In all of human history, who came the closest to world domination?

Ian Daniel
Answered Nov 14

I’d give my vote to this empire:

Cnut the Great’s Empire:

Cnut’s empire in 1030.

Empire in red, vassals in orange, allies in yellow.

Cnut the great was born to a prince of Denmark and won the throne of England in 1016. Scotland
submitted to him in 1017. He then ascended to the throne of Denmark in 1018. He claimed the throne of
Norway in 1028.

His empire doesn’t look impressive by size, by it actually had the potential to be huge. First, he
assembled the empire fairly quickly. His empire was expanding quickly. Second, the people he ruled
liked him. He protected England from other vikings and thus brought England back to prosperity, so he
had strong support among them.

He also sought to unite Denmark and England under shared cultural values, which is really important
when sustaining an empire. If your people already want to be ruled by you and they feel like they are
one people, that makes your job way, way easier.

He was also a Christian with strong connections to the Holy Roman Empire and the pope. He was even
in Rome for the crowning of a ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Conrad II. He also knew the king of
Burgundy. He was overall viewed as a good king. Because of this, he likely could protect his empire and
continue to expand with the support of some of the most powerful empires and people in Europe.

He also had very defensible territory. He controlled a large part of the British Isles and Scandinavia,
which are both difficult to invade.

He was a really good king as well. There’s a case to be made he was Britain’s greatest king. He was
very good at administrating and uniting his kingdoms. He was an exceptional statesman and military
leader.

Unfortunately, Cnut died in 1035, and the chain of succession, as it was for so many empires from
Alexander the Great to the Mongols, didn’t leave a clear leader that was able to handle the entire
empire. Cnut’s heir spent too much time in Denmark and lost the support of the English, and someone
in Norway fought against him. Though Cnut’s son brought England and Denmark together, he himself
had a shaky line of succession, and Denmark went through rough times.

But what if his empire had stayed in place? An heir would have had the power to unite Scandinavia and
the entire British Isles. Furthermore, Cnut’s only known daughter, Cunigund, was going to marry Conrad
II’s son, Henry III, eight months after Cnut’s death. Unfortunately, she died. If Conrad and his daughter
had lived a bit longer and kept the empire together, he would have had a united Britain, Scandinavia,
and strong blood connections to the Holy Roman Empire and the pope.

But the real potential here is for the first colonial empire to be made.

Under 50 years earlier, Erik the Red got exiled from Iceland and founded a settlement on Greenland.
Leif Eriksson then discovered the new world in 1000 AD, just 16 years before Cnut took the throne of
England. There is a legitimate chance that if Cnut had lived longer or had a good line of succession, his
empire could have conquered the new world with the British Isles and Scandinavia under their rule.
They were very good sailors and fighters. And we all know what Europe did after they found the new
world a few hundred years later.

So imagine the new world, but with only one empire colonizing that. Add to that a ruler/culture that had
an emphasis on assimilating people into a common identity and one of the best army and and navy on
the planet. The Vikings could have easily founded more successful colonies in the new world with an
empire backing them.

The problem with the original Viking settlements in the new world was that they didn’t have much
backing, and nobody was particularly ambitious. Lief Erikson was the son of Erik the Red, who was the
head of a small settlement in Greenland that struggled to survive. The Vikings settled in Newfoundland
but left the place after some bad encounters with natives.

However, there was no doubt there was incentive to settle there. There was lots of grapes and lumber,
and the Newfoundland (or Vinland, as they called it) settlement actually helped out Greenland.
And if Cnut’s empire was stable and lasted until Europe invented guns that could hit things, they could
likely sweep through the New World before other countries got near as much of a shot at it.

Cnut was also the best shot for Scandinavia conquering a good portion of mainland Europe. The Vikings
terrorized Europe and were militarily superior, but often were divided into smaller countries like Denmark
or Norway. A united Scandinavia + Britain and allied with the Holy Roman Empire would be powerful.

Before you count this out as an outlandish what-if, remember that England, which didn’t unite the British
Isles for a while after starting their colonial empire and who didn’t have control of Scandinavia, managed
to control a quarter of the world and became the strongest colonial empire. Give them a 500 year head-
start and significantly more power, and see what happens.