðir in 1030; as a result of his apparent unpopularity, Óláfr was killed by his fellow Norwegians. Although Óláfr’s cult had arisen in Trondheim quite rapidly after his death, we should also remember that the martyr-king’s development into a national symbol and the patron saint of Norway was much more gradual.105 In particular, the saint’s son, Magnús the Good (1035–1047), and his half-brother, Haraldr “harðráði” (harsh ruler) Sigurðarson (1046–1066), actively promoted the cult during their reigns. It was Eysteinn Erlendsson, archbishop of Nidaros (1161–1188) and compiler of the Passio Olavi, who established Óláfr as national protector and eternal king of Norway, a figurehead of church and monarchy both.106 We have perhaps been unduly influenced by the positioning of St. Óláfr as central to the account of Norwegian history in Heimskringla and other kings’ saga texts. If St. Óláfr did not yet represent Norway at large, the spread of his cult elsewhere was not necessarily emblematic of pro-Norwegian sentiment, contrary to Benjamin Hudson’s claim that “sympathy for the Norse among the colonists round Britain and Ireland can be gauged by the rapidity of the spread of the cult of St. Olaf throughout the Irish Sea after the saint’s death.”107 Hudson places this in the context of Cnut’s political actions in Britain and Ireland, implying that the popularity of St. Óláfr’s cult was perceived as some sort of threat to Cnut. As is often the case with the medieval period, loyalties and associations were not so clearly defined along national lines, especially in Scandinavia, whose three constituent countries coalesced comparatively late.
Furthermore, it has been established by Matthew Townend that Cnut patronized and popularized the cult of St. Óláfr for his own ends: “to view the early cult of Óláfr predominantly as a focus for anti-Danish hostility, or for popular piety, is to miss the drama of contesting patronage.”108 This was not only true of the cult in Scandinavia, for it also seems likely that Cnut had a hand in its spread in England, too. A church to St. Óláfr still standing in York is the oldest church in town after the minster.109 According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, this church in York was founded by Siward, earl of Northumbria, a Scandinavian appointee of Cnut.110 In London, where perhaps as many as half a dozen churches were dedicated to St. Óláfr, it seems likely that these dedications are connected to the long-term presence of Cnut’s troops and followers.111 The church of St. Óláfr in Exeter received patronage from Earl Godwine, whose rise to power was ushered in by Cnut and by Godwine’s wife Gyða, whose brother, Úlfr, had the honor of being married to Cnut’s sister. Like the cult of St. Edward the Martyr in Æthelred’s reign, the cult of St. Óláfr clearly had royal backing and approval.
Cnut and Penitential Kingship
A further ecclesiastical comparison to draw between Æthelred and Cnut is in the degree to which both kings espoused the penitential tradition. This was taken up enthusiastically during Æthelred’s monarchy, particularly under the influence of Wulfstan, and is seen as a response to the concentrated period of damaging Viking attacks in the latter decades of his reign.112 The minting of the “Agnus Dei” (lamb of God) coin, a break from the traditional design, is a vivid demonstration of this impetus to ask for God’s forgiveness. Still, Cnut’s reign (1016–1035) witnessed fewer external signs of divine displeasure in the form of defeats and famines than had beset Æthelred’s reign (978–1016), and this may have decreased the degree of his emphasis on the penitential. Roach has observed that “Æthelred’s Anglo-Danish successors … did not embrace such ideas about sin and repentance to the same degree.”113 Comparisons may be drawn in this regard with the Frankish kingdom after the reign of Louis the Pious (813–840), in which public penance had become more prominent.114 Mayke de Jong observes in the writings following the rebellions against Louis a “deeply felt wish to put a distance between the present and that turbulent past.”115 A similar wish would have been understandable in post-Æthelredian England. Indeed, the fact that penance had demonstrably proved ineffective against Scandinavian invasion may have hastened the decline of this discourse in England under Anglo-Danish rule.
