Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Friis-Jensen (ed.), 2.pdf

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Saxo was probably a canon of Lund Cathedral,
at that period a Danish cathedral, and lived at
the end of the twelfth century. He was in the
service of Archbishop Absalon, who encouraged
him to write a history of his own country from
the beginnings up to his own time, with a strong
Christian bias. Starting with the myths and
heroic tales of primitive Scandinavia, he devoted
the first nine of his sixteen books to legendary
material before dealing with the first kings of the
Viking age and finished in 1285, after relating
the earlier exploits of King Cnut Valdemarson.
The activities of the Danish kings were
intimately bound up with the monarchies of
Norway and Sweden; Cnut the Great, one of
Saxo’s heroes, whose empire stretched as far as
Britain and Iceland, was ruler of both these
countries. In the last books Saxo took particular
concern to describe the campaigns of Valdemar I
the Great and his warrior archbishop, Absalon,
against the Wends of North Germany.
The work is a prosimetrum, that is, in six of
the first nine books he inserts poems, which are
intended to parallel specimens of old Danish
heroic poetry in Latin metres. Saxo’s Latin prose
style is often complex, based as it is on models
like Valerius Maximus and Martianus Capella,
but he is a lively and compelling story-teller,
often displaying a rather sly sense of humour,
and an interest in the supernatural. He is the first
author to give a full account of Hamlet, whose
adventures he relates at some length, the
elements of which in a great many respects
correspond surprisingly closely with the
characters and incidents of Shakespeare’s play.
Volume II of
Saxo Grammaticus
contains
books eleven to sixteen of Saxo’s work, mainly
dealing with the history of the first Danish kings.
OXFORD MEDIEVAL TE XT S
General Editors
J.
M.
W.
BINNS
D.
D ’AVRAY
R.
C.
LOVE
S. K E M P S H A L L
SAXO
THE
GRAM M ATICU S
OF TH E
DANES
G E S T A D AN ORUM
H ISTORY
VOLUME
II

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