Saxo Grammaticus: History and the Rise of National Identity in Medieval Denmark Christopher L
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Eastern Illinois University The Keep Masters Theses Student Theses & Publications 2002 Saxo Grammaticus: History and the Rise of National Identity in Medieval Denmark Christopher L. Bailey Eastern Illinois University This research is a product of the graduate program in History at Eastern Illinois University. Find out more about the program. Recommended Citation Bailey, Christopher L., "Saxo Grammaticus: History and the Rise of National Identity in Medieval Denmark" (2002). Masters Theses. 1440. https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/1440 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses & Publications at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THESIS/FIELD EXPERIENCE PAPER REPRODUCTION CERTIFICATE TO: Graduate Degree Candidates (who have written formal theses) SUBJECT: Permission to Reproduce Theses The University Library is receiving a number of request from other institutions asking permission to reproduce dissertations for inclusion in their library holdings. Although no copyright laws are involved, we feel that professional courtesy demands that permission be obtained from the author before we allow these to be copied. ' PLEASE SIGN ONE OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS: Booth Library of Eastern Illinois University has my permission to lend my thesis to a reputable college or university for the purpose of copying it for inclusion in that institution's library or rese9f.Gh holdings. I respectfully request Booth Library of Eastern Illinois University NOT allow my thesis to be reproduced because: Author's Signature Date Saxo Grammaticus: History and the Rise of National Identity in Medieval Denmark (TITLE) BY Christopher L. Bailey THESIS SUBMITIED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Master of Arts in History IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL, EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS 2002 YEAR I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THIS THESIS BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE GRADUATE DEGREE CITED ABOVE _, ) <i2 DATE ~ r:, {s /cz DATE DEPARi'MENT/SCHOOL HEAD= ~=============================- j CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION . 1 2. CROWN, CROSS, AND SWORD: THE FORMATION OF A DANISH NATIONAL IDENTITY . 13 3. SAXO GRAMMATICUS, SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY, AND THE TWELFTH-CENTURY RENAISSANCE . 40 4. CONCLUSION . 70 Appendix -DANISH KINGS OF THE JELLING DYNASTY FROM A.D. 950-1241 . .. 74 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY .................... 75 111 ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Fig. 1. Map of Denmark in the Middle Ages. Reprinted from Else Roesdahl, The Vikings (London: The Penguin Press, 1998), 141. 16 IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like thank the Interlibrary Loan office and the staff of Booth Library for consistently acquiring crucial and frequently elusive resource materials. I would also like to thank the Graduate Research Committee for their generous financial assistance through the Research and Creativity Award. I would also like to express my heartfelt appreciation to Dr. Shelley Sinclair of the University of Wisconsin La Crosse for her friendship and guidance over the last year. For their unfaltering encouragement to follow my dreams, I owe my parents, Doug and Janet Bailey, my heartfelt gratitude. Without their support, this thesis would have seemed insurmountable. I would also like to express my sincerest appreciation to my advisor and mentor, Dr. Bailey Young, for his constant patience and tutelage throughout this project. I would also like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Newton Key and Dr. John McElligott, for their input and guidance and the History Department Graduate Coordinator, Dr. Mark Voss-Hubbard, for his frequent advice and direction. v CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION The works of medieval historians like Gregory of Tours and Otto ofFreising offer valuable insight into the Middle Ages, but researchers must also consider the atmosphere in which these texts were composed in order to ascertain the authors' motivations and methodologies. In the case of the Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1185-1208), exploring the political and intellectual context of his history, the Gesta Danorum (Deeds of the Danes), yields a new interpretation on how the circumstances of the twelfth century prompted its composition. It is the goal of this thesis to argue that the inspiration behind the Gesta emanated from Denmark's integration into the political milieu of contemporary Europe and achievement of a nationalized ecclesiastical infrastructure. In addition, this thesis asserts that Saxo's extensive employment and reformulation of Scandinavian legends and mythology expresses a burgeoning national identity of a country with close ties to the cultural and intellectual climate of contemporary Europe. Between the years of 1147 and 1157, Denmark was ravaged by a prolonged civil war between three royal rivals, Sven Ill, Knut VI, and Valdemar. Each of these claimants was a descendant of a previous king and, therefore, held a lawful claim for the throne, according to traditional Germanic customs. 