Chapter 18. Cnut, his Dynasty, and the Elbe-Slavs

Laura Amalasunta Gazzoli

The Danes enter written medieval history in earnest in the ninth century, long before the appearance of Cnut’s ancestors at Jelling in Jutland. In the first decade of this century, the Royal Frankish Annals tell of border conflicts between Charlemagne and a king from another Danish family, Godfrid or Godofrid. One cannot read this account without also encountering two Slavic peoples, the Abodrites (or Obodrites: see Morawiec in the following chapter) and the Wilzi. The Abodrites had been allies of Charlemagne in his war against the Saxons and in 808, Godofrid led a Danish army south against them, putting one of their rulers, Drasco, to flight, and executing another, Godelaib. Godofrid made two thirds of the Abodrites tributary to the Danes; on his way back to Denmark he destroyed a trading-place in Abodrite territory on the Baltic coast called Reric, now identified with a site near Groß Strömkendorf, to the north-east of Wismar.¹ In this expedition Godofrid had with him Slavic allies of his own, namely the Wilzi, who, according to the Annals, joined Godofrid voluntarily “propter antiquas inimicitias” (because of their ancient enmities) with the Abodrites.² This chapter will show that such relationships with these westernmost Slavic peoples continued to play an important role in Danish affairs in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and especially in the politics of the Jelling dynasty, whose area of authority grew into the Christian, medieval kingdom of Denmark. Cnut – who had a Polish mother and an Abodrite grandmother – was no exception to this rule.³

The Elbe-Slavs

To refer to all the Slavic peoples between the rivers Elbe and Oder, or between the Saxons in the west and the Poles in the east, I will use the term “Elbe-Slavs,” which represents the standard term in German research. More precisely, “Baltic Slavs” is used to refer to the northernmost of these tribes bordering the Baltic Sea, who will be the focus of this chapter. The term “Polabians” is also used with the same meaning as “Elbe-Slavs,” but is a Slavic formation (Labe being the Slavic name for Elbe). Vinðr (Wends) is a generic term for Slavs used in Old Norse and other Germanic languages. Most contemporary sources simply call them “Slavs,” or refer to them by a specific name, such as “Abodrites.”

These peoples have received relatively little attention from historians of Scandinavia and especially from those in the English-speaking world, even though they were the immediate neighbours of the Danes. Why is this? First, they no longer exist: their territory is in modern Germany,⁴ and their languages died out in the Middle Ages with only a couple of exceptions: these include a pocket in the Hanoverian Wendland, just south of the Elbe in the east of Lower Saxony, which survived into the eighteenth century,⁵ and a small community, known as Sorbs, in the south-east of Saxony, where a Slavic language is still spoken by a minority. Second, there is still something of a mental Iron Curtain in operation in scholarship: medievalists who work on western Europe tend not to read Polish and Russian; this limits our access to scholarship on Slavic matters, although much is written in German and the sources themselves are in Latin. Finally, Scandinavian historians have been accustomed to looking in two directions: either northwards in search of the purely Scandinavian, or to the south-west in search of Insular and Continental Christian influences. When we look east, we tend to look very far – often all the way to Byzantium and Baghdad, sometimes stopping in Novgorod or Kyiv on the way – but the southern shore of the Baltic tends to be a blind spot. Needless to say, it was not so for the Scandinavians of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Adam of Bremen’s description of the area between the Elbe and Oder and its inhabitants can strike one as overwhelming, owing to the number of peoples named.⁶ These, however, fell largely into three confederacies, of whom the Abodrites were the furthest to the north and west; to their south and east were the Liutizi, alternatively known as the Wilzi, which was an earlier name, used in the annal for 808; and further south were the Sorbs. The main sources for the Abodrites and Liutizi in this chapter will be tenth- and eleventh-century German chronicles, such as those of Widukind of Corvey, Thietmar of Merseburg, and Adam of Bremen, as well as various annals, and Helmold of Bosau’s twelfth-century Chronicle of the Slavs.

In addition to the Abodrites proper, with their center in Mecklenburg, there were at least three other peoples associated with the Abodrite “confederacy,” which expanded to the east and south in the eleventh century.⁷ There were two main centres of power, with their own dynasties, which often rivaled one another: one was Michelenburg, the other Oldenburg in Holstein. Mecklenburg, formerly Michelenburg, which means “large fortress,” was the center of the Abodrites proper, but it is clear that the rulers of Oldenburg in Holstein (or in Slavic, Starigard, “old fortress”), the center of the Wagrians, often opposed them.⁸ In the tenth century, the Mecklenburg dynasty established its preeminence, and in around 965 the Cordoban Spanish Jew Ibrāhīm ibn Ya’qūb (or Abraham ben Jacob) described the Abodrite ruler Nakon as one of the four great kings of the Slavs, alongside the rulers of the Poles, Czechs, and Bulgars.⁹ Nakon’s father may have been the unnamed Abodrite ruler who was defeated by the German King Henry the Fowler in 931 and forced to accept Christianity.¹⁰ His dynasty, the Nakonids, largely maintained their Christian faith through the frequent Slavic pagan reactions, while they cultivated strong links with the Saxon dukes of the Billung family.¹¹ This Abodrite-Saxon closeness can be traced back to 967, when Duke Hermann Billung helped establish the preeminence of the Mecklenburg dynasty under Mstivoi, presumed to be Nakon’s son, over the other Elbe-Slav dynasty based in Wagria at Oldenburg.¹² According to the twelfth-century chronicler Helmold, Mstivoi was also known as Billung or Billug: this has been interpreted as a reference to the Billung family, and may have been taken as a baptismal name.¹³

