page_title: North Sea Empire
section_title: Tributary areas
hierarchical_section_title: North Sea Empire / Formation / Tributary areas
caption_attribution_description: English: Derivative of File:Canute.PNG
context_page_description: North Sea Empire and Anglo-Scandinavian Empire are terms used by historians to refer to the personal union of the kingdoms of England, Denmark and sometimes Norway for most of the period between 1013 and 1042 towards the end of the Viking Age. This ephemeral Norse-ruled empire was a thalassocracy, its components only connected by and dependent upon the sea.
  The first king to unite all three kingdoms was Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark since 986 and of Norway since 1000, when he conquered England in 1013. He died the following year and his realm was divided. His son Cnut the Great acquired England in 1016, Denmark in 1018 and Norway in 1028. He died in 1035 and his realm was again divided, but his successor in Denmark, Harthacnut, inherited England in 1040 and ruled it until his death. At the height of his power, when Cnut ruled all three kingdoms, he was the most powerful ruler in western Europe after the Holy Roman Emperor.
context_section_description: In addition to part of Sweden, of which he or the person who wrote the heading to his letter claimed he was King part of, Cnut received tribute from the Wends and was allied with the Poles; in 1022, together with Godwin and Ulf Jarl, he took a fleet east into the Baltic to confirm his overlordship of the coastal areas that the Danish kings dominated from Jomsborg.
  Immediately after his return from Rome, Cnut led an army into Scotland and made vassals of Malcolm, the High King of Scotland, and two other kings, one of whom, Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, was a sea-king whose lands included Galloway and the Isle of Man and would become king of Dublin in 1036. All these and likely also the Welsh paid tribute, on the model of the Danegeld that Æthelred had instituted to pay off the Danes; and Cnut was thus reasserting the dominion over the Celtic kingdoms that recent English kings had had to let lapse, as well as punishing those who had supported Olaf against him. A verse by the Icelandic skald Óttarr svarti calls Cnut "king of the Danes, the Irish, the English and the Islanders"; presumably Norway is omitted because Cnut had not yet come to power there.
caption: North Sea Empire. Red: Countries where Cnut was king. Orange: vassals. Yellow: allies.
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