Svein Knutsson
Son of Cnut the Great, ruled as King of Norway
Svein Knutsson (Old Norse: Sveinn Knútsson [ˈswɛinː ˈknuːtsˌson]; c. 1016–1035) was the son of Cnut the Great, king of Denmark, Norway, and England, and his first wife Ælfgifu of Northampton, a Mercian noblewoman. In 1017 Cnut married Emma of Normandy, but there is no evidence that Ælfgifu was repudiated, and in 1030 Cnut sent her and Svein as regents to rule Norway. However, their rule was considered oppressive by the Norwegians. They imposed new taxes and harsh laws that made them unpopular and they were expelled in 1034.
Names
Svein Knutsson is also mentioned as Sveinn Alfífuson (matronym) and under the epithet óforsynjukonungr ("unforeseen king"). In Norwegian, his name is Svein Knutsson; in Danish, Svend Knudsen. Many variations of the name are used, including Sven and Sweyn, from the Anglo-Saxon Swegen. He was the second ruler of Norway by this name, after his grandfather Sweyn Forkbeard.
Biography
In 1029 Håkon Eiriksson, Cnut's vassal ruler of Norway, was lost at sea and Olaf Haraldsson, who had been deposed as king of Norway by Cnut, tried to recapture the kingdom, but he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Stiklestad.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Svein Knutsson” as son of Cnut the Great, ruled as King of Norway. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as son of Cnut the Great, ruled as King of Norway. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q36731. VIAF identifies the subject as 6360155286624687180004. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1016, 1035, 1017 and 1030.
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This entry incorporates text from “Svein Knutsson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.