• General Notes

      Canute IV of Denmark
      From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
  
      Canute IV, (c. 1043 – July 17, 1086), also known as Canute the Saint and Canute the Holy, was King of Denmark from 1080 until 1086. He is also the patron saint of Denmark.
  
      Canute was the illegitimate son of Sweyn II Estridsson. Canute succeeded his brother, Harald III. Canute wanted to establish a strong royal authority on the basis of a strong church. He also considered the title of King of England to be his, as he was the grandnephew of Canute the Great, who had reigned as king of England, Denmark and Norway from 1016 until 1035. When Canute tried to force peasants from Jutland to participate in a raid against England (and its current ruler, William the Conqueror), the peasants led an uprising that culminated with his death inside the wooden Church of St. Alban's in Odense, along with his brother Benedict and 17 of their followers. In 1101 he was canonized as a saint, and in 1300 he and his brother were interred in the new Saint Canute's Cathedral.
  
      In later Danish tradition Canute in spite of his official canonisation came to stand is the tyrant par excellence that exploited the peasantry and was killed by his freedom-loving people, an interpretation often seen in liberal history writing and left-wing poetry. Though this picture is only partly true (the farmers of early Medieval Denmark were “free men” of political influence and not a quite cowed underclass) there is hardly any doubt that his course was regarded an intolerable attack on time-honoured rights.
  
      He married Adelaide (Adela) of Flanders, daughter of Robert I, the count of Flanders, and had a son, Charles the Good, who became count of Flanders

Details of Knute's family with Adele of Flanders