Nevertheless, during Cnut’s kingship “the penitent ruler was not consigned to oblivion.”116 In one charter to the New Minster at Winchester, dating to 1019, Cnut restores five hides to the church, having bestowed them on a young man of Winchester after having been wrongly informed that they were royal property.117 Cnut expresses remorse for this error, invoking a less marked form of the discourse that we see in Æthelred’s reign: that his repentance is not quite so rhetorical here, in a charter exceptional for its reflection of the penitential tradition, is perhaps due in part to its early date, closer to Æthelred’s reign. A continuity was established by archbishops Lyfing (1013–1020) and Wulfstan (1002–1023), both of whom were still in office and served as the charter’s second and third witnesses. Other possibilities are that this charter relates directly to church matters, making the penitential discourse more readily applicable, or that the situation reflects the same land-grabbing anti-monastic reaction that followed the death of Edgar.118 Crucially in this instance, it also seems that Cnut has made a clear and distinct mistake, but a small one, in the scheme of things; he can be repentant without admitting to wrongdoing on a scale that might taint his whole rule. Catherine Cubitt comments that “royal admission of wrongdoing and atonement can be a high-risk strategy,” arguing that churchmen were able to take advantage of Æthelred’s acknowledgment of past wrongs to religious establishments.119 More dramatically, the fact that Frankish bishops had forced Louis the Pious to do public penance in 833 had led to his removal from power, albeit temporarily, in association with his sons’ rebellions. Given the risks and diminished relevance of royal penance in England after the Danish wars, it was perhaps natural that this was one aspect of Christian kingship with which Cnut did not much engage.
And yet the penitent monarch reappears in the Letter of 1027, in which Cnut declares that he has been to Rome “oratum pro redemptione peccaminum meorum” (to pray for the remission of my sins), claiming that “si quid per mee iuuentutis intemperantiam aut neglegentiam hactenus preter id quod iustum erat actum est” (if anything hitherto contrary to what is right has been done through the intemperance of my youth or through negligence), he will put it right.120 This letter is reminiscent of some of Æthelred’s restitutive charters in the 990s, which refer to the king’s previous youthful indiscretions and ignorance:121 a convenient excuse, once one has reached maturity. For Cnut’s letter, the context of his pilgrimage to Rome, which was always a chance for an established ruler to repent, is also significant. The Encomium’s vivid description of Cnut visiting the monasteries of St. Omer on his way to Rome emphasizes that his prayers and gifts were accompanied by shedding tears, beating his breast, and kissing the pavement.122 This parallels earlier descriptions of the Carolingian rulers Charlemagne and Louis the Pious with precise verbal echoes.123 Elaine Treharne notes the “theatricality of Cnut’s piety” and calls his penitential pilgrimage and its textual depictions a “masterpiece of self-promotion.”124 Cnut was at the pinnacle of his personal hegemony and international standing at this time: he could present himself as both powerful and pious.
To sum up, Cnut used the Church for political ends, as did his English predecessors. Occupying a throne gained by conquest as Cnut did, and therefore needing to appease his new subjects, was not the only unstable situation in which a king might need to shore up his rule. Edgar (957–975), for instance, although he did not face the challenges of a conqueror, had gained the throne after a troubled period following Æthelstan’s reign (924–939). Moreover, Cnut’s church patronage outside England and his gifts to establishments on the Continent cannot be explained away as having quite the same motivation; instead, he may have wished to present himself as a good Christian ruler on the European stage. He could also have been motivated by genuine religious conviction. Æthelred’s penitence, particular to the personal legacy of his own indiscreet youth, may be exceptional; it is not surprising that this did not feature so prominently in Cnut’s reign.
Conclusions: The Church as an Arm of Power
In short, the Danish as well as the English influence on Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy should be acknowledged. Cnut was raised a Christian, with Christian parents. We can postulate some continuity from his grandfather Haraldr Bluetooth’s confident assertion of Christianity to Cnut’s kingship. Cnut certainly made use of the apparatus of pre-Conquest England in displaying his association with Christianity, but the impetus for this may not have been purely English; whereas Haraldr had a runic monument, Cnut had his law codes and his two Letters to the English people. The fact that Christianity was a more recent development in Denmark did make a difference, but actually it meant greater royal involvement and for Cnut, a more immediate model for Christian kingship. His father, Sveinn, had set an example of vigorous interference in the Church and of control over bishops in Denmark.125 Since Cnut actively arranged for bishops for Denmark to be consecrated in England and for Danish clerics to be sent to England for further education, we can expect him to have been equally engaged with the English church, whose support was necessary for these developments. Cnut might have been more careful in his dealings with them, but he was not passive or a pawn. This can be seen in his promotion of politically useful cults such as that of St. Edward the Martyr and St. Óláfr Haraldsson. Through cults such as these, Cnut connected himself with previous rulers of both England and Norway.
Cnut thus drew on the traditions of both Denmark and England. To some extent he might be considered to have synthesized them, but they were already closely linked.126 In some ways the situation under Cnut was that a single political authority now connected these transnational ecclesiastical traditions, which meant that he was able to employ effective tactics utilizing bishops and parallel saints’ cults. While there is more evidence for Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy in England than in Denmark, it is clear that he was operating on a truly international level.
