Review of “Cnut: The North Sea King” by Ryan Lavelle

As I noted in my introduction to Cnut, I approached Ryan Lavelle’s contribution to the Penguin Monarchs series with a degree of anticipation shaped by his previous book on Æthelred. In it, Lavelle spent several pages describing his Scandinavian opponents, which I found very helpful in understanding the external threat facing that ill-advised king. Having devoted as much attention to the Scandinavians in a book on Æthelred as Lavelle did, I expected his biography on Æthelred’s Danish successor to provide more on his background than I had received in Lawson’s book.

I quickly discovered that this was not to be the case. After briefly recounting the famous tale of Cnut’s confrontation with the waves Lavelle skips over his subject’s early years to begin his account of Cnut’s life by detailing Cnut’s role in the conquest of England. While a little disappointing, it make sense considering the constraints Lavelle faces: for a series of compact books about the lives of English monarchs, narrative economy is undoubtedly an important concern. And Lavelle provides his readers with a very economical account of Cnut’s reign that draws upon recent archaeological discoveries as well as the more traditional sources to describe Cnut’s activities within the context of his time. Only the most basic background is provided, as Lavelle keeps his focus resolutely upon Cnut’s actions and what they reveal about him.

The result is a good overview of Cnut’s life that fits well with the amount of information available. Like most biographers of Anglo-Saxon monarchs Lavelle has to speculate about motives and intentions for which no records or accounts remain. Lavelle writes with a firmness of tone that suggests an assuredness in his command of the material: though having to engage in guesswork, he is confident about the conclusions he draws from the surviving sources. This gives his book an added degree of readability, as he explains Cnut’s undertakings, offers plausible explanations for his choices, and moves on. And his scope is quite impressive for a book of this size, addressing not just the political developments and military activities of Cnut’s life, but his piety, relations with the religious establishment, and his family life to boot.

By presenting all of this in a chronological account of Cnut’s reign, Lavelle’s book serves as an excellent introduction to his subject. I suspect I would have gotten more out of Lawson’s book (which Lavelle generously praises in his list of “Further Reading”) had I started with this one, but with the grounding I now possess I look forward to reading the remaining books about Cnut with the sense of events that Lavelle provides.

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