Books have been lost through history for many reasons, and some of the most important causes are use, neglect, discarding, censorship, fire and war.1 Libraries play a key role in the survival of individual books. In an important contribution to the study of lost books, Andrew Pettegree reminded us that ‘Most early printed books that survive, particularly those that survive in many copies, do so because they were collected and preserved close to the date of publication’.2 Libraries have been an important precondition for books to survive. Not only books, however, but also libraries have their individual fate. Discarding, fire and war can lead to (partial or complete) destruction, dispersal, or removal of libraries.
The two only Danish libraries mentioned in the book Traité des plus belles bibliothèques de l’Europe, published in 1680, were eventually lost.3 The author, Pierre Le Gallois, stated that the two most considerable libraries in Copenhagen were the library of the University and the library of Heinrich Rantzau.4 The library of Heinrich Rantzau (1526–1598) was located not in Copenhagen, but in the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and it had been dissolved many years before the treatise was published, as early as 1627 during the Thirty Years’ War. The library of the University of Copenhagen had been founded together with the university itself in 1482 and it held rich collections. In 1652 the collections had been moved to the Trinity Church, but they were annihilated by the fire of Copenhagen in 1728, except for one manuscript which is today in the Royal Danish Library.5
Pierre Le Gallois based the entry on Denmark on previous works, as, for instance, the more detailed description in Traicté des plus belles bibliothèques publiques et particulières qui ont été et qui sont à présent dans le monde by Louis Jacob de Saint-Charles, and what he wrote was also going to be used by successors.6 Thus, in spite of the fact that the two libraries had ceased to exist in 1728, the author of the long entry on libraries in the Encyclopédie, published in 1752, copied the text about these two Danish libraries from Traité des plus belles bibliothèques de l’Europe.7 It may not be surprising that what the Encyclopédie wrote about libraries in Denmark (and in Sweden) was based on copying; but the result is surprising, since the description is very far from the contemporary reality that it seeks to describe. The authors of the Encyclopédie, the ‘Plundering Philosophers’, explicitly admitted borrowing from other authors, but the fact that what was stated as a fact was so far from reality, shows how remote from the Parisian centre of learning the peripheral kingdom of Denmark-Norway could be in the eighteenth century.8
The entry in Traité des plus belles bibliothèques de l’Europe from 1680 alerts us to the fact that present-day Denmark is different from seventeenth century Denmark. In What is the History of the Book? James Raven addresses the ‘framing and division of much European and Western bibliographical and book history by nation-states’ and argues that in so many ways ‘the nation is a misleading geographical unit for such research’.9 It is indeed difficult to escape the danger of inherent, methodological nationalism, when writing the history of Danish libraries. The extension of Denmark in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was different from the extension of present-day Denmark. The Kalmar Union between Denmark, Sweden and Norway (including Iceland and Greenland) had existed from 1397, but from 1464 only Denmark and Norway were united in a personal union. After Gustav I Vasa (1496?–1560) became King of Sweden in 1523, the Kalmar Union ceased to exist, and the Danish King was King of Denmark and Norway. He was also Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, since a personal union between Schleswig-Holstein and the Danish King had been created in 1459. The duchy was split for dynastical reasons in 1490, in 1544 and in 1564. The Danish king was thus Duke of parts of Holstein, whereas his relatives were Dukes of other parts. In 1721, following the Great Northern War, the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were integrated into Denmark as a fief (which was eventually split following the wars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries). Some of the provinces in present-day Sweden were parts of Denmark-Norway. The Norwegian province of Bohuslän and the Danish provinces Scania, Halland and Blekinge were ceded to Sweden following treaties of 1658 and 1660. The island of Saarema in present-day Estonia (called Ösel in Danish in the period), which was the remnant of the diocese of Saare-Lääne (Ösel-Wieck) acquired in 1560, was ceded to Sweden in 1645 along with Gotland in the Peace of Brömsebro.
The difference in extension has bibliographical implications. The concept of Denmark inherent in the Danish national bibliography printed in the nineteenth century, Bibliotheca Danica, is larger than the concept of Denmark in Dansk Bibliografi 1482–1600.10 Bibliotheca Danica encompasses the entire United Monarchy, whereas Lauritz Nielsen (1881–1947) did not include books printed in Holstein in his Dansk Bibliografi 1482–1600.11 For this reason, more titles are included in Bibliotheca Danica from the period 1482–1600 than in Dansk Bibliografi 1482–1600. The difference consists of 625 editions and among these we find books authored by Heinrich Rantzau.