Notes
1
The author would like to thank Laura Amalasunta Gazzoli, Fraser McNair, Levi Roach, Simon Keynes, and Elizabeth Ashman Rowe.
2
Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 77.
3
Abrams, “Conversion of the Scandinavians of Dublin,” 27–28.
4
Lawson’s Cnut: The Danes in England is strong on England, but less so on the Scandinavian context. Indeed, as Jesch notes, the very subtitle (The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century) of (the first edition of) this book implies that “Cnut’s reign was merely a blip in the otherwise orderly progress of English history” (Jesch, Review of The Reign of Cnut, by Rumble, 272). (The book’s subtitle in its later edition, England’s Viking King, seems to wish to alleviate this impression.) Jesch laments further that Rumble’s edited volume The Reign of Cnut (1994) did not include a contribution by a saga specialist and more broadly emphasizes that Norse texts have a contribution to make to the Anglo-Scandinavian field (Review of The Reign of Cnut, by Rumble, 274). In response to Jesch’s review, the next major study of the Anglo-Danish king, Bolton’s Empire of Cnut, was stronger on the Scandinavian side. Bolton’s chapter in this volume, especially pp. 463–71, surveys the historiographical traditions, as well as the history of Scandinavian source criticism on Cnut.
5
Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 411.
6
Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 412.
7
Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Bethurum, 63–64.
8
Barlow, English Church, 41.
9
Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 77–80.
10
Brooks, Church of Canterbury, 287–88; Lawson, Cnut: The Danes in England, 128–29.
11
Lawson, Cnut: The Danes in England, 128–29.
12
Heslop, “Production of de luxe Manuscripts,” 180.
13
Lawson, Cnut: The Danes in England, 117–60.
14
Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 106. Since then, and since the research for this chapter was carried out, Bolton has argued that Cnut was “most probably a devout Christian” who also made use of relics in England, including on the battlefield (Bolton, Cnut the Great, 209; for relics see 87–89, 108–9).
15
Roach, Æthelred the Unready, 39.
16
Regularis Concordia, ed. and trans. Symons, viii, ix, x, xvii, xix, xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxxi, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxvii, 74–76, 81–82, 83, 84, 86, 90, 91–92, 93.
17
Molyneaux, Formation of the English Kingdom, 175.
18
Molyneaux, Formation of the English Kingdom, 175.
19
Roach, Æthelred the Unready, 40.
20
Giandrea, Episcopal Culture, 53 and 58.
21
Giandrea, Episcopal Culture, 58.
22
Letters and Poems of Fulbert, ed. Behrends, 66–69 (no. 37). See Gelting, “Un Évêque danois,” for further discussion, also on the letter’s date.
23
Morawiec, “Liðsmannaflokkr,” 107.
24
See Urbańczyk and Rosik, “Poland,” 263 and 275–76.
25
In 826 the Danish Harald “Klak,” while in exile for a second time, had been baptized at Mainz, prompted by Louis the Pious, who became his godfather. Despite support from Louis, Harald did not succeed in regaining the Danish throne, but was expelled by the sons of Godfrid the following year.
26
Moltke, Runes and their Origin, 207.
27
Moesgaard, King Harold’s Coinage, 101–5.
28
Discussed with reference to Old Norse literature by Weber, in “Irreligiosität und Heldenzeitalter” and “Intellegere historiam,” and extended to Flateyjarbók by Rowe, in Development of Flateyjarbók, 188–99.
29
Gazzoli, Review of King Harold’s Cross Coinage, edited by Moesgaard, 7.
30
Moesgaard, King Harold’s Coinage, 102–3.
31
ASC (E), ed. Irvine, 70 (s.a. 1013); (E), trans. Swanton, 143 (s.a. 1013).
32
See Abrams, “Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of Scandinavia.”
33
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 91 (II.xxvii).
34
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 91 (II.xxvii). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 75.
35
Gelting, “Kingdom of Denmark,” 83.
36
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 99–100 (II.xxxviii). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 81.
37
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 100 (II.xxxix).
38
Encomium, ed. Campbell, 8–9.
39
Jensen, Tusindtallets Danske Mønter, 22. Marie Bønløkke Spejlborg in this volume considers this coinage in the light of Sveinn’s English connections, including bishops and moneyers, pp. 340–41.
40
Jensen, Tusindtallets Danske Mønter, 22.
41
Jensen, Tusindtallets Danske Mønter, 22.
42
Jensen, Tusindtallets Danske Mønter, 22.
43
See Demidoff, “Poppo Legend”; Lund, “Baptism”; Lund, “Harald Bluetooth.”