Abodrite and Danish Dynastic Politics

Mstivoi also cultivated links with the Danes. According to a runestone at Sønder Vissing in Jutland, he gave his daughter, who bore the Norse name Tufa or Tófa, in marriage to one Haraldr, a Danish king who can only be Haraldr Bluetooth (see Table 18.1), Cnut’s grandfather. According to a claim on the famous Jelling stone, Halraldr “uan tanmaurk ala auk nuruiak auk tąni karþi kristną” (won all Denmark for himself and Norway and made the Danes Christian).¹⁴ The text of the Sønder Vissing stone is: “tufa | lEt kaurua | kubl | mistiuis | tutiR | uft | muþur | sina | kuna | harats | hins | kuþa | kurms | sunaR” (Tufa, Mstivoi’s daughter, wife of Haraldr the Good, Gormr’s son, had these monuments made for her mother).¹⁵ The questions to ask here are when Tufa’s marriage took place, and whether Haraldr’s son and successor, Sveinn Forkbeard, was the offspring of this union. If we can trust the skaldic poem Vellekla,¹⁶ attributed to the Icelandic poet Einarr skálaglamm in ca. 985, “Vinðr” (Wends) fought alongside Franks and Frisians in a battle at what seems to be the Danevirke against the Norwegian Earl Hákon of Hlaðir. In all likelihood this refers to Abodrites fighting on the side of Otto II (973–983) against Hákon’s overlord, Haraldr Bluetooth Gormsson, in 974.¹⁷ We might then presume that Tufa’s marriage took place either some years before 974, or some years after. However, it must be stressed that we cannot be sure that this line from Vellekla refers to an official Abodrite presence backed by Mstivoi.

Table 18.1:Dynasties of the Piast, Jelling, and Nakonid kindreds.

My own suspicion, therefore, is that the marriage must have taken place early, most probably shortly after 967, when the Saxons helped establish Mstivoi as overall ruler by resolving the quarrel between the Mecklenburg-Abodrites and the Wagrians of Starigard (i.e., Oldenburg in Holstein: see Map 18.1).¹⁸ In these circumstances, a Jelling-Mecklenburg alliance that would have surrounded the Wagrians to the north, south, and east would be particularly valuable to Mstivoi. Haraldr would have appreciated support on the south coast of the Baltic while he expanded the influence of his dynasty eastwards across the Great Belt and Øresund, probably in the 970s.¹⁹ An early date for the marriage makes it entirely possible that Haraldr’s successor, Sveinn Forkbeard, was the child of Haraldr and Tufa: if this is true, Sveinn would have been in his early twenties or perhaps late teens in the 980s when he rebelled against his father. This rebellion is another event in which the Slavic context is essential.

Map 18.1: Western Slavonic territories in Cnut’s reign (1016–1035).

Since the days of King Henry I the Fowler (919–936), the Saxons had been establishing their authority over areas to the east. The Elbe-Slavs were forced to pay tribute to the Saxons, and in 931 various sources record that Henry defeated the king of the Abodrites and forced him to accept Christianity.²⁰ The amounts exacted in tribute were often extortionate, and on top of this the Elbe-Slavs were expected to pay church tithes as well;²¹ thus it is hardly surprising that there were frequent revolts against Saxon overlordship and Christianity. Indeed, in the 1070s, the Danish King Sveinn Ástríðarson (or Svend Estridsen) remarked to Adam of Bremen that the Slavs would have been Christianized long ago if the Saxons had not been so avaricious.²²

The Danes were also defeated by Henry the Fowler in 931, when their king, “Chnuba,” was forced to accept baptism and tributary status.²³ The Danes, however, do not seem to have been subject to the same structures that were established over the Slavs, although these varied in different areas:²⁴ the Billungs, whom Henry set over the northern areas (modern Holstein and Mecklenburg), tended to rely on the local elites to control the area, whereas Markgraf Gero in the central and southern areas (modern Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Sachsen) seems to have preferred to eliminate the elites.²⁵ When Henry’s son, Otto I (“the Great”), died in 973, Haraldr Bluetooth seized the occasion to prepare for attacks to the south, which he launched in the following year, but the new emperor, Otto II, defeated him and may have forced him to accept some kind of tributary status.²⁶ Nevertheless, when Otto II died in 983, not only Haraldr but also the Elbe-Slavs rose up again.

Slavs, Danes, and the Turmoil of the 980s

The driving force behind their revolt was the confederation of Slavic peoples to the east and south of the Abodrites, known no longer as Wilzi but as Liutizi. The confederation of the Liutizi was based on a fierce paganism that centered on the temple at Rethra, where they worshipped a god called Redigost, whose name is probably connected to that of the chief people of the confederation, the Redarii;²⁷ the name Liutizi itself comes from the Slavic root ljut-, whose meanings include “fierce,” “cruel,” and “steadfast.”²⁸ Unlike the Abodrite confederacy, in which the peoples were (theoretically) subject to the Abodrite kings, the Liutizi had no overall ruler and were governed by assemblies in which, according to Thietmar of Merseburg, those who spoke against the will of the majority were beaten with cudgels and risked fines or the destruction of their property if they failed to comply with any decision.²⁹ Their rebellion was directed not only at the Church and the authority of the Saxons, but also more broadly at rule by princes: thus the Abodrites and Hevellians, a Slavic tribe by the Havel to the south in Brandenburg, were also potential targets.³⁰ The Liutizi were not, however, proto-socialists resisting the expansion of a feudalist system of economic exploitation, as scholarship in the former East Germany sometimes implied, but were dominated by their own landholding class, referred to as “priores” in Latin, whose interests were threatened by the growth of power at a higher level as well as by the establishment of the Church.³¹

