The Danish History, Books I to IX

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THE DANISH HISTORY,

BOOKS I-IX

by

Saxo Grammaticus

("Saxo the Learned") fl. Late 12th - Early 13th Century A.D.


PREPARER'S NOTE:

Originally written in Latin in the early years of the 13th
Century A.D. by the Danish historian Saxo, of whom little is
known except his name.

The text of this edition is based on that published as
"The Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus",
translated by Oliver Elton (Norroena Society, New York, 1905).
This edition is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN in the United States.

This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by
Douglas B. Killings.

The preparer would like to thank Mr. James W. Marchand and Mr.
Jessie D. Hurlbut for their invaluable assistance in the
production of this electronic text. Thank you. I am indebted to
you both.

Although Saxo wrote 16 books of his "Danish History", only the
first nine were ever translated by Mr. Oliver Elton; it is these
nine books that are here included. As far as the preparer knows,
there is (unfortunately) no public domain English translation of
Books X-XVI. Those interested in the latter books should search
for the translation mentioned below.




SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

ORIGINAL TEXT--

Olrik, J and Raeder (Ed.): "Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum"
(Copenhagen, 1931).

Dansk Nationallitteraert Arkiv: "Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum" (DNA,
Copenhagen, 1996). Web-based Latin edition of Saxo, substantiallly based
on the above edition; currently at the


OTHER TRANSLATIONS--

Fisher, Peter (Trans.) and Hilda Ellis Davidson (Ed.): "Saxo
Grammaticus: History of the Danes" (Brewer, Cambridge, 1979).


RECOMMENDED READING--

Jones, Gwyn: "History of the Vikings" (Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1968, 1973, 1984).

Sturlson, Snorri: "The Heimskringla" (Translation: Samual Laing, London,
1844; released as Online Medieval and Classical Library E-text
#15, 1996). Web version at the following URL:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Heimskringla/




INTRODUCTION.




SAXO'S POSITION.

Saxo Grammaticus, or "The Lettered", one of the notable historians of
the Middle Ages, may fairly be called not only the earliest chronicler
of Denmark, but her earliest writer. In the latter half of the twelfth
century, when Iceland was in the flush of literary production, Denmark
lingered behind. No literature in her vernacular, save a few Runic
inscriptions, has survived. Monkish annals, devotional works, and lives
were written in Latin; but the chronicle of Roskild, the necrology of
Lund, the register of gifts to the cloister of Sora, are not literature.
Neither are the half-mythological genealogies of kings; and besides, the
mass of these, though doubtless based on older verses that are lost,
are not proved to be, as they stand, prior to Saxo. One man only, Saxo's
elder contemporary, Sueno Aggonis, or Sweyn (Svend) Aageson, who wrote
about 1185, shares or anticipates the credit of attempting a connected
record. His brief draft of annals is written in rough mediocre Latin.
It names but a few of the kings recorded by Saxo, and tells little that
Saxo does not. Yet there is a certain link between the two writers.
Sweyn speaks of Saxo with respect; he not obscurely leaves him the task
of filling up his omissions. Both writers, servants of the brilliant
Bishop Absalon, and probably set by him upon their task, proceed, like
Geoffrey of Monmouth, by gathering and editing mythical matter. This
they more or less embroider, and arrive in due course insensibly at
actual history. Both, again, thread their stories upon a genealogy of
kings in part legendary. Both write at the spur of patriotism, both to
let Denmark linger in the race for light and learning, and desirous to
save her glories, as other nations have saved theirs, by a record. But
while Sweyn only made a skeleton chronicle, Saxo leaves a memorial in
which historian and philologist find their account. His seven later
books are the chief Danish authority for the times which they relate;
his first nine, here translated, are a treasure of myth and folk-lore.
Of the songs and stories which Denmark possessed from the common
Scandinavian stock, often her only native record is in Saxo's Latin.
Thus, as a chronicler both of truth and fiction, he had in his own
land no predecessor, nor had he any literary tradition behind him.
Single-handed, therefore, he may be said to have lifted the dead-weight
against him, and given Denmark a writer. The nature of his work will be
discussed presently.




LIFE OF SAXO.

Of Saxo little is known but what he himself indicates, though much
doubtful supposition has gathered round his name.