44
Adam refers to these privileges in Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 24–25 (I.xviii) and Rimbert in his Vita Anskarii, ed. Waitz, 34–35 (chap. 13). Knibbs, in Ansgar, Rimbert and the Forged Foundations, 78–88 (his discussion of the crucial privilege of Gregory IV), argues that significant parts of the papal privileges in their extant state were forged and misused by Hamburg-Bremen.
45
Johnson, “Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen,” 149.
46
Although we do not know for certain which party pushed for the appointment of these bishops who appear at the Synod of Ingelheim, Hamburg-Bremen seems the most likely candidate.
47
Gelting, “Elusive Bishops,” 172.
48
Gelting, “Kingdom of Denmark,” 83.
49
Ottonis II. et III. diplomata, ed. Sickel, 441 (D O III 41). There are some corruptions in the text, much of which is taken from Otto’s I privilege of 965.
50
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 94–95 (II.xxxiv), 106–7 (II.xlvi–vii). Gelting, “Elusive Bishops,” 174–77; Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 192.
51
Bolton, Cnut the Great, 3, 36–37.
52
Forte, Oram, and Pedersen, Viking Empires, 358.
53
Knibbs, in Ansgar, Rimbert, has questioned Anskar’s archiepiscopal status on the basis of forgeries within the papal privileges for Hamburg-Bremen, but this argument has not been accepted by Jansson, in “Ansgar,” or by Goetz, in “Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen.”
54
Encomium, ed. Campbell, 18–19. Spejlborg in this volume, p. 342, compares this account to the archaeological evidence at Lund.
55
Abrams, “Eleventh-Century Missions,” 35–36.
56
Pagan furnished burials continued after Harald’s conversion, even at his own ring fortresses: see Roesdahl, “En Gravplads,” 158.
57
Although Wickham observes that Christianity and the church had a greater role in solidifying the power of kings in Norway than it did in Denmark (Medieval Europe, 93 and 96), conversion was still associated with kings (89–91 and 94). Indeed, the fact that Denmark had a stronger monarchy may have made them less reliant on the church administration and therefore better able to interfere at an early date.
58
See also Reuter, “Plunder and Tribute”; and Stone, “Waltharius and Carolingian Morality.”
59
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 101 (II.xl, schol. 26 [27]). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 82.
60
Necrologium Lundense, ed. Weibull, 88.
61
Gelting, “Elusive Bishops,” 175. For further discussion of Gotebald, see Spejlborg, “Anglo-Danish Connections,” 78.
62
Spejlborg observes that the “earliest phase of church building in Denmark was directed by kings and bishops,” in “Anglo-Danish Connections,” 86.
63
Gelting, “Kingdom of Denmark,” 83.
64
Gelting, “Kingdom of Denmark,” 110.
65
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 115 (II.liii). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 93.
66
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 97 (II.xxxvi, schol. 25 [26]). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 79.
67
Hare, “Cnut and Lotharingia”; Keynes, “Giso, Bishop of Wells.”
68
Gelting, “Kingdom of Denmark,” 83.
69
Sawyer, Electronic Sawyer (S 958).
70
Larson, Canute the Great, 190.
71
Lund, “Cnut’s Danish Kingdom,” 35, 42.
72
Keynes, “Cnut’s Earls,” 49, n. 38.
73
Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 83.
74
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 116 (II.lv). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 93.
75
For a discussion of the background in European politics to the imperial coronation and speculations on Cnut’s involvement, see Bolton, Cnut the Great, 163–71.
76
EHD I, ed. Whitelock, 476 (no. 53: Cnut’s Letter of 1027).
77
Niblaeus has shown that the back-projected idea of constant hostility between Denmark and the supposedly imperialist German church, particularly Hamburg-Bremen, is simplistic and potentially unhelpful: German influence can be seen on the Scandinavian church in a variety of ways (“German Influence,” 261–63; on Adam’s account specifically, 111–13). While this is instructive and the German threat has sometimes been over-emphasised, Niblaeus’s thesis focuses on the mid-eleventh to twelfth centuries. When the Danish kingdom was in its infancy, tensions with the Franks were greater, and it seems that these extended into the Ottonian period as well. Wickham notes that for ninth-century Danish kings, “Christian conversion was closely connected to acceptance of Frankish hegemony” and that Haraldr Bluetooth’s conversion was tied to Emperor Otto I, in that Haraldr was trying “to use him as a political model and to neutralise him as a threat” (Medieval Europe, 90, 91).
78
Traditionally believed to be located at Chester-le-Street. McGuigan, in “Neither Scotland,” esp. 81, argues that the community of Cuthbert was actually at Norham.
