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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
page l note 1 Rolls Series, p. 171.
page l note 2 Ord. Vit., ed. Duchesne, p. 487.
page l note 3 Ed. Thorpe, i. 204–5.
page l note 4 Gesta Regum, ii. 199.
page l note 5 M.G.H.S., ix. 301.
page l note 6 ii. 762.
page l note 7 Ibid.
page l note 8 N.C, iv. 743.
page l note 9 Ed. Guérard, i. (Paris, 1840), 173.
page l note 10 Amiens, 1840, p. 160.
page li note 1 These events are placed by Adam at the very end of Archbishop Adaldag's life (nouissimis archiepiscopi temporibus), and Adaldag died 29 April 988. The year of Haraldr's death cannot, therefore, be exactly determined ; Adam gives 1 November as the day.
page li note 2 Other accounts are given by Sven Aggesen (En ny text af Sven Aggesons værker, ed. M. Cl. Gertz ‘Copenhagen, 1916’, pp. 78 ff. ; also in Langebek, Scriptores, i. 51 ff.), whose story is quite different; by Saxo Grammaticus (ed. Holder, p. 331), whose version has points of contact with Adam and Sven, and with the Icelandic story also ; by the five extant versions of the Icelandic Saga of the Jómsvikings, by Heimskringla in its version of the Jómsviking story, and by Oddr in his Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason (pp. 109 ff. in ed. referred to below, p. 68, n. 1), with differences of detail, but agreement in substance. When Fagrskinna (p. 80), makes Haraldr die of sickness, this implies a rejection of the usual Icelandic story of his death as improbable by the compiler, rather than the existence of a divergent tradition (see G. Indrebo, Fagrskinna [Christiania, 1917], pp. 152–3).
page li note 3 For example, Adam, expressly claiming Sveinn Úfsson as his informant, alleges that a conquest of Denmark by the Swedes took place just'after Haraldr Blátönn's death. This story is rejected today by all scholars : see especially Weibull, L., Kritiska undersökningar i Nordens historia (Copenhagen, 1911), pp. 90 ffGoogle Scholar.
page li note 4 In 994 and 1003–5.
page li note 5 See below, p. 68.
page li note 6 This event is noticed in the Welsh Latin annals on the fly-leaves of the Breviate of Domesday Book in the Record Office, and in the Welsh vernacular chronicles.
page li note 7 The best introduction to the intricate problems connected with the history of Sleswick in the tenth and eleventh centuries is Vilh. la Cour, ‘ Kong Haralds tre storværker ’, in Aarbθger for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie, 1934, PP 55–7.
page li note 8 See above, n. 3.
page li note 9 Stories of this sort, differing widely in detail, are found in Thietmar (M.G.H., SS., iii. 848), Adam of Bremen (ii. 27), Saxo Grammaticus (ed. Holder, p. 333), Sven Aggesθn (loc. cit)., and the Icelandic Sagas about the Jómsvikings. Some element of truth must lie under such a widely spread tradition.
page lii note 1 See Adam of Bremen, ii. 54.
page lii note 2 See below, pp. 73–4.
page lii note 3 See below, p. 73.
page lii note 4 On the elaborate description of Sveinn's fleet, and the similar one of Knúitr's fleet in II, 4, see Appendix V.
page liii note 1 Cf. below, p. lxiii, n. 3.
page liv note 1 See below, p. 71.
page liv note 2 Adam states that Sveinn, after the fall of Óláfr Tryggvason, appointed a certain Gotebald, who had just come from England, Bishop of Skaney, and adds that Gotebald is said to have preached sometimes in Sweden and often in Norway. Gotebald was commemorated at Lund on 21 August, together with his successors Bernard and Henry (see Necrologium Lundense, in Langebek, Scriptores, iii. 454). Jθrgensen, Den nordiske kirkes grundlmggelse, p. 249, speaks of an English tradition that Gotebald died in 1004, quoting Alford, Fides Regia Britannica (iii = Fides Regia Anglicana, p. 437). Alford, however, took this date from a highly imaginative account of Gotebald in an anonymous work, The English Martyrologe (1st ed., 1608), p. 88, where it is merely offered as an approximation. A number of other erroneous or unfounded statements concerning Gotebald have found their way from the Martyrologe into various works.
