Gracchi on the guy who couldn't hold back the sea:
"Lets take the case of Cnut. Cnut was a Danish prince who came to England and conquered England from its Saxon Kings in 1015. He ruled and his sons ruled after him into the 1040s and he reorganised the administration of the English kingdom and reorganised the upper nobility. Cnut entered onto a society that was ethnically divided - largely English in the South and West and largely Viking in the North and East. Is he a part of a story of the land of England and those that have occupied it (in the neutral sense that I now occupy my bedroom)? Yes he definitely was. Is he part of the history of the English people to whom most modern English people trace decent? Yes of part of them - though many came later than he did and it should be remembered that another part of them he massacred. What connects Cnut to us? Almost certainly not mother tongue, definitely he didn't beleive in any of the values anyone would wish to think of as English today, he would probably have had no idea of what English means. Does it do anything therefore for either us or Cnut to call him English? Personally I doubt it - it doesn't help us understand Cnut - indeed it takes us further away from him."
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Interesting. I've posted a comment about 'Knud den Store' on Gracchi's blog, and a short piece on my own...
http://www.skysong.eu/2007/02/canutes-legacy
The links between Denmark and England are of great interest to me. Perhaps I should take some time and write about the subject at greater length.
Posted by: Francis Sedgemore | February 11, 2007 at 08:34 PM
Thanks Dave must get round to reading adoption but I've had some problems offline. The Cnut thing that Francis raises is interesting- the other aspect is the links say between the Godwinsons and Flanders and the whole of the north before the Norman Conquest.
Posted by: gracchi | February 11, 2007 at 08:46 PM
Yes, Flanders is interesting too, jokes about Belgium's contribution to human civilisation notwithstanding.
You can to this day detect Flemish influences in the traditional culture of Sussex.
It reminds me of one of my favourite English folksongs: The Flanders Shore:
"I went unto my love's chamber window
To let her know and understand
That I was bound for fair Flanders' shore,
Never to return to England no more. "
Posted by: Francis Sedgemore | February 11, 2007 at 09:28 PM