history of the book is worth recording. Doubtless its very merits, its
"marvellous vocabulary, thickly-studded maxims, and excellent variety of
images," which Erasmus admired long afterwards, sealed it to the vulgar.
A man needed some Latin to appreciate it, and Erasmus' natural wonder
"how a Dane at that day could have such a force of eloquence" is a
measure of the rarity both of the gift and of a public that could
appraise it. The epitome (made about 1430) shows that Saxo was felt to
be difficult, its author saying: "Since Saxo's work is in many places
diffuse, and many things are said more for ornament than for historical
truth, and moreover his style is too obscure on account of the number
of terms ("plurima vocabula") and sundry poems, which are unfamiliar to
modern times, this opuscle puts in clear words the more notable of
the deeds there related, with the addition of some that happened after
Saxo's death." A Low-German version of this epitome, which appeared in
1485, had a considerable vogue, and the two together "helped to drive
the history out of our libraries, and explains why the annalists and
geographers of the Middle Ages so seldom quoted it." This neglect
appears to have been greatest of all in Denmark, and to have lasted
until the appearance of the "First Edition" in 1511.

The first impulse towards this work by which Saxo was saved, is found
in a letter from the Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, dated May 1512, to
Christian Pederson, Canon of Lund, whom he compliments as a lover of
letters, antiquary, and patriot, and urges to edit and publish "tam
divinum latinae eruditionis culmen et splendorem Saxonem nostrum".
Nearly two years afterwards Christian Pederson sent Lave Urne a copy of
the first edition, now all printed, with an account of its history. "I
do not think that any mortal was more inclined and ready for" the task.
"When living at Paris, and paying heed to good literature, I twice sent
a messenger at my own charges to buy a faithful copy at any cost, and