That he was born a Dane his whole language implies; it is full of a glow
of aggressive patriotism. He also often praises the Zealanders at the
expense of other Danes, and Zealand as the centre of Denmark; but that
is the whole contemporary evidence for the statement that he was a
Zealander. This statement is freely taken for granted three centuries
afterwards by Urne in the first edition of the book (1514), but is not
traced further back than an epitomator, who wrote more than 200 years
after Saxo's death. Saxo tells us that his father and grandfather fought
for Waldemar the First of Denmark, who reigned from 1157 to 1182. Of
these men we know nothing further, unless the Saxo whom he names as one
of Waldemar's admirals be his grandfather, in which case his family was
one of some distinction and his father and grandfather probably "King's
men". But Saxo was a very common name, and we shall see the licence of
hypothesis to which this fact has given rise. The notice, however,
helps us approximately towards Saxo's birth-year. His grandfather, if
he fought for Waldemar, who began to reign in 1157, can hardly have been
born before 1100, nor can Saxo himself have been born before 1145 or
1150. But he was undoubtedly born before 1158, since he speaks of the
death of Bishop Asker, which took place in that year, as occurring "in
our time". His life therefore covers and overlaps the last half of the
twelfth century.

His calling and station in life are debated. Except by the anonymous
Zealand chronicler, who calls him Saxo "the Long", thus giving us the
one personal detail we have, he has been universally known as Saxo
"Grammaticus" ever since the epitomator of 1431 headed his compilation
with the words, "A certain notable man of letters ("grammaticus"), a
Zealander by birth, named Saxo, wrote," etc. It is almost certain that
this general term, given only to men of signal gifts and learning,
became thus for the first time, and for good, attached to Saxo's name.
Such a title, in the Middle Ages, usually implied that its owner was
a churchman, and Saxo's whole tone is devout, though not conspicuously
professional.

But a number of Saxos present themselves in the same surroundings with
whom he has been from time to time identified. All he tells us himself
is, that Absalon, Archbishop of Lund from 1179 to 1201, pressed him, who
was "the least of his companions, since all the rest refused the task",
to write the history of Denmark, so that it might record its glories
like other nations. Absalon was previously, and also after his
promotion, Bishop of Roskild, and this is the first circumstance giving
colour to the theory--which lacks real evidence--that Saxo the historian
was the same as a certain Saxo, Provost of the Chapter of Roskild,
whose death is chronicled in a contemporary hand without any mark of
distinction. It is unlikely that so eminent a man would be thus barely
named; and the appended eulogy and verses identifying the Provost and
the historian are of later date. Moreover, the Provost Saxo went on
a mission to Paris in 1165, and was thus much too old for the theory.
Nevertheless, the good Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, took this identity
for granted in the first edition, and fostered the assumption. Saxo was
a cleric; and could such a man be of less than canonical rank? He was
(it was assumed) a Zealander; he was known to be a friend of Absalon,
Bishop of Roskild. What more natural than that he should have been the
Provost Saxo? Accordingly this latter worthy had an inscription in gold
letters, written by Lave Urne himself, affixed to the wall opposite his
tomb.

Even less evidence exists for identifying our Saxo with the scribe of
that name--a comparative menial--who is named in the will of Bishop
Absalon; and hardly more warranted is the theory that he was a member,
perhaps a subdeacon, of the monastery of St. Laurence, whose secular
canons formed part of the Chapter of Lund. It is true that Sweyn
Aageson, Saxo's senior by about twenty years, speaks (writing about
1185) of Saxo as his "contubernalis". Sweyn Aageson is known to have had
strong family connections with the monastery of St. Laurence; but there
is only a tolerably strong probability that he, and therefore that Saxo,
was actually a member of it. ("Contubernalis" may only imply comradeship
in military service.) Equally doubtful is the consequence that
since Saxo calls himself "one of the least" of Absalon's "followers"
("comitum"), he was probably, if not the inferior officer, who is called
an "acolitus", at most a sub-deacon, who also did the work of a superior
"acolitus". This is too poor a place for the chief writer of Denmark,
high in Absalon's favor, nor is there any direct testimony that Saxo
held it.

His education is unknown, but must have been careful. Of his training
and culture we only know what his book betrays. Possibly, like other
learned Danes, then and afterwards, he acquired his training and
knowledge at some foreign University. Perhaps, like his contemporary
Anders Suneson, he went to Paris; but we cannot tell. It is not even
certain that he had a degree; for there is really little to identify him
with the "M(agister) Saxo" who witnessed the deed of Absalon founding
the monastery at Sora.




