the organisation of those Viking armies which under the leadership of Swein Forkbeard and his son Cnut succeeded in conquering England in the second decade of the eleventh century: were the forces of these kings privately organized, like the ones operating in the ninth century, or were they state armies recruited on the basis of a public obligation on all free men to serve the king in war?

The conquests of England accomplished first by Swein Forkbeard and then by his son Cnut undoubtedly belong to the most spectacular achievements of the whole Viking age, and there can be little doubt that the armies involved were bigger and probably drawn from a wider area, indeed from most of Scandinavia, than Viking armies had previously been. This does not mean, however, that they were different in principle from those armies with which the west was already familiar. The distinction between the two Viking ages of Britain does not lie in state organization in the sense that in the second of these ages the kings of Denmark were able to draw on resources not available to their predecessors in the ninth century; it lies in a difference of purpose and determination and perhaps in their greater ability to control the magnates within their empire, reflecting the growth of royal power between Horik I and Swein Forkbeard.