Saxo (ed. Holder, pp. 338–9) and the Annals of Roskilde credit Sveinn with the making of various ecclesiastical appointments, some of which Adam, no doubt more correctly, refers to Knútr (see N.C., i. 680–1), while others belong to a period long before the beginning of Sveinn's reign.
page liv note 3 See below, p. lvii.
page liv note 4 Op. cit., p. 407.
page liv note 5 The Encomiast is vague about the size of Thorkell's forces. In I, 2, Sveinn's warriors say that Thorkell has forty ships with him ; in II, 1, the Encomiast says that all the forces brought to England by Sveinn and Knútr did not return with the latter, and clearly implies that they joined Thorkell, and in II, 2, Knútr complains that Thorkell has retained a large part of his fleet; yet in II, 3, Thorkell brings nine ships to Denmark) and says that he has left only thirty in England.
page liv note 6 1, 2, end.
page lv note 1 The Encomiast is careful not to make a plain statement on either point. The words pace confecta might be taken to refer to the peace originally made by Thorkell before Sveinn arrived, but no reader not conversant with the history of the time would fail to infer from them that Thorkell again concluded peace after Sveinn's death, and hence that he had fought for Sveinn. Similarly, it is not declared that Knútr and Thorkell had an agreement, but it is clearly hinted.
page lv note 2 See below, p. 74.
page lv note 3 The Encomiast's probable motives for depicting Thorkell as a loyal supporter of Sveinn and Knútr are discussed below, p. 84.
page lv note 4 See Linguistic Note on II, 2, 12.
page lv note 5 This is a much more reasonable estimate of Knútr's fleet than the thousand ships of Adam of Bremen (II, 50). An early interpolater of the Old English Chronicle estimated that Knútr had one hundred and sixty ships, but it is not clear if this is meant to include the forty ships seduced by Eadric in 1015 from the English service (see Plummer, , Two of the Saxon Chronicles, ii. 195Google Scholar).
page lv note 6 See Appendix V.
page lvi note 1 The passage of Thietmar now to be discussed will be found in M.G.H., SS., iii. 849 ff.
page lvi note 2 So Freeman, N.C., i. 700; a rather different view, W., p. 168.
page lvi note 3 The two sons are named by Oddr in his Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason (p. 148 in ed. referred to below, p. 68, n. 1), by Fagrskinna (p. 83, derived from Oddr), Heimskringla (Óláfs Saga Tryggvasónar, chap. 34, derived from Oddr), Knytlinga Saga (chap. 5, derived from Heimskringla). All these sources derive the statement ultimately from Oddr. Fagrskinna adds that Haraldr was the eldest, and it is possible that this is from the text of Oddr Which it uses. The relevant passage of Oddr is extant only in two manuscripts of the Icelandic translation of his (lost) Latin Saga, and the names of Sveinn's two sons are given by the one in the opposite order to the other. Heimskringla states that Knutr ruled Denmark three years longer than England, so Snorri clearly did not know of Haraldr's reign in Denmark (Magnús Saga Góód, chap. 5).
page lvi note 4 In Langebek, Scriptores, i. 159.
page lvi note 5 On the absurd account of Haraldr in the Chronicon Erici, see Steenstrup, Normannerne, iii. 435 ff. This text is the source of all the many references to Haraldr in later Danish chronicles: see, e.g., Gammeldanske Krθniker, ed. by Lorenzen, M. (Copenhagen, 1887–1913)Google Scholar, passim.
page lvii note 1 See Steenstrup, op. cit., p. 309.
page lvii note 2 See Adam of Bremen, ii. 37, and Schol. 25 ; Thietmar, M.G.H., SS., iii. 848–9 ; and, on the question of Sveinn's marriages, see Bjarni Aõialbjarnson's ed. of Heimskringlai. (Reykjavik, 1941, pp. cxxiv fi.), where further references are given. To judge from Saxo Grammaticus (ed. Holder, p. 343), Knutr's peaceful expedition to visit his mother grew in Danish tradition into two military campaigns.
page lvii note 3 When the Encomiast (I. 5) makes the dying Sveinn anxious not to be buried in England, because the people hated him, he is undoubtedly hinting at the possibility of desecration of the corpse ; Thietmar openly declares that the motive of the matron was to save the corpse from desecration. Remembering how Horthaknutr treated his half-brother's corpse in 1040, we cannot doubt that such fears were justified.