Thus, Mstivoi does not at first seem to have participated in the revolt, and in 984, according to Thietmar, he was at the court of Quedlinburg in support of Duke Henry the Quarrelsome of Bavaria’s claim to the throne.³² The revolt spread to the Wagrians, and Adam of Bremen reports that sixty priests were killed in the church at Oldenburg in Holstein (Starigard), including the Cathedral Provost Oddar, a relative of the later Danish king, Sveinn Ástríðarson.³³ The rebellion grew in popularity, and in the end Mstivoi does seem to have also taken part in it, although he remained Christian: Thietmar reports that he burnt the cathedral in Hamburg, giving as his source for this none other than Mstivoi’s chaplain.³⁴

To turn to the situation in Denmark, both Haraldr and his Abodrite in-laws had been drawn into the revolt of the Liutizi against the Saxons, with Haraldr, like Mstivoi, remaining Christian.³⁵ In 985 and 986, various annals record Saxon expeditions against the Elbe-Slavs;³⁶ in at least the first of these Duke Mieszko I of Poland was also involved on the Saxon side. As Mieszko was a Christian ruler amassing a tributary empire not unlike that of the Ottonian emperors, the Liutizi were no friends to him either; moreover, he had excellent relations with the emperor.³⁷ It is around this time that Sveinn Forkbeard rebelled against his father, Haraldr Bluetooth, who, according to both Adam of Bremen and to the eleventh-century Encomium Emmae, fled to the Slavs after his defeat.³⁸ Adam names the place of his flight as “Iumne,” usually identified with the city of Wolin, situated on an island of the same name at the mouth of the Oder (Iumne is also thought to be Jómsborg, seat of the legendary Jómsvikings). Wolin lay in the border-region between the Liutizi and the kingdom of Poland. Although Widukind records Mieszko I of Poland defeating the “Vuloini” around 967,³⁹ there is nothing to suggest that this led to any lasting Polish control of the area.⁴⁰ Rather, in the 980s Wolin was pagan and linked to the Liutizi confederation. Wolin probably maintained this independence, for over the course of the next century, it would develop a reputation as a base for pirates.⁴¹

Sveinn’s Marriage(s)

It is in this context that I set the early career and marriage of Sveinn Forkbeard, and thus Cnut’s parentage. My conclusions differ from those of Jakub Morawiec in his discussion of this in the next chapter (pp. 419–24). Thietmar records that Sveinn was captured after his father’s death by “Northmanni” (“Northmannis insurgentibus captus”), from whom he had to be ransomed;⁴² Adam, on the other hand, says that he made war on the Slavs and was captured twice and taken to “Sclavania,” after which he had to be ransomed.⁴³ Moreover, a skaldic verse attributed to the late-eleventh-century Icelandic poet Markús Skeggjason claims that the Wends were subject to a Sveinn – possibly Sveinn Forkbeard, but also possibly his grandson, Sveinn Ástríðarson.⁴⁴ To my mind, the variety of this detail suggests that hostilities between Sveinn Haraldsson and his father’s supporters dragged on even after Haraldr’s flight to Wolin and his death there. The confusion over whether Sveinn’s captors were Norse or Slavic would fit well with the idea that his enemies were a group made up of Haraldr’s Danish supporters and Slavic allies, particularly ones based on Wolin.⁴⁵ A recent and controversial artefact, a medallion called the “Curmsun disc,” whose authenticity has not been universally accepted, was discovered allegedly at Wiejkowo near Wolin. If genuine, its inscription, bearing the name Haraldr Gormsson, may show that it was originally associated with Haraldr’s grave. If that is the case, the object bears archaeological witness to Haraldr’s having enough support in the area for it to have been commissioned.⁴⁶ This object has also, however, been dated to the eleventh or twelfth century.⁴⁷

Faced with this continuing difficulty from Wolin, the most rational place for Sveinn to look to for help would have been Poland. The Saxons and the emperor were separated from Wolin by the rest of the Liutizi. Moreover, they seem to have had little interest in Denmark in this period, whereas the Polish rulers were very keen to expand to the west.⁴⁸ Adam and Thietmar both record that Sveinn’s wife was of the Polish royal dynasty,⁴⁹ and the naming of Cnut’s sister as “Santslave” in the Liber vitae of New Minster, Winchester, for Świętosława, seems to confirm this.⁵⁰ For these reasons it would make perfect sense for Sveinn to have contracted this marriage in the 980s, when Mieszko’s daughter would probably have been in her mid-teens and thus perfectly marriageable by the standards of the day. We are not told what her own name was, but it is often assumed that it was also Świętosława.⁵¹

If this marriage took place, Adam of Bremen’s claim, that Sveinn’s revolt against his father was a pagan one, would be the wrong way round – in fact, it was the Wolin-allied Haraldr who was taking part in (or at least, taking advantage of) a pagan revolt, and Sveinn who, I would suggest, fought against him alongside Christian allies. There is nothing in the material record to suggest that Sveinn Forkbeard rejected Christianity. The diploma of 988 giving Danish bishops rights in Germany, which is often advanced as evidence that Sveinn expelled the bishops sent by Hamburg-Bremen,⁵² nowhere states that the bishops were in exile. This document can be explained easily enough by the turmoil of the times and by what would have seemed a very real fear that the pagan reaction that had begun among the Slavs would spread to the Danes. The bishops, far from being expelled, may well have fled of their own accord (or at least spent less time in Denmark).

To return to Sveinn’s marriage, however, the picture I have painted here is complicated by Adam’s report that Sveinn’s queen was the widow of Eiríkr the Victorious of Sweden, whose death is normally placed around 995.⁵³ There are several ways of dealing with this complication. In one way, it does all seem to add up to one person: we know from Thietmar that Sveinn’s wife was a Polish princess, while from Adam we know that Mieszko’s son, Duke Bolesław Chrobry (“the Brave”) of Poland (992–1025) gave his sister (or daughter, Adam is not sure) to Eiríkr as part of a Swedish-Polish alliance, and that Sveinn married Eiríkr’s widow.

