Cnut

People just periodically take over England.

It happens all the time, right? You know, you never know when the Danes are gonna get bored, okay? And you can't have a little boy on the throne, because someone's going to have to actually do something about that, right? But I suppose, despite the fact that a Dane might come over and be Cnut the Great at any moment and take over England, right? That isn't where Harold sees, I think, the major threat coming from, right? Because I think the first thing that he does, almost as soon as, like [laughs] poor old Edward is in the ground, right, the first thing, uh, he does is, like, "Okay, well, we better get ready to be invaded by Normans." [laughs]

Yeah.

Which I think is an interesting point, right? Because why, why, why all this preparing to be invaded by Normans if there is no Norman claim to the throne?

In 1038, there was an agreement between Magnus, the King of Denmark, and Harthacnut.

Okay? And-

Who was Cnut's heir and England.

Who was Cnut's heir [laughs]

Divination, deceptive supernatural practice, hidden harm, and witchcraft are increasingly being grouped inside a Christian moral framework without yet collapsing into one perfectly uniform concept.

Under Cnut in the early 11th century, that framework becomes still broader through condemnations of heatenship or heathenism, where illicit supernatural practice can appear beside sacrifice, forbidden veneration, divination, and other activities interpreted as disloyalty to Christian worship.

This is an important turning point because the witch word is now being drawn into a theological system in which the central question is no longer simply what technique a practitioner uses, but where the practitioner's power, allegiance, or religious legitimacy supposedly comes from.

The supernatural vocabulary is being moralized.

There isn't a huge amount to say about all of them, but I will cover the key figures.

Alfred, Athelstan, Æthelred the Unready, Cnut, Edward the Confessor, and I'll probably give a whole episode to King Harold, Harold II as he was, Harold Godwinson, who lost the Battle of Hastings.

And after that, I'm thinking of just looking at interesting figures through history, keeping with the chronological order so that we can make sense of where they fit in.

And I'll follow their stories as another sort of alternative history of this period.

From the time of Ethelred's marriage, Englishmen and Normans became closely associated.

On the death of Sweigen, his son Canute had not been strong enough to obtain the English kingdom which had been restored to Ethelred.

On the death of the latter, there was a double election.

Canute was chosen by one party, and Edmund, son of Ethelred, by the other.

The death of Edmund gave the whole kingdom to Canute.

His reign was inaugurated by the killing of all the leaders whom he thought dangerous, but after he felt that his rule was firmly established, he ruled with great justice and ability.

He made very few changes to the institutions of England, except by creating the great earls.

Under the preceding kings, it was customary for each shire to have as its chief an alderman.

Edmund Ironside was elected and crowned within the city walls.

Then followed a siege of London by Canute.

He dug a canal through the swamps, and dragged his ships by its means from Redriff to Lambeth.

But he could not take the city.

Brannanborough was the scene of a defeat of the Danes by Athelstan in 937 AD.

The place cannot now be identified.

Swain, King of Denmark, invaded England with his son Canute in 1013 AD.

Redriff is now called Rotherhithe, south of the Thames.

Nor is it sufficient to address the conscience and to show that emotion ought to flow, for it will rather delight at times to rebel against an imposed authority.

Are our feelings then, as some would maintain, beyond our control? Do they rise and fall like the winds, how and when they list? Do they flow and ebb like the tides in obedience to impulses, which we can no more rule than Canute could command the waves of the ocean? Were this so, man would indeed be in a most helpless condition, more so than the sailor without a rudder in his ship, or the slave obliged to submit to the caprice of his master.

But though a man may not be able to command his sensibilities directly, he has complete power over them indirectly.

He can guide and control, if not the feeling itself, at least the idea, which is the channel in which it flows.