Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- General Editor's Preface
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Propaganda and legend: Accounts of the invasions and conquest of England
- 2 Hindsight: Features explaining the invasions and conquest
- 3 Swein Forkbeard's first invasion
- 4 Swein Forkbeard's second invasion
- 5 The invasion in 1006
- 6 Swein Forkbeard's third invasion
- 7 Thorkell the Tall and the English succession
- Conclusion
- 1 Heimskringla
- 2 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A reconstruction of the annal for the year 1008
- Bibliography
- Index
- Warfare in History
6 - Swein Forkbeard's third invasion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- General Editor's Preface
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Propaganda and legend: Accounts of the invasions and conquest of England
- 2 Hindsight: Features explaining the invasions and conquest
- 3 Swein Forkbeard's first invasion
- 4 Swein Forkbeard's second invasion
- 5 The invasion in 1006
- 6 Swein Forkbeard's third invasion
- 7 Thorkell the Tall and the English succession
- Conclusion
- 1 Heimskringla
- 2 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A reconstruction of the annal for the year 1008
- Bibliography
- Index
- Warfare in History
Summary
The victory achieved by King Swein Forkbeard and his allies at Svold, over Olaf Tryggvason of Norway, allowed Swein to feel sufficiently confident of his control over Denmark to undertake an overseas campaign in England during the period 1003 to 1005. However, there is some contradictory evidence in our sources about Swein Forkbeard and the political situation in Scandinavia, evidence that was examined by Sawyer in 1991, when he answered some of the criticisms of sources favourable to Swein, particularly the Encomium Emmae Reginae. The Encomium was evidently written on the instructions of Queen Emma: she was in a unique position to supply the encomiast with information, which she had received directly from participants in events. Sawyer's assessment of the encomiast, on the subject of Swein Forkbeard, was that ‘we should take him [the encomiast] seriously; his judgement was sounder than Thietmar's, and he was better informed than Adam’.
Keynes has written recently:
It would be easy to dismiss the Encomium as a thoroughly unreliable and tendentious piece of work, which it is, though to do so would be to deny oneself a useful account of the Scandinavian conquest of England in 1013–16, a contemporary impression of Cnut's rule, and an inside view of English politics in the immediate aftermath of Cnut's death. We may be sure, however, that it was not the Encomiast's intention to provide posterity with anything of the sort.
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- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2003