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180 anecdote about King Canute
| Soul-stirring Plum Coldplay Fan | 06/14/18 |
| Black church building hominid | 06/14/18 |
| Soul-stirring Plum Coldplay Fan | 06/14/18 |
| Soul-stirring Plum Coldplay Fan | 09/18/18 |
| Soul-stirring Plum Coldplay Fan | 09/18/18 |
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Date: June 14th, 2018 10:20 PM Author: Soul-stirring Plum Coldplay Fan Some early records of Canute throw a vivid light upon his character and moods. “When he entered monasteries, and was received with great honour, he proceeded humbly; keeping his eyes fixed with a wonderful reverence on the ground, and, shedding tears copiously—nay, I may say, in rivers—he devoutly sought the intervention of the Saints. But when it came to making his royal oblations, oh! How often did he fix his weeping eyes upon the earth! How often did he beat that noble breast! What sighs he gave! How often he prayed that he might not be unworthy of clemency from on high!”
But this from a saga two centuries later is in a different vein:.
When King Canute and Earl Ulf had played a while the King made a false move, at which the Earl took a knight from the King; but the King set the piece again upon the board, and told the Earl to make another move; but the Earl grew angry, threw over the chess-board, stood up, and went away. The King said, “Run away, Ulf the Fearful.” The Earl turned round at the door and said, “. . . Thou didst not call me Ulf the Fearful at Helge River, when I hastened to thy help while the Swedes were beating thee like a dog.” The Earl then went out, and went to bed. . . . The morning after, while the King was putting on his clothes, he said to his foot-boy, “Go thou to Earl Ulf and kill him.”
The lad went, was away a while, and then came back.
The King said, “Hast thou killed the Earl?”
“I did not kill him, for he was gone to Saint Lucius’ church.”
There was a man called Ivar White, a Norwegian by birth, who was the King’s court-man and chamberlain. The King said to him, “Go thou and kill the Earl.”
Ivar went to the church, and in at the choir, and thrust his sword through the Earl, who died on the spot. Then Ivar went to the King, with the bloody sword in his hand.
The King said, “Hast thou killed the Earl?”
“I have killed him,” says he.
“Thou didst well.”
After the Earl was killed the monks closed the church and locked the doors. When that was told the King he sent a message to the monks, ordering them to open the church and sing High Mass. They did as the King ordered; and when the King came to the church he bestowed on it great property, so that it had a large domain, by which that place was raised very high; and those lands have since always belonged to it. |
Date: June 14th, 2018 10:22 PM Author: Black church building hominid I gotta tell this story to my kids when they start beating me at chess (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4002455&forum_id=2#36248511) |
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Date: June 14th, 2018 10:22 PM Author: Soul-stirring Plum Coldplay Fan (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4002455&forum_id=2#36248517) |
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Date: September 18th, 2018 10:44 PM Author: Soul-stirring Plum Coldplay Fan (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4002455&forum_id=2#36837389) |
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Date: September 18th, 2018 10:49 PM Author: Soul-stirring Plum Coldplay Fan There were three principles upon which sovereignty could be erected: conquest, which none could dispute; hereditary right, which was greatly respected; and election, which was a kind of compromise between the two. It was upon this last basis that Canute began his reign. It is possible that the early English ideal of kingship and just government in Alfred and Canute was affected by the example of Trajan. This emperor was a favourite of Pope Gregory, who had sent the first missionaries. There is evidence that stories of Trajan’s virtue were read aloud in the English church service. Canute may also have studied, and certainly he reproduced, the poise of the Emperor Augustus. Everyone knows the lesson he administered to his flatterers when he sat on the seashore and forbade the tide to come in. He made a point of submitting himself to the laws whereby he ruled. He even in his military capacity subjected himself to the regulations of his own household troops. At the earliest moment he disbanded his great Danish army and trusted himself broadly to the loyalty of the humbled English. He married Emma of Normandy, the widow of Ethelred, and so forestalled any action by the Duke of Normandy on behalf of her descendants by Ethelred.
Canute became the ruling sovereign of the North, and was reckoned as having five or six kingdoms under him. He was already King of Denmark when he conquered England, and he made good his claim to be King of Norway. Scotland offered him its homage. The Viking power, although already undermined, still stretched across the world, ranging from Norway to North America, and through the Baltic to the East. But of all his realms Canute chose England for his home and capital. He liked, we are told, the Anglo-Saxon way of life. He wished to be considered the “successor of Edgar,” whose seventeen years of peace still shone by contrast with succeeding times. He ruled according to the laws, and he made it known that these were to be administered in austere detachment from his executive authority.
He built churches, he professed high devotion to the Christian faith and to the Papal diadem. He honoured the memory of St. Edmund and St. Alphege, whom his fellow-countrymen had murdered, and brought their relics with pious pomp to Canterbury. From Rome, as a pilgrim, in 1027, he wrote a letter to his subjects couched in exalted and generous terms, promising to administer equal justice, and laying particular emphasis upon the payment of Church dues. His daughter was married to the Emperor Conrad’s eldest son, who ultimately carried his empire across Schleswig to the banks of the Eider. These remarkable achievements, under the blessing of God and the smiles of fortune, were in large measure due to his own personal qualities. Here again we see the power of a great man to bring order out of ceaseless broils and command harmony and unity to be his servants, and how the lack of such men has to be paid for by the inestimable suffering of the many. |