The present study deals with battles of the book in Denmark in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. ‘Battles of the book’ is a metaphor, which combines elements from two contrasting domains, Arms and Letters. Arms and Letters were two different ways of gaining and exercising power in early modern Europe. For good reasons, the invention of the printing press and the invention of gunpowder (modern versions of the pen and the sword) were considered parallel inventions. I will look into books and libraries that were involved in religious battles between different world orders or in military battles between different states. Books and libraries were removed or lost or dispersed. The study will be concerned with elements of continuity and discontinuity in Danish libraries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It will therefore both touch upon libraries and book collections of religious institutions before and after the Reformation and upon books and libraries as war booties in northern European wars in the seventeenth century.
1 The Reformation and Books from the Catholic Past
As in other parts of Northern Europe, the Reformation in Denmark-Norway saw the removal and in some cases destruction of medieval books. The Reformation in Denmark was an ongoing process from the evangelical sermons of Hans Tausen (1494–1561) in Viborg in 1525 to the decapitation of the catholic bishop Jon Arason (1484–1550) in Iceland in 1550. Already in 1528, the Lutheran evangelical Reformation was introduced in the province of Haderslev and Tørning by Duke Christian of Haderslev and Tørning, son of King Frederick I (1471–1533) and future king of Denmark and Norway under the name Christian III (1503–1559). In 1536, following the Count’s War from which Christian III came out victorious, Denmark became Lutheran-Evangelical. Norway, which had been an independent kingdom before the Kalmar Union, was reduced to a province of Denmark, and continued to be a vassal state until the dissolution of the union in 1814.
During the Reformation, books were removed or destroyed in local incidents of looting. In the Skiby Chronicle, the Carmelite Paul Helgesen (c.1485–1534) gives an example of an individual case of destruction of books. Helgesen recounts how on 27 December 1530 Lutherans intruded into the Church of Our Lady, the cathedral of Copenhagen, and destroyed images of the saints, insulted the priests and went as far as tearing books apart (‘cetera omnia sunt prophanata, etiam usque ad librorum dilacerationem’, all the rest was violated, going as far as tearing books apart).12 In this rare case, the books were considered enemy images.
After the Reformation, books were also removed or destroyed at a more systematic level. The new protestant regulations of the society, the church and the university – the Copenhagen Recess (1536), the Church Ordinance (1537/1539) and the Deed of Foundation for University of Copenhagen (1537/1539) – included the regulation of book collections.13 The king intervened in person in order to collect useful books from the monasteries. In a letter dated 8 September 1537, King Christian III sent the German scholar Jürgen Thornmann (alias Georgius Pylander, active in the years around 1540) to Danish monasteries in order to collect books that could be of use to the university library.14 Johann Bugenhagen (1485–1558) supervised the outcome and declared at a certain point, that a decent library had been gathered.15 Again in 1554, Christian III ordered his Court chaplain Heinrich Bruchofen (d. 1576) to remove relevant books from Vor Abbey, a Benedictine abbey near Skanderborg in Jutland, and deliver them to the professors at the university.16 Books from the 1537 and 1554 transfers formed part of the old library, Vetus Bibliotheca, of the University of Copenhagen.17
Some books from the monastic libraries were thus preserved. As Birgitte Langkilde argues, ‘Evangelical ideas about what a library should contain may have influenced what is extant today and what has been lost’.18 Some of the preserved books from the monastic libraries were later transferred to private libraries or even princely libraries, wherefrom they were eventually looted.
The monasteries of the mendicant orders almost entirely disappeared with the Reformation, and the text De expulsione fratrum minorum describes the losses of the Franciscan monasteries.19 Not all monasteries, however, were dissolved. Some of the abbeys were allowed to exist. Both the Copenhagen Recess and the Church Ordinance declared that the monks, friars and nuns were free to leave their monasteries but also free to stay there. If they stayed in the monasteries, they should obey the head of the monastery and attend the sermons of the theological lecturer. The Benedictine Abbey of Saint Canut in Odense existed until 1572, and the principals of the Benedictine Abbey of Ringsted (located centrally in the island of Zealand) were called abbots until 1592.20 In 1592, the building was given by Lave Beck to Førslev (1530–1607) as a fief, and Lave Beck lived there from 1592 to 1605. Ringsted Abbey continued to be the fief (embedslen) of the High Court judge of Seeland for many decades. Convents of nuns existed even longer: the Brigittine Convent in Mariager existed as long as 1588 and the Brigittine Convent in Maribo as long as 1623. Eventually, the abbeys were transformed into secular fiefs.