In another way, if one is to suggest that Sveinn took a Polish wife in the 980s, it is worth noting that Adam nowhere says that the Polish princess who married Eiríkr was the same person as the widow of Eiríkr, whom Sveinn then married. The virtue of treating these brides, Eiríkr’s and then Sveinn’s, as two different women is that it involves the least meddling with the documentary record. The two-women reading solves the problem neatly, because it fits with Thietmar’s account from ca. 1018 that Sveinn had rejected his Polish wife at some point long ago: this would have left him free to marry Eiríkr’s widow in ca. 995.⁵⁴ If Eiríkr’s widow was Duke Mieszko’s daughter, the same Polish princess whom Adam records Bolesław giving him in marriage, she could have been a sister or niece of Sveinn’s previous Polish wife: this might seem unusual, but it is not impossible.

Whether Sveinn had two marriages or only one, we should consider at what point he might have sent away his (second?) wife. The most likely time would probably have been between the years 1002–1005. After the death of Otto III on January 23, 1002, Bolesław of Poland (992–1025) took the opportunity to seize territory among the southern Elbe-Slavs as well as in Bohemia and Moravia, for which he refused to do homage to Otto’s successor, King Henry of the Romans (son of Duke Henry the Quarrelsome of Bavaria and crowned as emperor in 1014). In response, King Henry allied himself with the Liutizi against the Poles; given the steadfast paganism of the Liutizi, this was an alliance many contemporaries found objectionable.⁵⁵ Since Sveinn was focused on England from 1002 onwards, it is likely that he had no wish to return to hostilities with the Liutizi.

Cnut and the Slavs

This brings us to Sveinn’s son, Cnut. The Encomium reports that on Sveinn’s death on February 3, 1014, Cnut and his brother Haraldr retrieved their mother from “Sclavonia.”⁵⁶ Although this does not necessarily imply the renewal of any Danish-Polish alliance, the peace of Merseburg in 1013 between the Poles and King Henry (later Emperor Henry II, 1014–1024) meant that one year later Cnut and Haraldr would not have been under any obligation to fight for the Poles against the Liutizi and Saxons.⁵⁷

However, fighting the Liutizi seems to have been precisely what Cnut did a few years later. The twelfth-century Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon records that, in the third year of his reign, hence in 1019, Cnut went to Denmark to attack the “Wandali,” that is, the “Wends.”⁵⁸ Timothy Bolton has argued that this expedition should be redated to 1022 and connected with Thorkell the Tall.⁵⁹ I would like to propose, however, that the Slavic context makes 1019, the year we know Cnut did travel to Denmark, a more likely year for this expedition.⁶⁰ In 1018 the peace of Bautzen finally brought an end to the conflict between Emperor Henry II and Bolesław. The Liutizi, who had been Henry’s allies in this war, took the opportunity to attack the Abodrites, who were then ruled by Mstislav, the son of Mstivoi. Like his father, Mstislav was a Christian, but his people were largely pagan and joined with the Liutizi in driving him out and rejecting Christianity and the rule of princes for what Thietmar called “libertas more Liuticico” (freedom, Liutizi-style).⁶¹

Bishop Benno of Oldenburg in Holstein informed Emperor Henry about these events, but Henry took no immediate action and put off a decision until Easter.⁶² He clearly had no wish to entangle himself in the affairs of his former Liutizi allies. The Abodrite dynasty was, however, still connected to the Danes (see Table 18.1): Cnut’s grandmother had been Mstislav’s sister, while, according to the Chronicle of St. Michael’s in Lüneburg, Mstislav’s own son Pribignev Uto was married to a Dane. Although we do not know if she was of royal stock, it is not out of the question, as St. Michael’s was where Pribignev’s son, Gottschalk, was brought up; this lends credibility to the source.⁶³ Moreover, Cnut and his brother Haraldr could not have liked the prospect of “libertas more Liuticico” spreading to Denmark as well. By 1020, the Abodrite dynasty seems to have been restored, with Pribignev in charge. A Danish expedition led by Cnut to help them against the Liutizi and the Abodrite rebels in 1019 would fit perfectly with these events. The Billung dukes of Saxony seem to have assisted in the endeavour as well, as the tributary status of the Abodrites to the Saxons was restored.⁶⁴

A Slavic Prince in England: A New Suggestion

The years that followed seem to have largely seen a cooperation between the Danes, the Billungs, the Abodrite dynasty, and the Poles in containing the Liutizi. Emperor Henry II was not always an enemy, but he was no friend at least to the Billungs or the Poles. According to John of Worcester, a sister of Cnut had married a “king of the Wends” called “Wyrtgeorn.”⁶⁵ This man might be identical with the “Wrytsleof dux” who attests one of Cnut’s charters in 1026;⁶⁶ we know of no king with this name, which looks like the Slavic name Vartislav (Warcisław), but he could have been an important Abodrite, Pole, or perhaps Pomeranian.⁶⁷

I have a new and different suggestion, however, that the name “Wyrtgeorn” (the Old English name for the legendary Vortigern) is a garbling of Pribignev, a name which would normally have been Latinized as “Pribigneus.” Not only would such an Abodrite name have looked incomprehensibly alien to Anglo-Saxon eyes, but the letter P could have been mistaken for the Old English letter wynn (ƿ) at some point during the manuscript transmission.⁶⁸ Thus, I would suggest that Cnut’s unnamed sister could have been the unnamed Danish wife of Pribignev who is mentioned in the Chronicle of St. Michael’s as the mother of Gottschalk (king of the Abodrites 1043–1066; see Table 18.1).⁶⁹ Given that John of Worcester records a daughter being born of this union, who was married to Cnut’s earl and nephew Hákon Eiríksson in 1029, and given that Gottschalk took part in a pagan revolt around the same year before returning to Christianity,⁷⁰ this postulated union of Pribignev and Cnut’s sister could not have taken place much later than ca. 1015; probably it would have taken place a few years earlier.

