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 1157to 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.