What was left in the monasteries was not considered worthy of preservation and therefore ceased to be used. Two generations after the Reformation, Christian IV (1577–1648), king of Denmark and Norway (1588–1648), ordered the destruction of medieval books, repurposing them as cartridges in fireworks and weapons. Thus, in 1608, he ordered the destruction of 70 codices from Herrisvad Abbey.21 Later, at the marriage of his son Christian in 1634, manuscripts in parchment were again transferred from Abbeys to the arsenal, for use as cartridges. The books were referred to spitefully as ‘munkebøger’ (munks’ books).22 Likewise, the parchment books were used as book bindings for accounts books, and even as book binding of a volume of school essays authored by the king Christian IV as a boy.23 Some of these bindings have since been removed from the books in order to form separate fragment collections, but their tie to the book for which they previously formed the wrapping has not always been documented.
Books from the Catholic past – the kind of books which we would today from a historicist point of view consider important as ‘cultural heritage’ documenting the Catholic age of Denmark – were considered useless, because they were artifacts from a condemned worldview. These books were waste to be discarded or, since material such as parchment had value, recycled.
2 Travels Abroad and Books from the Catholic Present
On the other hand, some books from contemporary Catholic countries were considered useful. In the second half of the sixteenth century many young Danish noblemen travelled to Catholic countries in order to study. Danes travelling to Italy to study went especially to Padua, where (under the motto ‘Universa universis patavina libertas’) during the Venetian dominion Protestant students were allowed to study after the counterreformation. Thus, from 1536 to 1660 as many as 355 Danish and Norwegian students were enrolled at the University of Padua and 132 in Siena.24
Among the most exceptional cases of these travels are those of Jakob Ulfeldt Junior (1567–1630) and Christian Barnekow (1556–1612). Jakob Ulfeldt, who was the son of Chancellor Jakob Ulfeldt Senior (1535–1593), spent thirteen years traveling. Jakob Ulfeldt Junior and Christian Barnekow travelled to the Middle East and subsequently Ulfeldt visited Spain. On their return, they both joined the court and Ulfeldt eventually became chancellor. Jakob Ulfeldt and his wife, Birgitte Lauridsdatter Brockenhuus (1580–1656), had seventeen children, among whom Corfitz Ulfeldt (1606–1664) was one.
In a copy of a Leipzig edition of Melanchthon’s Loci, 1559, in the Royal Danish Library there is a list of the library of Jakob Ulfeldt Junior, which shows his interest in the classics and contemporary history.25 Most of the books are printed, but there is also a set of relationes manuscriptæ. Jakob Ulfeldt brought home from Italy a collection of these ‘manuscript relations’, of which six volumes are today kept at the Royal Danish Library and others are at Uppsala University Library.26 Christian Barnekow’s library also shows a keen interest in political history and in the world beyond Europe. Indeed, Federico Zuliani has claimed that this kind of manuscript was used as a way to study contemporary history, a discipline which was not taught at the universities.27
The students who had studied abroad, returned with polite manners, with knowledge of languages and with books acquired abroad. Books were considered to be important material evidence of learning, and in some funeral sermons they are referred to as such. Federico Zuliani quotes Resen’s at Christian Barnekow’s funeral, where it is stressed that the latter returned with books in many foreign languages.28
Some of the books concerning modern history also dealt with the contemporary reality of the Catholic countries. Christian Barnekow’s librarian, the Italian humanist Giacomo Castelvetro (1546–1616) travelled in Europe with this kind of books. In exile from Modena, Castelvetro transmitted Italian Renaissance culture to the court of James VI and Queen Anna of Denmark in Edinburgh, to the court of Christian IV in Copenhagen and to Shakespeare’s London, while he incessantly collected manuscripts on Italian literature and European contemporary history. Castelvetro also stayed in Denmark from August 1594 to 11 October 1595 and copied a number of texts there, most of which are today in Newberry Library in Chicago.29 Various manuscripts and books which belonged to Castelvetro are now kept in the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen.
After Copenhagen, Castelvetro went to Sweden and entered the service of the later King Charles IX. He stayed in Sweden for two years and was there part of the network of informants of Sir Robert Cecil (1563–1612), 1st Earl of Salisbury. In May 1598 Castelvetro began a longer trip to Italy with Venice as final destination. He ended up staying in Venice, where he worked with the printer Giovan Battista Ciotti, for twelve years.