In this period the Danes, Abodrites, Poles, and Saxons collaborated in containing the Liutizi. The ties between the Danish and Polish royal houses must also still have been strong. Not only have we heard about Cnut and Haraldr retrieving their mother from the Poles, and about Cnut’s sister “Santslaua” (a name matching the Polish Świętosława) in England, but it is also worth noting that Cnut and Mieszko II both bore the same baptismal name: Lambert.⁷¹ This web of relationships is important to bear in mind, in light of what happened after Emperor Henry’s death in 1025. In that year, it began to break down, and to take a new form.⁷² With Henry gone, Duke Bolesław had himself crowned king of Poland, a title that did not have the permission of the new emperor Conrad II (1027–1039). Although Bolesław died shortly after, his successor, Mieszko II (1025–1031), continued this policy of independence.⁷³

Emperor Conrad needed friends when this renewal of differences with the Poles broke out into open warfare three years later in 1028. Allying with the pagan Liutizi, as Henry II had done before him, would have been a bad move: it would have scandalized Christian opinion; moreover, the Liutizi could be unpredictable. So Conrad instead looked to the north and attempted to lure Cnut away from his Polish kin. In 1027 Cnut came to Rome to attend Conrad’s coronation, ceremonially walking at the emperor’s side as they left after the mass.⁷⁴ Probably a year or so after that, Cnut betrothed his daughter, Gunnhild, to Conrad’s son Henry, the future emperor Henry III (1046–1056).⁷⁵ As a result of this realignment, the Poles and the Liutizi seem to have reached a rapprochement.⁷⁶ Cnut cooperated with the Saxons, the emperor, and the Abodrite dynasty both in securing peace north of the Elbe and in fighting the Liutizi and the pagan reaction among the Abodrites.⁷⁷ Moreover, Cnut’s close relationship with the emperor set a precedent for the reign of his sister’s son and ultimate successor, Sveinn Ástríðarson, who continued the tradition of Abodrite connections by giving his daughter in marriage to Gottschalk, son of Pribignev.⁷⁸

Gottschalk reportedly remained for a long time at Cnut’s court.⁷⁹ After the death of Harthacnut and the end of Danish rule in England, he returned to take up power in his Abodrite homeland in ca. 1043. By then King Magnús Óláfsson of Norway had taken the opportunity to seize control of Denmark. His rival for power there was Cnut’s nephew, Sveinn Ástríðarson, who, as we have seen, was also Gottschalk’s father-in-law. During this period, Magnús not only warred with Sveinn but fought several notable battles against the Slavs.⁸⁰ Adam of Bremen does not draw a connection between Gottschalk and Sveinn, Magnús’s opponents here, but one might suspect that the Norwegian king’s venture had something to do with their marriage alliance and, indeed, with the closeness of their families.

When Gottschalk was killed in 1066 in the wake of another Abodrite pagan reaction,⁸¹ his son Heinrich found refuge in Denmark;⁸² he returned and took power in 1093.⁸³ After Heinrich’s death in 1127, his sons Sventipolk and Knut (see Table 18.1, and note the choice of a Danish royal name) fought a civil war,⁸⁴ bringing not only widespread destruction but also, according to Helmold, the extinction of the Nakonid line.⁸⁵ In 1129, after this, the Abodrite crown passed to Knud Lavard, son of the former Danish king Erik “Ejegod” (“Hericus bonus,” “Egoth,” “inn góði”) and nephew of the reigning King Niels (and the first cousin of Heinrich, son of Gottschalk; see Table 18.1). Knud was the father of Valdemar the Great, who ushered in a new era of Danish history, in which Denmark expanded its power in the Baltic – as I have argued, this is not entirely a new development, although it is often framed as one. When the Danish kings in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries took the title “King of the Wends,” it was not only their conquests or ambitions they were reflecting, but a deeply ingrained part of their family history.

Conclusion: Cnut’s Slavic Background

By putting together the history of the Danes and the Elbe-Slavs, I have tried to fill a gap, and hope I have shown that there is much to be gained from the new perspectives that result. The Slavic context is essential for understanding the relationship between Haraldr Bluetooth and his son, Sveinn Forkbeard: Adam of Bremen’s depiction of Sveinn as a pagan rebel ends up looking highly ironic, as it was Haraldr who took part in a revolt initiated and dominated by pagan Slavs, whereas it was Sveinn, who, in the reinterpretation I have argued for here, allied with the Christian Poles against them, possibly through a marriage-alliance as early as the 980s. Moreover, Slavic connections continued to be important even after Sveinn’s and Cnut’s conquests of England. It was probably in ca. 1015 that Cnut’s sister married a Slavic king, who, I have argued, is identical with Pribignev Uto, ruler of the Abodrites in the 1020s. These relationships, as well as the later ones between the Abodrite ruler Gottschalk and his father-in-law, Sveinn Ástríðarson, up through Knud Lavard, played a vital part in defining not only Denmark’s relationship with her closest neighbours to the south, but also those relationships further afield, as well as the identity of Denmark’s own ruling dynasty.

Notes

1

Kempke, “Skandinavisch-slawisch Kontakte,” 18–19. See the Map of Abodrites and Wilzi.

2

Annales regni Francorum, ed. Pertz and Kurze, 125–26 (s.a. 808).

3

Versions of the paper on which this chapter is based were presented on several occasions at conferences and seminars in Cambridge and London in 2015 and 2016. I would like to thank those who invited me to present at these, namely Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Richard North, and Fraser McNair. I would also like to thank Michael H. Gelting, who very generously read a draft of this chapter and offered his comments, and Jakub Morawiec and Timothy Bolton for their feedback at the London and Cambridge conferences in 2016.

