Gold was the power that Canute depended upon to prepare rebellion in Norway. That the Danish King employed bribery in these years to a large extent is a well-attested fact. Florence of Worcester who wrote three generations later recounts how gold was distributed among the Norwegian chiefs in the hope that they would permit Canute to rule over them, though Florence is clearly misinformed when he tells us that the Norsemen had renounced their allegiance to King Olaf because of his simplicity and gentleness.[301] Olaf was a saint when the scribe at Worcester wrote his history; but he was not a saint of the ideal sort, and hence Florence is led into error. Richard of Cirencester, too, has heard of these proceedings and the "great supply of gold and silver that was sent to the magnates of that country."[302] Both writers represent the Norsemen as eager for the bribes. The sagas, of course, give fuller details. The result was that King Olaf's forces to some extent were made up of men whose loyalty had been undermined, who were in the pay of the enemy. The following year (1027), the year when the most Christian monarch made his pilgrimage to the tomb of Peter, seems to have seen the greatest activity in this direction; out the probabilities are that large sums of Danegeld had found their way to Norway also in the earlier two or three years.
FOOTNOTES:
[286] Snorre, Saga of Saint Olaf, c. 106.
[287] Ibid., cc. 22, 23, 116 ff.
[288] Snorre, Saga of Saint Olaf, cc. 106-110.
[289] Ibid., c. 106.
[290] Ibid., c. 104.
[291] On the subject of the Norse chiefs in King Olaf's day, see Munch, Det norske Folks Historie, I., ii., 659-670; Norges Historie, I., ii., 340-348.
[292] Snorre, Saga of Saint Olaf, c. 121. According to Snorre's reckoning, he left in the summer of 1023 and returned the following summer.