THE HISTORY.

How he was induced to write his book has been mentioned. The expressions
of modesty Saxo uses, saying that he was "the least" of Absalon's
"followers", and that "all the rest refused the task", are not to be
taken to the letter. A man of his parts would hardly be either the least
in rank, or the last to be solicited. The words, however, enable us to
guess an upward limit for the date of the inception of the work. Absalon
became Archbishop in 1179, and the language of the Preface (written,
as we shall see, last) implies that he was already Archbishop when he
suggested the History to Saxo. But about 1185 we find Sweyn Aageson
complimenting Saxo, and saying that Saxo "had `determined' to set forth
all the deeds" of Sweyn Estridson, in his eleventh book, "at greater
length in a more elegant style". The exact bearing of this notice on
the date of Saxo's History is doubtful. It certainly need not imply that
Saxo had already written ten books, or indeed that he had written
any, of his History. All we call say is, that by 1185 a portion of the
history was planned. The order in which its several parts were composed,
and the date of its completion, are not certainly known, as Absalon died
in 1201. But the work was not then finished; for, at the end of Bk. XI,
one Birger, who died in 1202, is mentioned as still alive.

We have, however, a yet later notice. In the Preface, which, as its
whole language implies, was written last, Saxo speaks of Waldemar II
having "encompassed (`complexus') the ebbing and flowing waves of Elbe."
This language, though a little vague, can hardly refer to anything but
an expedition of Waldemar to Bremen in 1208. The whole History was in
that case probably finished by about 1208. As to the order in which its
parts were composed, it is likely that Absalon's original instruction
was to write a history of Absalon's own doings. The fourteenth and
succeeding books deal with these at disproportionate length, and
Absalon, at the expense even of Waldemar, is the protagonist. Now Saxo
states in his Preface that he "has taken care to follow the statements
("asserta") of Absalon, and with obedient mind and pen to include both
his own doings and other men's doings of which he learnt."

The latter books are, therefore, to a great extent, Absalon's personally
communicated memoirs. But we have seen that Absalon died in 1201,
and that Bk. xi, at any rate, was not written after 1202. It almost
certainly follows that the latter books were written in Absalon's
life; but the Preface, written after them, refers to events in 1208.
Therefore, unless we suppose that the issue was for some reason
delayed, or that Saxo spent seven years in polishing--which is not
impossible--there is some reason to surmise that he began with that
portion of his work which was nearest to his own time, and added
the previous (especially the first nine, or mythical) books, as a
completion, and possibly as an afterthought. But this is a point which
there is no real means of settling. We do not know how late the Preface
was written, except that it must have been some time between 1208 and
1223, when Anders Suneson ceased to be Archbishop; nor do we know when
Saxo died.




HISTORY OF THE WORK.

Nothing is stranger than that a work of such force and genius, unique in
Danish letters, should have been forgotten for three hundred years, and
have survived only in an epitome and in exceedingly few manuscripts. The
history of the book is worth recording. Doubtless its very merits, its
"marvellous vocabulary, thickly-studded maxims, and excellent variety of
images," which Erasmus admired long afterwards, sealed it to the vulgar.
A man needed some Latin to appreciate it, and Erasmus' natural wonder
"how a Dane at that day could have such a force of eloquence" is a
measure of the rarity both of the gift and of a public that could
appraise it. The epitome (made about 1430) shows that Saxo was felt to
be difficult, its author saying: "Since Saxo's work is in many places
diffuse, and many things are said more for ornament than for historical
truth, and moreover his style is too obscure on account of the number
of terms ("plurima vocabula") and sundry poems, which are unfamiliar to
modern times, this opuscle puts in clear words the more notable of
the deeds there related, with the addition of some that happened after
Saxo's death." A Low-German version of this epitome, which appeared in
1485, had a considerable vogue, and the two together "helped to drive
the history out of our libraries, and explains why the annalists and
geographers of the Middle Ages so seldom quoted it." This neglect
appears to have been greatest of all in Denmark, and to have lasted
until the appearance of the "First Edition" in 1511.