4

Although Lübke, “Die Elbslawen,” 66, notes that the research in the DDR focused on an area bounded to the east by the modern boundary of the Oder-Neiße line, and that such a fixed boundary cannot properly be projected onto the region at earlier points in history.

5

Witkowski, “Sprachen und Dialekte,” 51–54.

6

Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 75–81 (II.xxi–ii).

7

On the eastern boundary of the Abodrite confederacy, see Friedmann, Untersuchungen, 26–29.

8

Lübke, “Die Elbslawen,” 70; for example, see Widukind, Res gestae Saxonicae, ed. Waitz, Kehr, Hirsch, and Lohmann, 142–43 (III.lxviii). This is possibly also reflected in the two duces, mentioned by the Annales regni Francorum, s.a. 808 (see note 2 above).

9

On the transmission of Ibrāhīm ibn Ya’qūb’s text and for a translation of the relevant section, see Lunde and Stone, Ibn Fadlān, 162–68 (at 164).

10

Lübke, Regesten, 2.51–2 (no. 33); e.g., Annales Einsidlenses, ed. von Planta, 184 (s.a. 931). For a complete list of annals, see Lübke.

11

Lübke, “Die Elbslawen,” 70–71.

12

Friedmann, Untersuchungen, 241; Res gestae Saxonicae, ed. Waitz, Kehr, Hirsch, and Lohmann, 142–43 (III.lxviii).

13

Res gestae Saxonicae, ed. Waitz, Kehr, Hirsch, and Lohmann, 142–43 (III.lxviii); Friedmann, Untersuchungen, 243–44. The taking of baptismal names was common practice for Scandinavians and Slavs in this period.

14

Jakobsen and Moltke, Danmarks Runeindskrifter, no. 42 (Jelling).

15

Jakobsen and Moltke, Danmarks Runeindskrifter, no. 55 (Sønder Vissing).

16

“Einarr skálaglamm Helgason: Vellekla,” ed. Marold, 315–18 (vv. 26–27). Note that the order of these verses cannot be certain, given their scattered disposition in the sources.

17

“Einarr skálaglamm Helgason: Vellekla,” ed. Marold, 315–18 (vv. 26–27); Lübke, Regesten, 2.250–51 (no. 178); Annales Altahenses maiores, ed. Giesebrecht and von Oefele, 12 (s.a. 974); Lampert, Annals, ed. Holder-Egger, 42 (s.a. 974), who places it at Schleswig; Annales Ottenburiani, ed. Pertz, 4 (s.a. 974). See also Friedmann, Untersuchungen, 243. It is tempting to look for other candidates than the Abodrites proper: the Wagrians come to mind, but they were not on the best of terms with the Saxons.

18

Given that in the aftermath of the quarrel of 967, the Saxon rebel Wichmann was able to hold out the prospect of getting Danish aid as a reasonable pretext from slipping away from the Wagrians, who had taken up arms (with Wichmann’s support) against the Saxon dukes, this Danish-Abodrite marriage had probably not taken place by this point: Res gestae Saxonicae, ed. Waitz, Kehr, Hirsch, and Lohmann, 142–43 (III.lxviii). Widukind says that in 968 the Saxons thought a war with the Danes was looming (quod tunc bellum adversum Danos urgeret): see ibid., 147 (III.lxx).

19

Intermarriage at the top levels of Danish and Abodrite society was probably nothing new: at the start of this chapter I have mentioned the Abodrite leader named Godelaib, which appears to be the Old Norse name Guðleifr – which, although it is far from proof, is at least a possible indication of some Norse ancestry. It is worth exploring the possibility that Harald’s Abodrite wife Tufa or Tófa herself may also have been half-Danish: her name at least is Norse and not Slavic, and although again this is not decisive proof (some individuals may have had both Norse and Slavic names for different contexts), the fact that she raised a memorial to her mother in Denmark might suggest that her mother was Danish – presumably from a dynasty other than Harald’s; thus the marriage would have not only had a Slavic component but could have fed into Harald’s domination of Denmark through alliances with other Danish elite groups. However, rune-stones are often memorials rather than grave-markers, although they can be associated with graves – but no grave is known in connection with this stone, which was found in the nineteenth century, having been reused as part of a gate (see Jacobsen and Moltke, Danmarks Runeindskrifter, no. 55). It is noteworthy that the mother is not named, perhaps indicating she bore a Slavic name that the carver found difficult to render (although he did manage Mstivoi), which would cast doubt on her being Danish or having lived in Denmark (as then, presumably, she would have had a Norse, or at least somewhat Nordicised, name as well as a Slavic one). The lack of a name suggests that her name would not have been familiar enough for locals to recognize it on a stone. On balance, it is thus better to interpret the stone as a memorial, rather than a burial-marker, and to conclude that Tufa’s mother was not part-Danish and was actually buried in Abodrite territory.

20

Res gestae Saxonicae, ed. Waitz, Kehr, Hirsch, and Lohmann, 59 (I.xl); Lübke, Regesten, nos. 33, 43.

21

Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 178.

22

Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 166 (III.xxiii). Tribute seems to have been one of the driving concerns, rather than any programmatic push to territorial expansion: Althoff, “Saxony and the Elbe Slavs,” 278.

23

See note 19 above.

24

See note 20 above. The date is sometimes given as 934, on which see Friedmann, Untersuchungen, 183–85.

25

Fritze, “Der slawische Aufstand,” 14.

26

Thietmar, Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 103–4 (III.vi). Otto did almost certainly not (as is often claimed) conquer Hedeby and annex the south of Jutland: this is reading far too much into Thietmar’s text, in which sounds more like a border-skirmish than anything else, and recent interpretations of the numismatic evidence have also made this view increasingly untenable: Moesgaard, Guerra, Tarnow Ingvardson, Ilisch, Pentz, and Skov, King Harold’s Cross Coinage, 50.