page lvii note 4 See the Icelandic text printed in Appendix IV; Chronicon Erici (Langebek, , Scriptores, i 159Google Scholar); William of Jumieges, v. 8 ; Heremannus (in Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, Rolls Series, i. 39); Gaimar, Lestorie des Engles, 4163. The Encomiast, William, and Heremannus all stress the care taken to preserve the body in transit. Svoinn's temporary grave in England was at York; so Gaimar, and also the northern editor of Florence of Worcester, who would certainly be well-informed on such a point (Symeon of Durham, Rolls Series, ii. 146). Gaimar places the removal of the bones ten years or more after Sveinn's death. Langebek (Scriptores, ii. 480) suggests that Knútr instructed the matron before he left England ; Freeman (N.C., i. 682) wonders if she was Sveinn's mistress.
page lvii note 5 See above, p. liv ; and, on the foundation of Roskilde by Sveinn's father, Adam of Bremen, ii. 26.
page lvii note 6 See Appendix IV, and Chronicon Erici, i.e.
page lviii note 1 The Encomiast seems quite unaware of the position of Sherston. In warning his men of the impossibility of flight, Thorkell tells them, not that they are far from their ships, but that their ships are far from the shore. If this is not mere loose writing (not a usual fault in the Encomium). it can only mean that the shore was near, but that the ships were not at it, and hence that Sherston was reached by going along the coast from Sandwich.
page lviii note 2 M. Ashdown, English and Norse Documents, p. 138.
page lviii note 3 See below, p. 71.
page lviii note 4 See below, p. 71,
page lviii note 5 See below, p. 70.
page lviii note 6 See above, p. xliii.
page lviii note 7 The burial of Æthelred in London is not mentioned by the Chronicle, but it was a well-known fact: Florence of Worcester (ed. Thorpe, i. 173), William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum, ii. 180) and Gaimar (Lestorie des Engles, 4199) all say he was buried in St. Paul's.
page lviii note 8 No doubt a mere rhetorical flourish : the Encomiast can hardly have thought such an action without due election could have any significance.
page lix note 1 Stenton describes these operations clearly, pp. 385–6.
page lix note 2 He had deserted Kntitr for Eadmund when the former was driven to Sheppey : on Eadric's movements at this time, and errors in some sources concerning them, see Plummer, Two of the Saxon Chronicles, ii. 197.
page lix note 3 A single combat or an offer of one is well known to occur in many stories of the war of Knútr and Eadmund, though it is usually placed after Ashingdon (N.C., i. 705 ff.). The Encomiast is not at all explicit about the election of Eadmund. as king : his followers encourage him, dicentes quod eum magis quam principem Danorutn eligerent. But below (ii. 12 and 13), Eadric and Kniitr call him rex. The Chronicle is definite that Eadmund was duly elected by such of the witan as were at hand when his father died (N.C., i. 689).
page lix note 4 See below, p. lxi.
page lix note 5 Freeman accepts them largely into his text, N.C., i. 394.
page lix note 6 The Encomiast mentions a report that Eadric's treachery at Ashingdon was prearranged with the Danes; cf. Florence of Worcester (ed. Thorpe, i. 177).
page lix note 7 The English delegates offer Knútr a kingdom in australi parte, and Eadmund is to remain with the bounds meridianae plagae. There can be little doubt that australi is an error for boreali. (cf. Textual Note on II, 13, 10), and that the Encomiast here described the division very much as the Chronicle, MS. D, which gives Wessex to Eadmund, the norõdæl to Knútr. But just below, Knútr, in accepting their terms, says that, as they have suggested, he will take the media regio. We find precisely the same inconsistency of language in the Chronicle, where all the other manuscripts give Knutr Mercia, instead of the norõdæl of D. Cf. N.C., i. 708.
page lx note 1 II, 13, last words ; cf. N.C., i. 709.
page lx note 2 The mistake is no doubt due to the fact that Knútr wintered in London after the settlement; Henry of Huntingdon has a similar error : he makes Knutr take London between Ashingdon and the peace of Olney (Rolls Series, pp. 184–5).