1 Ultimately, Valdemar defeated his 1 Palle Lauring, A Hist01y of the Kingdom of Denmark, trans. David Hohnen (Copenhagen: Host and Sons, 1960), 73. l 2 two competitors and steadily worked to stabilize Denmark through an a1liance with the Danish Church, led by Archbishop Absalon. Traditionally, historians have identified Absalon, the archbishop of Lund and patron of Saxo, as the motivating personality behind the creation of the Gesta Danorum. As Absalon received much of his education at the University of Paris, he may have observed how other powerful European kings, like those of England and France, patronized the writing of histories. Absalon realized that his country needed a powerful history, drafted in Latin, in order to foster national unity and illustrate the heritage of Denmark to its contemporaries.2 In the preface to the Gesta Danorum, Saxo even speaks of Absalon's patriotic desire to glorify Denmark with a national history and that if our neighbours exulted in the records of their past exploits, the reputation of our people should not lie forgotten under ancient mould, but be blest with a literary memorial.3 While this interpretation is valid, it poses more questions than it does answers and demands further articulation. For example, why had no one envisioned a history of Denmark before the twelfth century? What political conditions characterized Absalon's time and may have contributed to the conception of a national history? In the first half of the eleventh century, the Danish kings Sven Forkbeard and Knut the Great carved out a 2 Lauring, Hist01y of the Kingdom, 73-5; Stewart Oakley, A Short Hist01y ofDenmark (New York: Praeger Publications, 1972), 65; Erick Christiansen, "The Place of Fiction in Saxo's Later Books," in Saxo Grammaticus: A Medieval Author Between Norse and Latin Culture, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculaneum Press, 1981), 34-5. 3 Saxo Grammaticus, The History of the Danes. Books I-IX, trans. Peter Fisher, ed. with commentary Hilda Ellis Davidson (Suffolk, Boydell and Brewer, Ltd., 1999), 4. 3 North Sea Empire encompassing Denmark, England, Norway, and parts of Sweden.4 This empire marked the zenith of Danish might prior to the twelfth century, yet no historical narrative was formulated to preserve the imperial legacy of Denmark. King Valdemar I, and his two sons, Knut VI and Valdemar II, unlike their predecessors, worked to centralize the Danish government and extend the effective authority of the kingship. Another factor that contributed to the king's power was a new Danish empire along the coast of the Baltic Sea. This new empire increased the wealth flowing into Denmark, but it also represented a victory over the Holy Roman Empire as many of the conquered areas had previously been under Gennan control. In addition, the Danish Church, having received papal pennission to establish an archdiocese at Lund in 1101 , was now independent of the meddlesome archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen and free to elect bishops from the ranks of Danish clergy and nobles. By Valdemar's time, native Danes occupied most of the higher church offices, thus providing Denmark with an indigenous mechanism for the preparation of a national history.5 Therefore, the combination of a strong centralized kingship, a Baltic empire, and a Danish Church occupied by native clergy produced an environment ripe for a national history. Peter and Birgit Sawyer, authors of numerous books and articles on Saxo and medieval Scandinavia, have argued that the histories written in twelfth and thirteenth century Scandinavia were actually symptoms of changes in the political atmosphere. 4 Niels Lund, ''The Danish Empire and the End of the Viking Age," in The Oxford Illustrated Hisro1y ofth e Vikings, ed. Peter Sawyer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 174-5. s Oakley, Short History, 54-5, 61 , 64; Kai H0rby, "The Social History of Medieval Denmark," in Danish Medieval History: New Currents, ed. Niels Skyum-Nielsen and Niels Lund (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculaneum Press, 1981), 39. 4 Saxo, therefore, was attempting to legitimize Valdemar's reign, his reforms of the government, and the unprecedented exercises of royal authority by his sons. While the Sawyers make a compelling and reasonable argument, they raise the question that if Saxo was writing to legitimate the kingship of Valdemar, why did earlier rulers with uncertain legitimacy not compose such histories? Also, why did a ruler like Harald Bluetooth, who began consolidating his hold over Denmark and extending the sphere of royal authority in the mid-tenth century, not patronize a historical text to legitimize his unprecedented actions?6 The Sawyers' hypothesis identifies one of the factors leading to the birth of the Gest a Danorum, but recognizing the role of a nationalized church, the new Baltic Empire and that Saxo was part of a larger cultural synthesis of Danish and contemporary European traditions, however, renders a new perspective for interpreting Saxo Grammaticus and a new sense of Danish national identity.