27

Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 79 (II.xxi); Helmold, Chronica, ed. Schmeidler, 8 (I.ii); Thietmar, Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 302–4 (VI.xxiii–iv), who calls the city Riedegost.

28

Witkowski, “Namen,” 14.

29

Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 304 (VI.xxv).

30

Lübke, “Die Elbslawen,” 73–74.

31

Fritze, “Der slawische Aufstand,” 35–38. For an example of this view in the DDR, see Epperlein, “Voraussetzungen,” 333–34. In the post-war Bundesrepublik, where most pre-war Ostforscher found jobs after the war (some despite their Nazi past, e.g., Walter Kuhn, Hermann Aubin), the discourse focused more on the expansion of Western Civilization (Abendland), and this expansion as a form of defense against a threat beyond: Lübke, “Germania Slavica,” 387. This provided some continuity with the pre-1945 narrative of an expansion of Deutschtum, which was justified as a protective bulwark against an eastern threat and fit in well with the context of the Cold War; it could also ultimately flow into the pan-European stream of “the Europeanization of Europe.”

32

Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 132 (IV.ii); Lübke, Regesten, 3.19–21 (nos. 223) and 3.66–70 (256–56b).

33

Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 102–5 (II.xlii–iv); see also Helmold, Chronica, ed. Schmeidler, 33–36 (I.xvi).

34

Lübke, Regesten, 3.19–21 (no. 223) notes problems with the chronology – the year is normally given as around 983, but Mstivoi’s presence at the Hoftag in Quedlinburg in 984 suggests it must be later than this. Thietmar, in Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 120 (III.xviii), reports that he burnt Hamburg, where a golden hand emerged from the sky, entered into the fire, and returned holding something, which Thietmar and his source conclude was the relics of the saints. He names his source as Avico, Mstivoi’s chaplain, and adds that later Mstivoi died in a fit of madness saying St. Laurence was burning him. Adam, in Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 103 (II.xliii, schol. 30), says that Mstivoi refused to abandon Christanity and thus was expelled from his realm and lived out his days in the Bardengau; but Adam seems to have confused Mistui here with his son, Mstislav, whose flight following a pagan reaction is described in Thietmar, Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 498 (VIII.v).

35

The comparative angle provided by the case of Mstivoi is revealing: Adam depicts Svend’s rebellion (see below) as a pagan reaction, but Harald is clearly the one who initiates Danish involvement in what was largely a pagan reaction. The case of Mstivoi shows that rulers could remain Christian while their people were more pagan and attacked Christianity: this divide continued among the Slavs into the twelfth century (see Lübke, “Beziehungen,” 28), but does not appear to have continued among the Danes.

36

E.g., Annales Altahenses maiores, ed. de Giesebrecht and von Oefele, 15 (s.a. 985); Annales Hildesheimenses, ed. Waitz, 24 (s.a. 985); for other annals, see Lübke, Regesten, 2.36–37 (no. 236). Which group of Slavs is not stated, but presumably it must be the Liutizi and others in rebellion.

37

Widukind, in Res gestae Saxonicae, ed. Waitz, Kehr, Hirsch, and Lohmann, 143–44 (III.lxix), describes him as amicus imperatoris.

38

Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 87–88 (II.xxvii–iii); Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell, 8 (I.i).

39

Res gestae Saxonicae, ed. Waitz, Kehr, Hirsch, and Lohmann, 143–45 (III.lxix).

40

Filipowiak, in “Some Aspects,” 68, suggests that new fortifications at Wolin in the last quarter of the tenth century might be connected to the period of Mieszko’s rule, but I am not aware of any reason why this must be so.

41

Lübke, “Beziehungen,” 29–31.

42

Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 442 (VII.xxxvi).

43

Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 91 (II.xxix).

44

“Markús Skeggjason: Eiríksdrápa,” ed. Carroll, 450 (v. 21).

45

Filipowiak, in “Some Aspects,” 67–68, identifies Scandinavian influence in the material evidence from Wolin during this period, though defining “Scandinavian influence” when Slavs and Scandinavians were interacting on both sides of the Baltic is no straightforward matter. Wolin, however, would not have been unique in this mingling, as the present chapter has been arguing. See, for example, the presence of priests related to the Danish royal family in Oldenburg in 983 (see note 32 above).

46

For discussion, see Rosborn, “A unique object.” The inscription “+ARALD | CVRMSVN | REX AD TAN | ER+SCON+J | VMN+CIV | ALDIN+” seems to represent “Harald Gormsson, King of the Danes, Skåne, Jumne and the civitas of Oldenburg” or “King of the Danes and Skåne, (at?) Jumne in the bishopric of Oldenburg.”

47

Harpsøe, “Haraldsguldet,” 25–27.

48

Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 255.

49

Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 95–96 (II.xxxv, schol. 24) and 99 (II.xxxix); Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 446 (VII.xxxix).

50

Uspenskii, in “Dynastic Names,” 20, identifies it as a typical female name of the dynasty.

51

Adam (see above, note 48) records that it was either the sister of Bolesław (hence daughter of Mieszko) or daughter. In the latter case, she could not have been older than eight in 992, which is the earliest she could have married Erik (as according to Adam, the union was created by Bolesław, who became king in 992). Thus it is unlikely that she bore Erik a son before his death in 995: see Lund, “Svend Estridsens blodskam,” 43, n. 13. For a different view, see Morawiec in this volume, pp. 419–24.

52

Ottonis II. et III. diplomata, ed. Sickel, 441 (D O III 41); as argued by (among others) Gelting, “The Kingdom of Denmark,” 83.

53

Gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 95 (II.xxxv, schol. 24 [25]): Erik’s marriage of a sister or daughter of Bolesław) and 99 (II.xxxix: Sveinn’s marriage with Eiríkr’s widow).

