That the division of the sovereignty would inevitably lead to civil war might have been foreseen by the blindest. It was a long and a bloody one, which, though suspended for a time through the efforts of the pope, who wished all Christendom to arm against the infidels, burst out with renewed fury. Adzer, archbishop of Lund, led the Danish host against the pagans of the Baltic; but the expedition was inglorious; and the remnant which returned from it embraced one of the two parties. The fortunes of both varied; but when Valdemar, the favourite of the nation, joined Sweyn, the advantage was on the side of that king, who gained at least three battles over his rival. At one time Canute was driven from the realm, and forced to seek shelter at the court of the emperor Conrad III. But tranquillity was not the result of his retirement. The Wendish pirates, not satisfied with having defeated the archbishop, and incited by the agitated state of the public mind, ravaged the coasts both of Jutland and of the isles. Finding their king and nobles unable to protect them, the people entered into armed fraternities, which were consecrated by religion. They not only defended their own coasts, but equipped vessels to cruise in the Baltic, and to surprise such of the pagan ships as they might find detached from the rest. In a few years twenty-two of these vessels took above eighty of the enemy’s. Still these were partial, isolated effects, which had little influence over the general mass of misery. When Canute returned as the vassal of the empire, the civil war again raged. Frederic Barbarossa, as the lord paramount, now interfered, and meeting the two parties, decreed that while the title of king of Denmark should be left to the victorious Sweyn, Canute should reign over Zealand as a fief of the Danish crown. This award satisfied neither party, and least of all the nation, which was indignant with both of them for sacrificing its independence to the emperor. Sweyn refused to cede Zealand to his rival; and the civil war was about to recommence, when Valdemar, to whose valour Sweyn owed every thing, prevailed on the one to give and the other to accept, in lieu of that island, certain domains in Jutland and Scania. Peace therefore was procured for the moment; but it was a hollow peace, which the accident of an hour might break. [Sidenote: 1152 to 1156.]