Canute IV of Denmark

Canute IV of Denmark, known in Danish as Knud and later called Canute the Holy or Saint Canute, was King of Denmark from 1080 until 1086. He was a son of King Sweyn II Estridsson; his mother is not named in surviving sources. Sweyn had many children, several of whom became kings in turn, and succession among the brothers was often unsettled. Canute had already been prominent in his father's later years. When Harald III Hen died in 1080, Canute took the throne. Near-contemporary writers, including Aelnoth of Canterbury, who later composed a Latin life of the king, present him as a stern, pious, and ambitious ruler who meant to strengthen the crown and to bring the Danish Church more fully into line with continental practice.

His ecclesiastical policy included the enforcement of tithes, the endowment of churches, and support for the clergy. He is associated with the cult of Saint Alban in Denmark; relics of that saint were kept at the church in Odense where he would later die. At the same time he tried to tighten royal control over peasants and magnates, which caused resentment. Through his father he belonged to the Knýtlinga kindred that had ruled England earlier in the eleventh century. In 1085 he gathered a large fleet in the Limfjord, intending to invade England and challenge William the Conqueror, with expected support from Norway and from Flanders. The fleet never sailed. Sources mention a threat on the southern border, the harvest, reluctant magnates, and English diplomacy. Levied warriors left without the plunder of a campaign became a source of unrest.

In 1086 revolt broke out in northern Jutland and spread. Canute withdrew to Funen and took refuge in the timber church of Saint Alban in Odense with his brother Benedict and a group of housecarls. On 10 July 1086 the insurgents attacked the church. Tradition holds that Canute was killed at the altar, by a spear or a blow to the head, while at prayer, and that Benedict and seventeen companions were also slain. The killing of an anointed king in a church became the basis of his later reputation as a martyr. The dynasty was not overthrown; another brother, Olaf I Hunger, was accepted as king.

Olaf's reign was remembered for famine, which clerical writers treated as divine judgment for the murder. Miracles were reported at Canute's grave. His body was later moved from the wooden church to a new stone church in Odense that developed into Saint Canute's Cathedral (Sankt Knuds Kirke), where the relics remain. King Eric I, another of Sweyn's sons, obtained from Pope Paschal II the canonization of Canute in 1101, making him the first Dane formally recognized as a saint by the papacy. His principal feast is 10 July, the anniversary of his death. Canute had married Adela of Flanders, daughter of Count Robert I of Flanders. After the killing she returned to Flanders with their son Charles, later Count of Flanders and himself venerated as Charles the Good. Later genealogies also assign the couple daughters, including Cecilia and Ingerid. Saint Canute is the patron saint of Denmark.