54

Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 446 (VII.xxxix).

55

Strzelczyk, “Bohemia and Poland,” 525–26.

56

Encomium, ed. Campbell, 18 (II.ii).

57

Strzelczyk, “Bohemia and Poland,” 526.

58

Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. Greenway, 362–64 (VI.xv).

59

Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 213. His argument is based on the following notice that “hoc circa tempus” (around this time), Æthelnoth went to Rome, which occurred in 1022. However, this is hardly an exact formulation, and the next dated event is not until the eighth year of Cnut’s reign; Historia Anglorum, ed. Greenway, 364 (VI.xvi). This gives ample space for the event to have occurred. The connection to Thorkell the Tall relies on the later, problematic evidence surrounding the Jómsvikings, which should be treated with suspicion; See also Morawiec in the next chapter, pp. 426–29.

60

ASC (D) ed. Cubbin, 63 (s.a. 1019; CE as well).

61

Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 498 (VIII.v); Lübke, Regesten, 4.89–92 (nos. 536–37) argues that the Liutizi could not have undertaken such a step (i.e., attacking the establishment of Christianity among the Abodrites) while allied with Henry II.

62

Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, 498–500 (VIII.vi); Lübke, Regesten, 4.92–93 (no. 538).

63

Chronicon S. Michaelis, ed. Weiland, 395; Uspenskii, in “Dynastic Names,” 22, n. 17 notes this, though he misses out a generation, making Gottschalk a grandson, rather than a great-grandson of Mstivoi. Neither Adam nor Helmold know of this union. Strictly speaking, the annal only reports that Gottschalk’s mother was Danish, not that she was Pribignev’s wife.

64

Lübke, Regesten, 4.99–103 (nos. 547–49).

65

Keynes, “Cnut’s Earls,” 62; Lübke argues, wrongly, that this is a Welsh king, in Regesten, 3.288–89 (no. 436); John of Worcester, Chronicon, ed. Darlington and McGurk, II, 510–11 (s.a. 1029) and 540–41 (s.a. 1044).

66

Keynes, “Cnut’s Earls,” 64–65.

67

Lübke, Regesten, 4.133–34 (no. 578). Also discussed by Morawiec in the next chapter, p. 429.

68

The name Pribignev is not attested before Saxo, in Gesta Danorum, ed. Friis-Jensen, II, 750 (X.xvii.3); Adam and Helmold call him by the baptismal name Uto/Udo. Adam, in Gesta Hammburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 125–26 (II.lxvi), does mention three princes of the Slavs: Anatrog, Gneus, and Uto; the first two are unknown and Gneus is only a second element of a name (Trillmich, Quellen, 307, n. 259); it could be a mangling of Pribignev. The name Udo could refer to Luder-Udo I, Count of Stade, who died in 994, as a baptismal patron: Stoob, Helmolds Slawenchronik, 97, n. 4.

69

It is also tempting to identify her with Świętosława. John of Worcester, in Chronicon, ed. Darlington and McGurk, II, 510–11 (s.a. 1029) and 540–41 (s.a. 1044), records that her daughter’s name was Gunnhild, which was also Cnut’s daughter’s name and possibly his mother’s name; this might imply that this sister of Cnut was also called Gunnhild: see also Uspenskii, “Dynastic Names,” 19.

70

This activity in the revolt may be linked to why Cnut chose to send Hákon away from his court – especially as a representative of the dynasty of Hlaðir (Lade), whose power had been anchored in Norwegian paganism.

71

Uspenskii, “Dynastic Names,” 20–21. See also Morawiec in the following chapter, pp. 424–25.

72

Lübke, Regesten, 4.131–2 (no. 577).

73

Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi II, ed. Bresslau, 31–32 (IX).

74

Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi II, ed. Bresslau, 36 (XVI).

75

The marriage is recorded by Wipo, Gesta Chuonradi II, ed. Bresslau, 35 (LIV). Gelting, in “Elusive Bishops,” 178, however (following Lawson, Cnut: Danes in England, 109), argues that this alliance would have been unlikely before the death of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VIII in November 1028. Conrad had initially hoped to marry Henry to one of Constantine’s daughters.

76

Lübke, Regesten, 4.131–32 (no. 577).

77

Gesta Hammburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 125–26 (II.lxvi).

78

Gesta Hammburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 162 (III.xix) and 194 (III.li). This alliance would have been very useful to Svend in gaining control of Denmark and establishing his rule; a connection to Abodrite royalty might have even bolstered his legitimacy in Danish eyes (something he might have needed as he was not descended from a direct male line of kings), given the connections between the two dynasties. By the relationship I have proposed, Gottschalk and Svend would be first cousins, admittedly making the marriage incestuous; but given the reports of Svend’s own incestuous marriage, it is hardly inconceivable that such a union would take place. Given the prevalence of polygamy and lack of primogeniture in Scandinavia at this time, the genetic consequences of one incestuous union would have been no great matter of concern as a king had very many other opportunities to procreate.

79

Gesta Hammburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 125–26 (II.lxvi). If it was his father Pribignev who attested Cnut’s charter in 1026, there would be every precedent for his being at the court too. Given his revolt after Pribignev’s death in 1028, his time in England probably dated from around 1030.

80

Gesta Hammburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 137–38 (II.lxxviii, schol. 56 [57]).

81

Gesta Hammburgensis, ed. Schmeidler, 193 (III.l).

82

Helmold, Chronica, ed. Schmeidler, 47 (I.xxv).

83

Helmold, Chronica, ed. Schmeidler, 66–67 (I.xxxiv).

84

Helmold, Chronica, ed. Schmeidler, 91–92 (I.xlvi).

85

Helmold, Chronica, ed. Schmeidler, 94–96 (I.xlviii).