Castelvetro’s brother Lelio was burned as a relapsed heretic in nearby Mantua in 1609. In 1611 Castelvetro himself was arrested in Venice at the request of the Roman Inquisition. He was saved from death by the English Ambassador to Venice, Dudley Carleton (1574–1632). Carleton claimed that Castelvetro was in his service and threatened to create a diplomatic scandal. After saving Castelvetro’s life, Carleton wrote to Sir Robert Cecil that his intervention had been decisive: if he had not promptly removed the most compromising writings from Castelvetro’s residence, he would not have been able to save his life:
It was my good fortune to recover his books and papers a little before the Officers of the Inquisition went to his lodging to seize them, for I caused them to be brought unto me upon the first news of his apprehension, under cover of some writings of mine which he had in his hands. And this indeed was the poore man’s safetie, for if they had made themselves masters of that Magazine, wherein was store and provision of all sorts of pasquins, libels, relations, layde up for many years together against their master the Pope, nothing could have saved him.30
These books were dangerous objects for their owner in Venice. Some of these same books ended up in the Royal Danish Library. Among them is a copy of an edition of the two dialogues by Alfonso de Valdés, which Castelvetro had reclaimed from his friend, the friar Fulgenzio Manfredi (c.1560–1610) who went to meet the Inquisition in Rome and never returned, because he was sentenced to death and burnt in Rome’s Campo dei Fiori.31
Books that were perceived as dangerous in Catholic countries were not necessarily perceived as dangerous in Protestant countries. The books which the English Ambassador had saved from Castelvetro’s home in Venice could easily find their way into Denmark.
On the other hand, the Danish legislation also tried to avoid having vicious books coming to Denmark.32 The Church Ordinance from (1537/1539) stipulated censorship by university professors of all books printed or put on sale in Denmark.33 After Corfitz Ulfeldt had published his defence of his honor (see below), a decree was issued on 18 September 1652, which prohibited Ulfeldt’s publication and the production or dissemination of any kind of lampoon that could dishonour the government or the council.34 After the introduction of absolutism in 1660, an edict of 1667 introduced the compulsory presence of an imprimatur in approved books.35 The anonymously published Apologia nobilitatis danicæ (1681) by Oluf Rosenkrantz (1623–1685), which contained a criticism of the king and of absolutism, was sentenced for lack of these paratexts. The Danish law, published in 1683, had a separate chapter on books and almanacs that organized the censorship (2-21-1 to 2-21-6), and a chapter on matters of honour forbade pasquils (6-21-8).36
3 Heinrich Rantzau and His Beloved Books
One of the persons who gave the humanist love of the material book its clearest expression was Heinrich Rantzau (1526–1598). Heinrich’s father was the famous Johan Rantzau (1492–1565), who had won the Danish civil war in 1536, and had become viceroy in the Duchies; he had also led the war against the peasant republic of the Ditmarshes in 1559.37 The viceroy, or produx in Latin, was the representative of the Danish king in the king’s segment of the Duchies.
Heinrich Rantzau was viceroy or governor from 1556 and he owned several castles in Holstein. He wrote numerous books, created a renowned library and acted as a patron for scholars.38 Of his eighteen castles, Rantzau’s main castle was Breitenburg near Itzehoe, north-west of Hamburg, where his library was situated (although he also had books in other castles).
In 1583, thanks to an exchange, Heinrich Rantzau acquired a collection of manuscripts and rare books, mostly incunabula, from the Augustinian Abbey of Segeberg. In 1590, Rantzau had more than 6,300 volumes in his library.39 Most of them were bound in contemporary bindings of parchment or pigskin and carried his ex libris. Some of the books had the printed owner’s mark ‘Hic liber Henrici est equitis cognomine Rantzou’ (This book belongs to the knight Henry with the surname Rantzau). The library was arranged systematically and was decorated with globes and astronomical instruments.40 On the walls of his library, Rantzau had mounted verses of his own and quotations of classical authors. Among his verses there was also a poem which expressed his love of his books.
The poem was quoted for the first time in a book by Georg Crusius (d. 1619, from Hannover) who worked as the preceptor of Rantzau’s son, and later it was quoted in a book by Rantzau’s collaborator Peter Lindeberg (1562–1596) about Rantzau’s possessions, which was published by various publishers in slightly different editions.41 The poem, consisting in 32 hendecasyllabic lines, starts with the following four lines that recall Catullian poems: ‘Salvete aureoli mei libelli / Meæ deliciæ, mei lepores / Quam vos sæpe oculis juvat videre, Et tritos manibus tenere nostris/’ (Welcome, my golden books / my darlings, my charmers / It pleases me to behold you often with my eyes / and to hold your worn volumes in my hands).42 The poem has often been quoted as an example of bibliophilia, by among others Benjamin Disraeli.