The first impulse towards this work by which Saxo was saved, is found
in a letter from the Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, dated May 1512, to
Christian Pederson, Canon of Lund, whom he compliments as a lover of
letters, antiquary, and patriot, and urges to edit and publish "tam
divinum latinae eruditionis culmen et splendorem Saxonem nostrum".
Nearly two years afterwards Christian Pederson sent Lave Urne a copy of
the first edition, now all printed, with an account of its history. "I
do not think that any mortal was more inclined and ready for" the task.
"When living at Paris, and paying heed to good literature, I twice sent
a messenger at my own charges to buy a faithful copy at any cost, and
bring it back to me. Effecting nothing thus, I went back to my country
for this purpose; I visited and turned over all the libraries, but still
could not pull out a Saxo, even covered with beetles, bookworms, mould,
and dust. So stubbornly had all the owners locked it away." A worthy
prior, in compassion offered to get a copy and transcribe it with his
own hand, but Christian, in respect for the prior's rank, absurdly
declined. At last Birger, the Archbishop of Lund, by some strategy, got
a copy, which King Christian the Second allowed to be taken to Paris on
condition of its being wrought at "by an instructed and skilled graver
(printer)." Such a person was found in Jodocus Badius Ascenshls, who
adds a third letter written by himself to Bishop Urne, vindicating his
application to Saxo of the title Grammaticus, which he well defines
as "one who knows how to speak or write with diligence, acuteness, or
knowledge." The beautiful book he produced was worthy of the zeal, and
unsparing, unweariable pains, which had been spent on it by the band
of enthusiasts, and it was truly a little triumph of humanism. Further
editions were reprinted during the sixteenth century at Basic and at
Frankfort-on-Main, but they did not improve in any way upon the first;
and the next epoch in the study of Saxo was made by the edition and
notes of Stephanus Johansen Stephanius, published at Copenhagen in
the middle of the seventeenth century (1644). Stephanius, the first
commentator on Saxo, still remains the best upon his language. Immense
knowledge of Latin, both good and bad (especially of the authors Saxo
imitated), infinite and prolix industry, a sharp eye for the text, and
continence in emendation, are not his only virtues. His very bulkiness
and leisureliness are charming; he writes like a man who had eternity to
write in, and who knew enough to fill it, and who expected readers of an
equal leisure. He also prints some valuable notes signed with the famous
name of Bishop Bryniolf of Skalholt, a man of force and talent, and
others by Casper Barth, "corculum Musarum", as Stephanius calls him,
whose textual and other comments are sometimes of use, and who worked
with a MS. of Saxo. The edition of Klotz, 1771, based on that of
Stephanius, I have but seen; however, the first standard commentary is
that begun by P. E. Muller, Bishop of Zealand, and finished after his
death by Johan Velschow, Professor of History at Copenhagen, where the
first part of the work, containing text and notes, was published in
1839; the second, with prolegomena and fuller notes, appearing in 1858.
The standard edition, containing bibliography, critical apparatus based
on all the editions and MS. fragments, text, and index, is the admirable
one of that indefatigable veteran, Alfred Holder, Strasburg, 1886.

Hitherto the translations of Saxo have been into Danish. The first that
survives, by Anders Soffrinson Vedel, dates from 1575, some sixty years
after the first edition. In such passages as I have examined it is
vigorous, but very free, and more like a paraphrase than a translation,
Saxo's verses being put into loose prose. Yet it has had a long life,
having been modified by Vedel's grandson, John Laverentzen, in 1715,
and reissued in 1851. The present version has been much helped by the
translation of Seier Schousbolle, published at Copenhagen in 1752. It is
true that the verses, often the hardest part, are put into periphrastic
verse (by Laurentius Thura, c. 1721), and Schousbolle often does not
face a difficulty; but he gives the sense of Saxo simply and concisely.
The lusty paraphrase by the enthusiastic Nik. Fred. Sev. Grundtvig, of
which there have been several editions, has also been of occasional use.
No other translations, save of a scrap here and there into German, seem
to be extant.




THE MSS.

It will be understood, from what has been said, that no complete MS. of
Saxo's History is known. The epitomator in the fourteenth century, and
Krantz in the seventeenth, had MSS. before them; and there was that one
which Christian Pedersen found and made the basis of the first edition,
but which has disappeared. Barth had two manuscripts, which are said to
have been burnt in 1636. Another, possessed by a Swedish parish
priest, Aschaneus, in 1630, which Stephenhis unluckily did not know of,
disappeared in the Royal Archives of Stockholm after his death. These
are practically the only MSS. of which we have sure information,
excepting the four fragments that are now preserved. Of these by far the
most interesting is the "Angers Fragment."

