The Emergence of an Authorial Culture: Publishing in Denmark in the Long Twelfth Century

Abstract

This essay seeks to outline how the publication of original Latin literary works began and matured as a process in Denmark in the course of the long twelfth century. 1 Characterized by cultural and societal transformations in Western Christendom, the period witnessed the emergence of a Latin literary culture in Scandinavia. The present paper ’ s geographical focus is on Denmark because, in comparison with other Scandinavian realms, the kingdom was a forerunner in the field of Latin composition. 2 The corpus of texts discussed embraces selected Latin literary works from Denmark datable to the long twelfth century. The principle governing the selection was that the texts furnish evidence regarding their publication and are representative of pertinent key trends. The corpus tends towards the hagiographical and historical, rather than the theologi-cal and scholarly, because writings falling into the former categories were authored throughout the period under study. The earliest text in our corpus is an anonymous hagiographical text from the turn of the eleventh century; the latest is the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus, published in 1208 or soon after. Before embarking on the analysis, I must clarify how the terms literary and publication are applied here, and how the subject is approached. Literary here denotes texts that were transmitted by means of books or booklets (as opposed to inscriptions), that were not produced in the course of business and were characterized by at least a degree of commitment to elegance of expression (as opposed to administrative docu-ments), and that were longer than a few lines. The term publication calls for a more detailed treatment; a short overview of previous research on authorial publication in the Middle Ages is likewise necessary. Today, the vehicle for publishing is a printed or