|1080 to 1086.|
Internally the administration of this king was distinguished by great vigour and great love of justice. Under the mild sway of his predecessor, and indeed for the greater part of a century, the local governors were so many tyrants, regardless alike of law, of religion, of decency. Of them he made many severe examples; he punished capitally offences which had become almost inveterate; he applied the law of talion to all convicted of striking or mutilating others; he completely reformed the administration, deposing corrupt judges, and replacing them by others of greater integrity, and we may add of greater sternness. Pecuniary fines—the basis of Germanic jurisprudence—were exerted with a rigour never before experienced. In all these measures the king was abundantly justified; but they gave not the less offence to men hardened by long impunity. Open mutiny or smothered discontent, loud menaces, or secret conspiracies, marked the greater part of his short reign. Even the rigour with which he suppressed piracy made him enemies; if it was agreeable to the great body of his people, it was hateful to the licentious nobles who had so long profited by it.
|1080 to 1086.|
The conduct of St. Canute in regard to the church was no less unpopular. He exempted ecclesiastics from all dependence on the secular tribunals; he placed bishops on the same level with dukes and princes; he brought the clergy into his council, and endeavoured to give them a voice in the assembly of the states. In this policy we see little to condemn. It may be true, in the abstract, that churchmen should be restricted to their peculiar province, the care of souls; but practically they have never been so; and in giving them influence in public affairs,—in converting the bishops into temporal barons, and the higher clergy into local judges,—Canute acted merely in conformity with the spirit of the times. And indeed he seems to have had good reason for that policy. Churchmen were better informed, more regular in their lives, than laymen: he therefore believed that they would make better administrators of the law; and in that belief he increased their powers at the expense of the feudal nobles. He could not foresee that by thus rendering them independent of the crown and of the people, he was preparing a scourge for his successors.
|1080 to 1086.|
Though these measures raised him many enemies, his prodigality to several churches, and still more, his attempt to make tithes an obligatory impost, rendered three fourths of his people disaffected to his sway. Yet here, too, he is not to be censured by impartial posterity. He, doubtless, saw that if the church must subsist at all, it must not depend solely on so precarious a source as voluntary contributions. He saw that tithes were sanctioned by God’s word, and obligatory in the rest of Christendom; and he thought the impost less oppressive than any other that could be devised. But he did not proceed to his object with sufficient caution; he was too precipitate: he exasperated where he should have conciliated; and he was impatient of the least contradiction to his will. In fact, he was a despot; in most instances a well-meaning one; but his acts were more evident than his motives; and while he had no credit for these, he was hated for those. In another respect he was impolitic. Zealand he conferred, as a fief, on his brother Eric, with the title of Jarl; Sleswic, on his brother Olaf, with the title of Duke; and by so doing set a precedent for the dismemberment of his kingdom.
|1086.|
When so many causes of dislike existed, the end of Canute could scarcely be one of peace. He could not carry the tithe question in the states-general; but by his own authority he levied a capitation tax, partly as a punishment for the resistance which had been shown to his will, and partly for the use of the clergy. The rigour of the collectors was no less offensive than the tax itself. The inhabitants of Vend-syssel broke out into open revolt, and went in search of the king, who, with his wife, his children, and two brothers, sought refuge in the church of St. Alban in Odinsey. There he was soon invested; the sacred building was forced; his attendants put to the sword, and Benedict, one of his brothers, laid lifeless on the floor. Seeing that his own death was inevitable, the king knelt before the altar, and in that posture, according to one account, received the fatal stroke. Another says that he was killed by a lance through the window. Both agree that he died with resignation.
By the church, Canute was immediately placed in the glorious fellowship of saints and martyrs. His claim to this distinction is rather dubious: if he had been a private individual, or less liberal to the clergy, if he had exhibited greater moral virtues, and founded fewer churches and monasteries, assuredly he would have never been deified,—for canonization may be well called so. His widow returned to her father’s court, accompanied by one only of her sons, Charles. It is not a little singular that the same destiny was reserved for this son as for the father. Becoming count of Flanders, he was slain by his subjects in a church, and, like his father, “inter divos relatus.”
|1037.|