This was first noticed in 1863, in the Angers Library, where it was
found degraded into the binding of a number of devotional works and a
treatise on metric, dated 1459, and once the property of a priest at
Alencon. In 1877 M. Gaston Paris called the attention of the learned to
it, and the result was that the Danish Government received it next year
in exchange for a valuable French manuscript which was in the Royal
Library at Copenhagen. This little national treasure, the only piece of
contemporary writing of the History, has been carefully photographed and
edited by that enthusiastic and urbane scholar, Christian Bruun. In the
opinion both of Dr. Vigfusson and M. Paris, the writing dates from about
1200; and this date, though difficult to determine, owing to the paucity
of Danish MSS. of the 12th and early lath centuries, is confirmed by the
character of the contents. For there is little doubt that the Fragment
shows us Saxo in the labour of composition. The MSS. looks as if
expressly written for interlineation. Besides a marginal gloss by a
later, fourteenth century hand, there are two distinct sets of variants,
in different writings, interlined and running over into the margin.
These variants are much more numerous in the prose than in the verse.
The first set are in the same hand as the text, the second in another
hand: but both of them have the character, not of variants from some
other MSS., but of alternative expressions put down tentatively. If
either hand is Saxo's it is probably the second. He may conceivably
have dictated both at different times to different scribes. No other man
would tinker the style in this fashion. A complete translation of all
these changes has been deemed unnecessary in these volumes; there is
a full collation in Holder's "Apparatus Criticus". The verdict of the
Angers-Fragment, which, for the very reason mentioned, must not be taken
as the final form of the text, nor therefore, despite its antiquity,
as conclusive against the First Edition where the two differ, is to
confirm, so far as it goes, the editing of Ascensius and Pederson. There
are no vital differences, and the care of the first editors, as well as
the authority of their source, is thus far amply vindicated.

A sufficient account of the other fragments will be found in Holder's
list. In 1855 M. Kall-Rasmussen found in the private archives at
Kronborg a scrap of fourteenth century MS., containing a short passage
from Bk. vii. Five years later G. F. Lassen found, at Copenhagen, a
fragment of Bk. vi believed to be written in North Zealand, and in
the opinion of Bruun belonging to the same codex as Kall-Rasmussen's
fragment. Of another longish piece, found in Copenhagen at the end of
the seventeenth century by Johannes Laverentzen, and belonging to a
codex burnt in the fire of 1728, a copy still extant in the Copenhagen
Museum, was made by Otto Sperling. For fragments, either extant or
alluded to, of the later books, the student should consult the carefully
collated text of Holder. The whole MS. material, therefore, covers but
a little of Saxo's work, which was practically saved for Europe by the
perseverance and fervour for culture of a single man, Bishop Urne.




SAXO AS A WRITER.

Saxo's countrymen have praised without stint his remarkable style, for
he has a style. It is often very bad; but he writes, he is not in
vain called Grammaticus, the man of letters. His style is not merely
remarkable considering its author's difficulties; it is capable at need
of pungency and of high expressiveness. His Latin is not that of the
Golden Age, but neither is it the common Latin of the Middle Ages. There
are traces of his having read Virgil and Cicero. But two writers in
particular left their mark on him. The first and most influential is
Valerius Maximus, the mannered author of the "Memorabilia", who lived in
the first half of the first century, and was much relished in the Middle
Ages. From him Saxo borrowed a multitude of phrases, sometimes apt but
often crabbed and deformed, as well as an exemplary and homiletic turn
of narrative. Other idioms, and perhaps the practice of interspersing
verses amid prose (though this also was a twelfth century Icelandic
practice), Saxo found in a fifth-century writer, Martianus Capella, the
pedantic author of the "De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii" Such models
may have saved him from a base mediaeval vocabulary; but they were not
worthy of him, and they must answer for some of his falsities of style.
These are apparent. His accumulation of empty and motley phrase, like a
garish bunch of coloured bladders; his joy in platitude and pomposity,
his proneness to say a little thing in great words, are only too easy
to translate. We shall be well content if our version also gives some
inkling of his qualities; not only of what Erasmus called his "wonderful
vocabulary, his many pithy sayings, and the excellent variety of his
images"; but also of his feeling for grouping, his barbaric sense of
colour, and his stateliness. For he moves with resource and strength
both in prose and verse, and is often only hindered by his own wealth.
With no kind of critical tradition to chasten him, his force is often
misguided and his work shapeless; but he stumbles into many splendours.