HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

198 NORBERT KERSKENand worked, during a long period beginning in the 1180s, on a monumentalhistorical work known today as Gesta Danorum, 66 dedicatedto King Waldemar and Archbishop Andrew Suneson. The GestaDanorum may be regarded, in a historiographic as well as literarysense, as the most sophisticated text of the Scandinavian MiddleAges. The work is divided into sixteen books, of which the first eightdeal with the earliest period, and Books IX–XVI consider the periodof Christianization. In addition, four books form a representativeblock: Books I–IV deal with the pre-Christian period and offer aunique insight into the oldest saga and cultural history of Scandinavia.Books V–VIII consider the period up to the extension of the Christianmission to Denmark; Books IX–XII deal with the period from theintroduction of Christianity to Denmark up through the conclusionof the Danish church organization; and, finally, Books XIII–XVItreat Danish history since the establishment of the archbishopric ofLund. 67 This conception of the internal structure of the work beliesSaxo’s view of the coherence of Danish history. His periodization ofDanish history, determined to some extent by church history, managesto integrate Danish history into the universal Christian worldviewwhile not negating the cultural historical inheritance present fromthe pre-Christian North. Finally, this approach offers the possibilityof constructing a coherent Danish folk, regional, and imperial historywithout writing an affirmative history of rulers.Approximately one generation after Saxo, in the middle of thethirteenth century, two anonymously delivered texts on the subjectof Danish history also arose in the circle of the Icelandic kings’ sagas.The Knÿtlingasaga, the history of the descendants of Knut the Great,is a history of the Danish kings from Harald Bluetooth to the ruleof Knut VI. 68 Óláfr Thórdarson Hvitaskáld (ca. 1210–59), a nephew66Saxonis Gesta Danorum, ed. J. Olrik and H. Ræde, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1931,1957); English trans. by Hilda Ellis Davidson/Peter Fisher: Saxo Grammaticus, TheHistory of the Danes. Books I–IX, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1979/80); also SaxoGrammaticus, Danorum regum heroumque historia, Books X–XVI, ed. and trans. EricChristiansen, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1980/81). Since no medieval manuscripts have survived,the original title of the work is unknown. Important new studies includeSkovgaard-Petersen (1969), (1987), and (1988); Johannesson (1978); as well as threecollections of studies of Saxo: Boserup (1975), Friis-Jensen (1981), and Santini (1992).67Inge Skovgaard-Petersen has called attention to this.68Skjöldunga saga, Knÿtlinga saga, Ágrip af sögu Danakonunga, ed. B. Gud¯nason, Íslenzkfornrit 35 (Reykjavík, 1982).