In a general decree concerning the library, Heinrich Rantzau also wrote a malediction of any person who would do harm to or steal books from the library.43 The decree, which states that his library should also remain in the possession of the Rantzau family, says the following about any person who would do harm to the library:
Si quis secus fecerit, / Libros, partemve aliquam abstulerit, / Extraxerit, clepserit, rapserit / Concerpserit, corruperit Dolo malo: / Illico maledictus, / Perpetuo execrabilis, / Semper detestabilis, / Esto, maneto.44
If anyone should do evil, and take away the books or any part, draw away, steal, plunder, destroy or ruin by evil intention, he shall immediately become and stay damned, forever execrable, forever detestable.
Rantzau commissioned editions of ancient or medieval texts from manuscripts in his library, and the editions bore the words ‘ex bibliotheca Ranzoviana’.45
Rantzau published a visual account of Frederick II’s reign. He also wrote an account of Niels Kaas’s death and he contributed to the visual description of northern Europe in Braun’s and Hogenberg’s visual renderings of major cities.
It was Heinrich Rantzau who allowed Tycho Brahe when, after the coronation of Christian IV Brahe’s good fortune in Denmark turned into adversity, to stay at his castle Wandesburg near Hamburg. In Wandsbeck in 1598, Brahe published the book Astronomiæ Instauratæ Mechanica, which contains tributes to Brahe, a scientific autobiography and a detailed descriptions, illustrations of the instruments Brahe had ordered to be constructed and also of the complex of buildings on Hven. The book was dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II (1552–1612, emperor 1576).46
After Heinrich Rantzau’s death in 1598, his books were inherited by his son Gert Rantzau (1558–1627), who also became viceroy in the Duchies. Later they were inherited by Gert’s son Christian Rantzau (1614–1663). Christian Rantzau was the last Rantzau to own the library. In the Thirty Years’ War, after Christian IV’s defeat at Lutter am Barenberg (on 27 August 1626), the castle of Breitenburg was looted on 29 September 1627 by troops led by Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (1559–1632) and Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583–1634). Heinrich Rantzau’s library was dispersed in its entirety.
Wallenstein sent the greater part of the library to Prague, where he donated it to the Emperor’s confessor Wilhelm Lamormain (1570–1648), who in turn gave the books to various Jesuit houses, in particular to the Jesuit college in Saint Nicholas, which had been founded by Wallenstein in 1628. Some of these books were taken as war booty in 1648, when the Swedes, led by Count Hans Christoff von Königsmarck (1600–1663), invaded Prague. Some of these books ended up in German libraries.47 When the Jesuit Order was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the library was seized and a few years later (1777) donated to the university library of Prague.
Thanks to Scandinavian book historians of the early twentieth century (Isak Collijn, Otto Walde, H.O. Lange) some hundreds of books from Heinrich Rantzau’s library have been rediscovered in public libraries – the most important parts of it in Prague – and occasionally books are also found on the market. According to Lauritz Nielsen, some of Rantzau’s books at Itzehoe had not been taken by Wallenstein, but by other soldiers who had sold the books in Hamburg. Moreover, Rantzau donated many books as gifts, and therefore books with a connection to Heinrich Rantzau appear in many library collections.48
The fact that Heinrich Rantzau’s literary production has not become part of our literary canon, far from it, should not lead us to underestimate the value of his library. The library was used by its owner to create his own research centre at his castle. The library was improved by manuscripts from a secularized monastery (Segeberg). The interior decoration of Rantzau’s library was part of the owner’s self-fashioning, in Stephen Greenblatt’s sense of construction of identity and public persona.49 Since the library was scattered, it does not seem to have contributed much at its various destinations.
4 The Baltic Battle of the Books
Books were parts of wars in many ways. During the war against the peasant republic of the Ditmarshes in 1559, the chancellor Johan Friis of Hesselager (1494–1570) managed to obtain a contemporary legal manuscript that is today preserved in the Arnamagnean collection (AM 2 4to). Friis asked his servant Klaus Rytter (who was later in his life, 1584–1589, mayor of Copenhagen) to bring it to Denmark.50
In the sixteenth century, book battles were part of the conflict between Denmark and Sweden which culminated with The Nordic Seven Years’ War (1563–1570). When Olaus Magnus (1490–1557) published Johannes Magnus’ (1488–1544) Historia Gothorum in Rome in 1554, it was full of vehement criticism of the Danes. Most notably, the text included a speech by the bishop of the diocese of Linköping, Hemming Gadh (c.1450–1520) against the Danes.51 The rubric explained the content of the speech thus: ‘Vehemens contra Danos oratio’.52 The Danes responded with a treatise, a refutatio, by Hans Svaning (1503–1584), which on the title page was falsely attributed to recently deceased Petrus Parvus Rosæfontanus (1500–1559) and retrodated, so that it seemed to have been published in 1560, during the reign of Gustav I Vasa, and not in 1561, during the reign of Erik XIV (1533–1577).53
In Denmark a new edition of the Rimkrønike (rhymed chronicle), which had been published for the first time in 1495, and which was the first book to be printed in the Danish language, appeared in 1555.54 It contained verses directed against Swedish kings, and therefore Gustav I Vasa ordered Peder Andreæ (Svart, d. 1562) to write a rejoinder. Svart’s rejoinder was published in Stockholm in 1558 with the title: ‘Some pieces of the Danish chronicle, from king Waldemar’s age and the following ages, in which the Swedes are rudely and falsely assailed. In addition the just and inevitable response of the Swedes, which they could not at all avoid, but they had to defend their honour and reputation and as consequence were forced and provoked to respond.’55 As a response, the Danish chancellor Johan Friis in person wrote a lampoon against the Swedish King.56
Some contemporary historians considered these slanderous books to be one of the causes of the war, a view championed, for example by the aforementioned historian Hans Svaning. In his notes to a manuscript by Svaning in which Svaning tried to explain the causes of the war, historian Anders Sørensen Vedel (1542–1616) listed the following four main reasons for the war:
I. 3 Coronæ (the three crowns).
II. Lifflandia (Livonia).
III. Libelli famosi (slanderous books).
IV. Occultus belli apparatus et 3 naves abductæ (The secret preparations for war and the three ships, which were taken away).57
Outside the ‘slanderous books,’ the three other reasons require some contextual information. The Danish king had used the three crowns, an originally Swedish symbol, which had been current during the union of three kingdoms. As to Livonia, Frederick II had bought the bishopric of Saare-Lääne. It comprised the islands Saaremaa (Øsel) and Hiiumaa (Dagø). Frederick II had appointed his brother Magnus (1540–1583), bishop of the diocese. The arrival of Magnus had interfered with the power struggle between the Swedish princes Erik and his brother Johan. The secret preparations for war and the three ships, refer to Sweden’s negotiations with Hessel, and the so-called Battle of Bornholm in 1563, which was the first naval battle in the Seven Years’ War (1563–1570).
The battle of the books or the literary feud was thus part of the causes of the war, and therefore it was also part of the peace treaty after the war. In the Treaty of Stettin, which was signed on 13 December 1570, one of the clauses (22) declared a ban on any kind of lampoon (‘schand- und schmeheschrifte’) in Denmark and Sweden.58 Some later books in Latin do however seem to have eschewed the ban.59
The battle of books was among the reasons for the war. But the material books themselves were also part of the Seven Years’ War. During the war, the Danish army seized books and manuscripts at the castle of Älvsborg between Danish Halland and Norwegian Bohuslän, near present-day Gothenburg and the only Swedish port to the Kattegat.60 The Danish army seized a manuscript containing a Swedish translation of Hemming Gadh’s oration. This particular manuscript, which does not seem to have survived, is mentioned in a list of documents given to the Danish peace negotiators (Otte Krumpen, Jørgen Ottesen Rosenkrantz, Heinrich Rantzau and the secretary Joachim Hincke) who were to bargain peace in Rostock in 1564.61
A copy of an edition, printed in Venice, of the memorable deeds and sayings of Valerius Maximus was seized at the castle of Älvsborg on 1 September 1563. King Frederick II gave the book to Holger Ottosen Rosenkrantz (1517–1575), who wrote a lengthy note on the flyleaf at the end of the book on 8 January 1564. The inscription celebrated the victory as a memorable deed and explained that the inscription had been written in order for such deeds to be remembered:
Ut autem hæ res gestæ in perpetuam manaret memoria, huic libro digne adscriptum est, quod tunc Helsburgiæe, et post illis deditionem inve[n]tum & à Sere:[-nissima] R.[egia] M.[aiestate] Holgero Rose[n]kra[n]tz Ottonis filio, Capitaneo in Schanderburg. & Buholm, hæreditarius in Bolwern & RosenWaldt, dono datum est. qui eum in hunc locum reponi curavit. / Anno à nato Chr[ist]o M.D. LXIIII VIII Januarii.
In order for these deeds to remain in perpetual memory, it was added in writing in this book, which was found in Älvsborg after its capitulation and was given as a gift by his Royal Majesty to Holger Rosenkrantz, Otto’s son, governor of Scanderburg and Bygholm [near Horsens], Lord of Boller & Rosenvold, who then saw to having it written down in this place. In the year 1564 after Christ’s birth on 8 January.62
The inscription was written in the humanist hand and recorded the names of the most important Danes in the battle. The Roman historian’s work was the proper place for recording the memorable deeds at Älvsborg. This particular book served as a kind of monument.