79
Besides the Cuthbert relocation, King Æthelred issued a charter in 994, S 880, which assured the bishop of Cornwall that he had all the same rights as other bishops. This assurance seems connected to the raid on Padstow (ASC (CD), s.a. 981) and to the fact that the whole south-west was vulnerable to attack from Viking ships making for the Irish Sea (Simon Keynes, pers. comm.). The fact that the Cuthbert relocation and S 880, would provide, respectively, one instance from within the province of York and one from within the province of Canterbury suggests that both archbishops were involved in this policy. The long-standing conflicts between the sees of Crediton and St. Germans, however, may have been more significant for S 880, whose wording borrows very heavily from the longer S 876, issued the previous year. See Electronic Sawyer.
80
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 236 (IV.viii).
81
Haki Antonsson, St. Magnús, 86 (and references therein).
82
Cant, “Church in Orkney and Shetland,” 2.
83
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 235 (IV.viii). On the dating, which takes Bishop Avoco’s death in 1057 as its terminus a quo, see Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 191, n. 15.
84
Gelting, “Elusive Bishops,” 190–91.
85
Gelting, “Elusive Bishops,” 191.
86
Regesta Norvegica I, ed. Gunnes, 35–36.
87
Gelting, “Elusive Bishops,” 190.
88
Gelting, “Elusive Bishops,” 190.
89
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 236 (IV.viii). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 192. See also Acts 1:18.
90
Haki Antonsson, St. Magnús, 86.
91
Barlow, English Church, 232.
92
Giandrea, Episcopal Culture, 99.
93
Íslendingabók, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, 18.
94
Hungrvaka, ed. Kahle, 95.
95
Keynes, “Cult of Edward the Martyr,” 116–17; Roach, Æthelred, 75–77.
96
Cubitt, in “Sites and Sanctity,” argues that the cult swept to popularity as part of general opposition to Æthelred, but Keynes, in “Cult of Edward the Martyr,” has established that the cult was an official, not a popular one, and that Canterbury was involved from the outset.
97
Roach, Æthelred, 169.
98
For the battle, see ASC (DE), trans. Swanton, 152 (s.a. 1016).
99
Marafioti, The King’s Body, 195.
100
See Marafioti, The King’s Body, 207–9 for discussion of the extent of this patronage.
101
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 117 (II.lv). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 94.
102
Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 117 (II.lv). Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 94.
103
Bolton, Cnut the Great, 44–45; Adam Bremensis Gesta, ed. Schmeidler, 52 (I.lii: “Nortmannia”); Adam of Bremen: History, trans. Tschan, 47 (“Normandy”).
104
Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 288.
105
Mortensen, “Writing and Speaking of St. Olaf,” 208.
106
Imsen, “The Nidaros Church,” 23.
107
Hudson, “Dublin,” 333. Hudson may also overstate the speed and extent of the cult’s spread in the area; for example, there are only three dedications to Óláfr known from the Western Isles: see Abrams, “Hebrides,” 177.
108
Townend, “Knútr and the Cult of St. Óláfr,” 273.
109
Clarke, “Christian Cults and Cult Centres,” 144.
110
EHD II, ed. Douglas and Greenaway, 133 (no. 1, ASC, s.a. 1055).
111
Townend, “Knútr and the Cult of St. Óláfr,” 266–68.
112
See Roach, “Public Rites and Public Wrongs.”
113
Roach, Æthelred the Unready, 324.
114
See de Jong, The Penitential State, 260–70.
115
De Jong, The Penitential State, 262.
116
Roach, Æthelred the Unready, 324.
117
Sawyer, Electronic Sawyer (S 956).
118
See Jayakumar, “Reform and Retribution.”
119
Cubitt, “Politics of Remorse,” 190.
120
Cnut’s Letter of 1027, in Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, 276–77; EHD I, trans. Whitelock, 476–77 (no. 53).
121
See Stafford, “Political Ideas.”
122
Encomium, ed. Campbell, 36–37.
123
Encomium, ed. Campbell, 37, n. 3; Treharne, “Performance of Piety,” 349–50.
124
Treharne, “Performance of Piety,” 349, 356.
125
Sveinn’s control of bishops accords with the Scandinavian situation more generally: Abrams notes that “the bishop’s primary relationship was with the king,” in “Eleventh-Century Missions,” 34.
126
It should be noted that the Danish church was not simply a replica of the English church. Abrams, in “Eleventh-Century Missions,” 33, discusses the differences between the Christianization of England and Denmark and the differences between their churches. For a survey of the strong ecclesiastical links between England and Denmark, both before and after Cnut, see Spejlborg, “Anglo-Danish Connections.”