page lx note 3 See N.C., i. 709–10.
page lx note 4 On the many stories of this nature, see N.C, i. 711 ff.
page lx note 5 Foreign writers tend to do this, for the siege made a great impression at the time, and London was, in fact, ‘ the key-point in the struggle ’ (Stenton, p. 386) : accordingly, the accounts of the war given by Thietmar and William of Jumieges (v. 8–9) are concerned almost exclusively with the siege.
page lx note 6 It does show us that the Norse tradition that Eirikr took part in the fighting round London is sound ; and that the story that Eadmund offered. single combat to Knútr is early.
page lx note 7 II, 1, nou quod … metuendo fugeret, the Encomiast carefully insists; II, 7–8, it is carefully emphasised that Knútr was prudens and sapiens in withdrawing to Sheppey, and declining single combat. In II, 6, Thorkell says his king is very eager to fight, but this is no doubt courtesy : in fact, the king appears very willing to let Thorkell test the strength of the resistance for him.
page lxi note 1 Ed. Thorpe, i. 179.
page lxi note 2 On the many stories of Eadric's end, see C. E. Wright, The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England pp. 206 ff.
page lxi note 3 See above, pp. xliv ff.
page lxi note 4 See below, p. 75.
page lxi note 5 See Fagrskinna, p. 185.
page lxii note 1 See above, p. xlv.
page lxii note 2 See N.C., i. 766.
page lxii note 3 Knytlinga Saga, chap. 17, mentions that Knútr went to Rome, passing through Flanders, and it is, of course, well known that St. Bertin's lay on the normal route from England to Rome.
page lxii note 4 England before the Norman Conquest, p. 592.
page lxii note 5 II, 63 : he places the visit in the time of Archbishop Libentius, 1029–32.
page lxii note 6 Both Fagrskinna (in the insertion dealing with Knútr, see below, p. 83) and Knytlinga Saga, chaps. 17–18. Although the latter work is largely derivative in its account of Knútr (cf. below, p. 91), it has some scraps of independent information.
page lxii note 7 N.C., i. 751.
page lxiii note 1 See Textual Note on III, 1.
page lxiii note 2 MS: C distinctly says that Harold had the treasures taken þe heo ofhealdan ne mihte. Stenton, p. 414, interprets the evidence on Emma's position similarly. I disagree strongly with Plummer (Two of the Saxon Chronicles, ii. 209) when he takes the words of the Chronicle to mean that Emma attempted to rule Wessex by force in defiance of the witan's election of Haraldr as regent.
page lxiii note 3 Full cyng ofer eall Englaland : cf. the Chronicle's use of the phrase full cyning of Sveinn's standing late in 1013, and cf. above, p. liii.
page lxiii note 4 See Plummer, op. cit., p. 218. It should be observed that no Chronicle manuscript implies that Haraldr became a constitutional king in 1035. It is true that MS. D, after noticing the death of Knútr, adds the words ond Harold his sunu feng to rice, but these words are shown to be a clumsy interpolation by the fact that the pronouns in the following sentences still refer to Knútr. The original form of the entry may be seen in MS. C.
page lxiii note 5 See below, pp.. lxiv and lxviii.
page lxiii note 6 It is beside the point that Haraldr does seem to have been crowned ultimately : this would be after he was elected King in 1037 (see for evidence of his coronation, N.C., i. 778). On the course of events in Haraldr's period, see Stenton, p. 414 (where the evidence is admirably interpreted), and Phimmer (op. cit., pp. 208–11, where the statements of the different manuscripts of the Chronicle are carefully considered). Older treatments (especially Freeman's) are hopelessly confused by assuming that Haraldr was elected king of part of the country in 1035 ; but the statement that his supporters wished to choose him as warden of all England on behalf of himself and his brother, and that his opponents could not in the least prevent them from doing so, implies that a division was contemplated when Hörthaknútr returned. Haraldr's party (especially his mother, see reference in note 2; below) canvassed support vigorously, and, as Hörthaknutr did not appear, Haraldr secured constitutional election to the throne in 1037.
page lxiv note 1 Such evidence as there is does not suggest that Haraldr was particularly irreligious or even anticlerical: see N.C., i. 504–5.
