The concurrent presence of a king and another claimant to the throne was a recipe for unrest, especially considering that Edward's brother, Ælfred (died 1036), had earlier been betrayed (as rumour had it, at the instigation of Earl Godwin).

He mentions that he wrote the work at the specific request of his patroness Emma, to whom he shows some gratitude, and that he had witnessed Cnut when the king visited the abbey on his journey homeward.

Virgil and his Aeneid are explicitly cited in the prefatory letter and in Book I, Chapter 4, while influences from Sallust, Lucan, Ovid, Horace, Juvenal and Lucretius have also been detected.

The third book deals with events after Cnut's death: Emma's troubles during the reign of Harold Harefoot, and the accession of her sons, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor, to the throne.

According to the medievalist Eleanor Parker, "The Encomium reveals an active and forceful woman participating in the writing of history, reshaping the story of her own life in a way that suited her interests.