ABSTRACT
The main current of history has frequently shifted its course. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, at any rate as far as Western Christendom was concerned, it ran through Germany and Italy. France was more or less in a backwater, and the Spanish peninsula had its own quite separate stream; England, more directly important, lies outside our ken. There were, however, several minor streams which were tributary to the main current. The period of Svein and his five sons was on the whole one of tranquillity, in which the revolt culminating in the murder of St. Canute was the most violent episode. There was the danger, to which Denmark was constantly exposed, from the attacks of Wendish pirates, who made it suffer what other countries had experienced from it in the past. Norway has one feature which marks it out from the other Scandinavian countries. The closeness of the association of Bohemia with the German Crown has already been noted.