page lxiv note 2 See E.H.R., xxviii. 115–16.
page lxiv note 3 He is stated to be the younger of the two. The Encomiast is the only writer early enough to be of any value who pronounces on this point, but it has been suggested above (p. xfii) that Eadweard's selection to lead his father's delegation to the witan in 1014 confirms the Encomiast. P. Grierson, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, xxiii. 95, quotes as throwing light on this point a Ghent charter dated 25 December 1016, in which Eadweard promises to restore the English possessions of St. Peter's if he should become king. This document does not prove Eadweard to be older than Ælfred : if he chose to anticipate his election over the heads of his half-brother Eadwig and any other of Æthelred's elder family who may have been alive, and of the sons of Eadmund Ironside, he might also have imagined circumstances under which he would become king, even if he were younger than Alfred. Eadweard was so remote from any likelihood of becoming king in 1016, that I greatly doubt if the charter in question is anything more than an imaginative forgery, drawn up after Eadward became king. (A facsimile of the document may be seen in Messager des sciences historiques de Belgique, 1842, facing p. 238.)
page lxv note 1 William of Poitiers and William of Jumieges (vii. 11), as frequently elsewhere, are in very close agreement in their accounts of the murder, and it is disputed whether one of them is derived from the other, or whether they have a common source : see William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. J. Marx (Rouenand Paris, 1914), pp. xvii. ft., for a discussion of this problem and further references. Practically the same story appears in the later Norman chronicles : Wace, Roman de Rou (ed. Andresen, ii. 218 ff.), Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Chronique des ducs de Normandie (ed. Michel, iii. 74 ff.)
page lxv note 2 Plummer, Two of the Saxon Chronicles, ii. 212 ff., has conclusively shown that the text of the ballad and introduction in MS. C of the Chronicle is the original version, while that in MS. D, which omits all reference to Godwine, has been tampered with. Accordingly, I use the C text of this source only.
page lxv note 3 His trial and acquittal för the murder in Hörthaknútr's time is well known.
page lxv note 4 See Florence of Worcester (ed. Thorpe, i. 194–5).
page lxv note 5 See below. Wace and Benoît drag a mention of Guildford into the Norman version of the story, though they do not make it the point of interception.
page lxvi note 1 Duchesne, Historiae Normannorum Scriptores, pp. 178–9.
page lxvi note 2 On this point William of Jumièges is definite; William of Poitiers says that Ælfred was accuratius quam frater antea aduersus uim præparatus. The Norman chroniclers place an attempt on England by Eadweard with a fleet of forty ships just before that of Ælfred (see below), so presumably William of Poitiers means to imply that Ælfred had more than forty ships.
page lxvi note 3 See above, p. lxiii.
page lxvii note 1 If there is anything in this story, it explains why Ælfred—apparently the younger brother—made the journey of 1036 alone : Eadweard had failed in one attempt and was discouraged. Gaimar (Lestoire des Engles, 4785–90) is so surprised that Ælfred, whom he believed to be the younger, came to England, that he invents a fantastic explanation.
page lxvii note 2 See below, p. 83.
page lxvii note 3 P. Grierson (p. 97 in article referred to above, p. lxiv, n. 3) suggests that the castellum near Bruges, where Emma landed, was Oudenbourg.
page lxviii note 1 Cf. above, pp. lxiii–iv.
page lxviii note 2 It would appear certain that the fleet mobilised by Hörthaknútr ultimately joined him in Flanders, for the Chronicle, MSS. C and D, notices that he came from there to England with sixty ships.
page lxviii note 2 Rolls Series, pp. 149–50.
page lxviii note 4 Saxo (ed. Holder, p. 361) suggests less disinterested motives for Hörthaknútr's generosity.
page lxviii note 5 Sveinn, Knútr's illegitimate son, fled to Denmark on the return of Magntús Oláfsson to Norway, and was well received : according to Heimskringla (though the older versions of the Saga of Magnús and the Norwegian compendia do not mention this), Hörthaknútr associated Sveinn with himself in the government.
page lxix note 1 See above, pp. liv-v. A different use of implication occurs in the story of Ælfred's murder : there the complicity of Godwine is implied without definite statement, because, though it was universally believed that Godwine was involved, the Encomiast evidently thought it better not to emphasise this.