Marginalia and owners’ marks also allow us to link books to battles. During the same war, King Frederick II recorded in his copy of an edition of the Bible in Luther’s German translation, that he was reading the Bible during the war with the Swedes.63 He noted the fact twice during the war, in 1566 and in 1567.
The ship master Jens Munk (1579–1628), who served Frederick II’s son, Christian IV, and who was later going to try to find the northwest passage, participated in capturing a pirate named Mendoza off the Norwegian coast. He noted on the pastedown of a Spanish book on the art of navigation that he had seized it from Mendoza on his ship in June 1615: ‘Dene Bog Eier Jenß Munk vdj sin tid och hafuer ieg den bekomet Vnder Kandeneß i Kapten Mendoses skieb den tid wie blef hanom Megtig den 26 Junj Anno 1615.’ (This book is owned by Jens Munk in his time and I obtained it off Kanin-nes [Kanin Nos in present-day Russia] on the ship of Captain Mendoza, when we defeated him on 26 June Anno 1615.)64
5 Jørgen Seefeld’s Library
Heinrich Rantzau’s library was one of the Danish libraries that were lost during the Thirty Years’ War. Two other important libraries were lost in the First Northern War (1655–1660): the libraries of Otte Krag (1611–1666, member of the Council of the Realm) at Egeskov and Jørgen Seefeld (1594–1662) at Ringsted Abbey. Some manuscripts written by Otte Krag have been preserved in the Royal Danish Library, and some of his books in The National Library of Sweden.65 In the present study, I will focus on the library of Jørgen Seefeld, which was the most impressive of the two, and hence also the one which has been most thoroughly described.
Jørgen Seefeld (1594–1662) was the owner of one of the richest libraries in Denmark-Norway in the seventeenth century. He was the son of Christopher Lauritzen Seefeld of Refsnæs (near Aalborg in Northern Jutland) and Else Nielsdatter of Kvotrup and Tustrup. Jørgen Seefeld had been educated at the cathedral school in Viborg and had travelled for years (1610–1618) abroad, in Wittenberg, Leipzig, France, England and the Netherlands.66
In 1630 Seefeld was appointed High Court judge of Seeland and given the fief of Ringsted Abbey. In 1640 he became a member of the Council of the Realm (Rigsrådet) together with Hannibal Sehested (1609–1666). Seefeld lived in Ringsted Abbey from 1630 to 1664 and it was there that he kept his library. He considered selling his collection of books to King Frederick III, who was founding his own library in those years but resolved not to do so.67
Seefeld had a number of librarians taking care of his books.68 Peder Villadsen (1610–1673, later bishop in Viborg) worked there from 1635 to 1636; Werner Meyer, former librarian of Holger Rosenkrantz worked there in 1642, and Zacharias Lund (1608–1667), former head of Herlufsholm and later secretary in the Danish Chancellery worked there from 1654 until the dispersal of the library. The Icelander Paul Hallsen worked there also, most probably with the Icelandic manuscripts.69
The poet Zacharias Lund, who wrote his poetry in in Latin, was one of the renowned scholars who worked as librarian for Jørgen Seefeld, and it was he who created a manuscript description of the collection that was published and shaped all subsequent descriptions of the library, including the present one.70 According to Lund, the library consisted of 26,000 items, and contained many rare and old manuscripts pertaining to Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish history. The Icelandic manuscripts Seefeld had received from bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson.71 Seefeld returned some of these manuscripts to Sveinsson, but kept at least one, which is today preserved in Stockholm.72 A medieval Danish manuscript is the prayer book of Marine Jespersdatter, which is today part of the Arnamagnean collection, after having been in the nineteenth century part of the manuscript collection of the University Library.73 Arne Magnusson bought the prayer book at the auction of Frederik Rostgaard’s library in 1726.74 The book contains the following note: ‘Reliqiæ ex bibliothecis Nobilissimi Domini Georgij Sefellt.’75
Seefeld’s library also held manuscripts of the professor from the academy of Sorø, Johannes Meursius.76 Moreover, it contained an Herbarium in 32 volumes, which is today in Uppsala, and which was used by Linné (Linnæus). There were also 204 bible editions, among them the polyglot Bible published 1569–1572 by Christopher Plantin, and the polyglot Bible published in Paris 1628–1645. According to Zacharias Lund, there were rarities, which could be found neither in Oxford nor in the Vatican Library. The library also contained a handwritten manuscript by Jørgen Seefeld about the life of King Frederick II; and manuscripts on armories and genealogy, which were inherited by the descendants of Erik Krag, and of which some volumes, according to the well-informed Tycho de Hoffman, were in the library of Otto Thott.77
Seefeld also had parchment and cardboard stored for future bindings of his books, this material having the value of 1,200 rigsdaler. These stores were seized by the Swedish army, which used them for the cartridges at the siege of Copenhagen in 1658–1659.78 According to Lund, Seefeld wanted to make a catalogue of his library that was like the catalogue of Gesner’s library, but only after the library had reached perfection. That was a dangerous goal, and as a consequence no catalogue was ever published.
