Gunhilda was a daughter of King
Cnut the Great (985/95 – 1035), ruler over the Anglo-Scandinavian
North Sea Empire, and his second wife
Emma of Normandy (c. 985 – 1052). She was thus a member of the
House of Knýtlinga and a sister of King
Harthacnut, a half-sister of King
Svein Knutsson of Norway and King
Harold Harefoot of England, and
Alfred Aetheling,
Edward the Confessor and
Godgifu (daughter of Æthelred the Unready). About 1025, Gunhilda came to
Germany as a child. Her engagement with Henry III, the son and heir of Emperor
Conrad II and his consort
Gisela of Swabia, was part of a pact of her father Cnut over peaceful borders of the Danish
Duchy of Schleswig with Imperial
Holstein in the area of
Kiel. The agreement had occurred prior to the death of Cnut in 1035.
Queen depicting the trial by combat as described in the chronicles of de Trois-Fontaines and Malmesbury. During the Easter celebration in 1028, Henry received regality from the hands of his father with consent of the
princes and was vested with the duchies of
Bavaria and
Swabia. Conrad temporarily had evolved plans to marry his son with
Zoe Porphyrogenita, a daughter of the Byzantine Emperor
Constantine VIII. Nevertheless, after these ambitions had failed, Gunhilda and Henry were finally betrothed at Pentecost 1035 in
Bamberg and married one year later in
Nijmegen. Upon her wedding, she took the German name
Kunigunde. According to the chronicles of
Alberic de Trois-Fontaines and
William of Malmesbury, Gunhilda was accused of adultery and defended in
trial by combat, but after her champion's victory she disdained the success and became a nun. However, it seems that Gunhilda and her husband reconciled shortly afterwards. In December 1036, Emperor Conrad went on a campaign to
Italy, while Empress Gisela together with Henry and Gunhilda celebrated Christmas in
Regensburg. Stuck in a fierce conflict with quarrelsome Archbishop
Aribert of Milan, Conrad asked his son for support and both Henry III and Gunhilda followed him on his expedition. In Italy, Gunhilda gave birth to the couple's only daughter,
Beatrice (d. 1061), who later became Abbess of
Quedlinburg and
Gandersheim. While the siege of
Milan proved unsuccessful, Emperor Conrad in 1038 was asked to intervene in a territorial dispute between
Guaimar IV of Salerno and
Pandulf IV of Capua. He campaigned in the
Mezzogiorno in support of Guaimar, took
Capua and had Pandulf deposed. Their victory found most of the Mezzogiorno loyal to the
Holy Roman Empire. During the return journey to Germany, an
epidemic (possibly
malaria) broke out among the Imperial troops, which claimed many victims. Duke
Herman IV of Swabia and Gunhilda were among the casualties. Gunhilda's body was transferred to Germany and buried in the
Limburg Abbey church. As her husband was not crowned
King of the Romans until the death of his father Emperor Conrad II in 1039, Gunhilda was never crowned German queen. ==Ancestry==