Editing Sweyn II of Denmark (section)

==Legacy==
One of the legacies of King Sweyn was a fundamental change in Danish society which had been based on whether a person was free or a bondsman. Sweyn is often considered to be Denmark's last Viking king as well as the first [[medieval]] one. A strengthened church in alliance with the land-owning noble families begin to pit their power against the royal family. The peasants were left to fend for themselves.<ref>Danmarks Historie II perbenny.dk</ref>

Sweyn built a strong foundation for royal power through cooperation with the church. He completed the final partition of Denmark into [[dioceses]] by corresponding directly with the [[pope]], bypassing the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. During his reign hundreds of small wooden churches were built throughout the kingdom; many were rebuilt in stone in the 12th century.<ref name="pajung"/> Sweyn sought to create a Nordic Archbishopric under Danish rule, a feat which his son Eric I accomplished.<ref name="gyldendal"/>

Sweyn seems to have been able to read and write, and was described as an especially educated monarch by his personal friend [[Pope Gregory VII]].<ref name="gyldendal"/> He is the source of much of our current knowledge about Denmark and Sweden in the 9th and 10th centuries, having told the story of his ancestry to historian Adam of Bremen around 1070.