l bodyguard, but did
garrison duty and defended the marches or borders. They were subject to
strict discipline, embodied in written rules called the _Viderlog_ or
_Vederlag_, and were the nucleus not only of a standing army but of a
royal council. Canute is also said to have endeavoured to found
monasteries in Denmark, with but indifferent success, and he was
certainly the first Danish king who coined money, with the assistance of
Anglo-Saxon mint-masters. Of his alliance with the clergy we have
already spoken. Like the other great contemporary kingdom-builder,
Stephen of Hungary, he clearly recognized that the church was the one
civilizing element in a world of anarchic barbarism, and his submission
to her guidance is a striking proof of his perspicacity. But it was no
slavish submission. When, in 1027, he went to Rome, with Rudolf III. of
Burgundy, to be present at the coronation of the emperor Conrad II., it
was quite as much to benefit his subjects as to receive absolution for
the sins of his youth. He persuaded the pope to remit the excessive fees
for granting the _pallium_, which the English and Danish bishops had
found such a grievous burden, substituting therefor a moderate amount of
Peter's pence. He also induced the emperor and other German princes to
grant safe-conducts to those of his subjects who desired to make the
pilgrimage to Rome.

Canute died at Shaftesbury on the 12th of November 1035 in his 40th
year, and was buried at Winchester. He was cut off before he had had the
opportunity of developing most of his great plans; yet he lived long
enough to obtain the title of "Canute the Wealthy" (i.e. "Mighty"), and
posterity, still more appreciative, has well surnamed him "the Great." A
violent, irritable temper was his most salient defect, and more than one
homicide must be laid to his charge. But the fierce Viking nature was
gradually and completely subdued; for Canute was a Christian by
conviction and sincerely religious. His humility is finely illustrated
by the old Norman poem which describes how he commanded the rising tide
of the Thames at Westminster to go back. The homily he preached to his
courtiers on that occasion was to prepare them for his subsequent
journey to Rome and his submission to the Holy See. Like his father
Sweyn, Canute loved poetry, and the great Icelandic skalder, Thorar
Lovtunge and Thormod Kolbrunarskjold, were as welcome visitors at his
court as the learned bishops. As an adminis