Canute the Great, 995 (circa)-1035, and the Rise of Danish Imperialism during the Viking Age. Laurence Marcellus Larson
were saved. Olaf gave him quarter on condition that he should leave Norway, surrender his rights to sovereignty, and swear never more to fight against his stout opponent. Hakon took the required oaths and was permitted to depart. He hastened to England and reported the matter to his uncle Canute. But the English campaign had only fairly begun, so Canute was in no position to interfere. Hakon remained long with Canute, and in time was invested with an English earldom.[105]
Meanwhile, the Danish fleet had arrived at Sandwich; but from Kent, Canute did not sail north to his former friends in the Humber lands; he reverted to the old viking practices of harrying the Southwest, Dorset, Wilts and Somerset.[106] Whether this was his original plan cannot be known: it may be that the news of Edmund's activity in the Danelaw was to some extent responsible for this move. It was now autumn of the year 1015; but if England hoped that the host would soon follow viking customs and retire into winter quarters, the country was doomed to bitter disappointment; for the enemy now had a leader who saw no need of rest, who struck in winter as well as in summer.
Canute also differed from earlier chiefs in his ideas of conduct on the battle-field. The viking band, as a development of the Teutonic comitatus, was naturally inspired with its ideas of honour and valour. When the challenge to combat had been accepted, it was the duty of the warrior to conquer or perish with his leader; and it was the chief's duty to set an honourable example for his men. It was this spirit that animated King Olaf Trygvesson at Swald when his men urged the feasibility of flight before the battle had really begun. "Strike the sails," he commanded. "My men shall not think of flight; never have I fled from combat."[107]
The young Dane brought no such ideas to the campaign that he was now on the point of beginning. Being by race more a Slav than a Dane, it may be that he did not readily acquire Germanic ideas. His training with the Jomvikings, perhaps in his early youth, at least now in his British camp, where veterans from Jom were numerous and Thurkil the Tall was the chief warrior, ran counter to such notions. The Jomvikings would retreat, sometimes they would even take to flight, as we infer from a runic inscription that reads like a rebuke for cowardly retreat.[108]
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