With the head of Christendom, Canute's relations seem to have been cordial throughout his entire reign. It was the papacy that made the first move to establish such relations: in 1019 Archbishop Lifing brought a message back from Rome replete with good advice which seems to have nattered the young Dane. The pilgrimage to Rome doubtless strengthened the bond; especially must the King's later efforts to see that the proper church dues were collected have pleased the Popes of that period. For the papacy had fallen low in that age: the Pope whom Canute visited was only a layman up to the day of his election to the sacred office; his successor Benedict is said to have been a mere boy when he was elevated to the papal dignity, though authorities differ as to his age. There was, therefore, little likelihood of any conflict so long as the Peter's pence were regularly transported to Rome. A new papacy was to come; but Hildebrand had not quite reached manhood when Canute went to his rest.
Canute's ecclesiastical policy in England, at least during the closing years of his reign, seems to have aimed at greater control than had been the case earlier. The friendship and active good-will of the Church could best be secured by carefully choosing the rulers of the Church. As a Christian court, the royal household at Winchester had in its employment a regular staff of priests, nine of whom are mentioned in the documents. Canute honoured his priests; he seems to have invited them to seats in the national assembly; he called them in to witness grants of land. Finally, he honoured several of them still further by appointing them to episcopal office: at least three of Canute's clerks received such appointments before the reign closed.[377] His successor inherited his policy and several more of Canute's chapel clerks were honoured in Edward's time. The policy was not new: even in Carolingian times the royal chapel had been used as a training school for future prelates, and there are traces of a similar practice in England long before Canute's time. But so far as the Dane was concerned, the plan was probably original: we cannot suppose him to have been very well informed as to precedents more than two centuries old.
In Norway the problem was how to christianise and organise the land, and Canute had no great part in either. The Danish Church, however, was growing in strength and developing under conditions that might produce great difficulties: it was the daughter of the German Church; it was governed by an alien prelate.
The primacy of the Northern churches belonged to the see of Bremen, the church from which the earliest missionaries had gone forth into Denmark and Sweden. While this primacy was in a way recognised, in practice, the Northern kings in the early years of the eleventh century paid small regard to the claims of the archbishop. The two Olafs depended mainly on England and the neighbouring parts of the Continent for priests and prelates; and Canute, as King of England, seems to have planned to make the Danish Church, too, dependent on the see of Canterbury. At this time Unwan was Archbishop of Bremen; for sixteen years he ruled his province with a resolute hand and for the most part with strength and wisdom.
Unwan was displeased when he learned that Canute was sending bishops from England to Denmark; we have already seen how he managed to make a prisoner and even a partisan of Gerbrand, who, like Unwan himself, was doubtless a German. This must have been in 1022 or 1023, more likely in the former year. Aided by Gerbrand, who acted as mediator, Unwan was able to make Canute recognise his primacy. Adam of Bremen mentions great gifts that Unwan sent to Canute,[378] but these were probably not the determining consideration. In 1022, Canute was fighting the Slavs and adding territory that would naturally belong to the mission fields of Bremen, and it would hardly be wise to make an enemy of one whose historic rights had been admitted by earlier Danish kings. Till Unwan's death in 1029, the King and the Archbishop were fast friends. Unwan served as mediator between Canute and the Emperor when the alliance was formed in 1025 (?)[379] and otherwise served the Danish King. It seems probable that a personal acquaintance was formed, for Adam tells us that Unwan rebuilt Hamburg and spent considerable time there, "whither he also invited the very glorious King Canute ... to confer with him."[380]
The entente that was thus formed seems also to have affected mission operations in Norway. It is likely that Unwan demanded that King Olaf should no longer be allowed to recruit his ecclesiastical forces in England; for soon after the date that we have assumed as that of the new treaty, Bishop Grimkell appeared as King Olaf's ambassador at Unwan's court. The Bishop, who was evidently a Northman from the Danelaw, brought the customary gifts and the prayer that Unwan would accept the Anglian clerks and prelates then in Norway as of his province and that he would further increase the clerical forces of the kingdom.[381] Thus in the years 1022-1023, the rights of Hamburg-Bremen were recognised everywhere.
Unwan was succeeded in the province by Libentius, the nephew of an earlier Libentius who had held the metropolitan office in Bremen before Unwan's day. He was of Italian blood and therefore not likely to be burdened with German sympathies. Before everything else, says the good Master Adam, he entered into friendly relations with the King of the Danes.[382] But during Libentius' as well as Unwan's primacy Canute seems to have selected the bishops for his Danish as well as for his English sees.