The professor at Sorø Academy Heinrich Ernst (1603–1665) dedicated his description of the Laurentine library to Seefeld.79 The library of Seefeld was praised by Louis Jacob de Saint-Charles and its tragic history was mentioned in Johannes Buno’s notes to Philipp Cluver’s Introductio in Universam Geographiam (1697): ‘Nostro seculo hunc locum instructissima sua Bibliotheca illustraverat Georges Seefeld regni Senator verum illa per belli calamitatem postea direpta est.’ (In our century Jørgen Seefeld, a member of the Council of the Realm, rendered this place famous by his extremely well-furnished library, but it was later plundered during the calamity of war.)80
Seefeld lost his library to the brother-in-law of the Danish king Frederick III, Corfitz Ulfeldt. Ulfeldt is the most prominent of the seventeen children of Jakob Ulfeldt and one of the most colourful characters in Danish history. In 1637, Ulfeldt married Leonora Christina, one of the daughters of Christian IV and his second wife, Kirsten Munk; and after an impressive career he died in exile near Geneva, having been executed in effigy for high treason in Denmark, where his wife spent twenty-two years in prison. Steffen Heiberg has argued that Ulfeldt probably saw himself as a great minister, as a Danish Mazarin or Oxenstierna.81 Corfitz Ulfeldt’s motto was ‘Tout le monde est une farce, et se gouverne par opinion’, which can be seen in the owner’s mark on one of his books in the Royal Danish Library, and in his entry in the album amicorum of bishop Erik Pontoppidan (1616–1678).82
‘Tout le monde est une farce, et se gouverne par opinion.’ Corfitz Ulfeldt’s motto in a copy of Martin Rinckart, Circulorum memoriæ decas (Leipzig: Elia Rehfeld und Joh. Grossen 1629)
After the death of Christian IV in 1648, Corfitz Ulfeldt and Leonora Christina soon came to be on bad terms with the new king, Frederick III. Following accusations concerning his administration as Seneschal, Ulfeldt and Leonora Christina fled from Denmark in 1651 to the Netherlands, and soon thereafter Ulfeldt’s former protegé, Joachim Gersdorff, was appointed as the new Seneschal. From the Netherlands Corfitz Ulfeldt and his wife arrived at Queen Christina’s court in Stockholm. After Christina’s abdication in 1654, Ulfeldt sought to help and eventually swore allegiance to her successor, King Charles X Gustav, who accepted his service. After the Danish declaration of war in 1657, Ulfeldt participated in the invasion of Denmark. Ulfeldt used the invasion to take revenge on enemies, and he received Charles X Gustav’s permission to seize the libraries of the Councillor of the Realm Otte Krag at Egeskov castle (of which he had only been in possession since 1656) and of Jørgen Seefeld.83 Thus, after the Swedish troops reached Seeland in February 1658, Ulfeldt let his son Christian transport these libraries to his nearby manor house in Bavelse. At a later point in time, he shipped the books he had seized from Otte Krag and from Jørgen Seefeld to his house in Malmö. Books from Seefeld’s library formed an important part of Ulfeldt’s library.
Ulfeldt used the books from Seefeld’s library as a weapon of revenge and as an interior decoration. According to what Seefeld himself wrote in a letter to Peter Julius Coyet from Bruges in May 1663, Corfitz Ulfeldt’s library probably consisted of 700 volumes, and Seefeld claimed that most of them were rarities.84 Otto Walde, however, does not see any reason to believe that Ulfeldt’s library in itself differed from the libraries of his noble contemporaries.
Jørgen Seefeld tried to get his library back but never succeeded in doing so. According to the French diplomat Hugues de Terlon, a person in high esteem asked Terlon to save Seefeld’s library. Ulfeldt offered to sell Seefeld his library at the price of 6,000 rigsdaler, but Seefeld did not want to pay for his rightful possession (even though it was, according to Terlon, worth 50,000 rigsdaler).85
With the peace treaty signed in Roskilde 26 February 1658, Denmark had to make huge territorial concessions to Sweden. Denmark lost the provinces Scania, Halland and Blekinge and the island of Bornholm, as well as the Norwegian provinces of Bohuslän and Trøndelag. War broke out again already six months later, and in the Treaty of Copenhagen (1660), Denmark regained the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea and the province of Trøndelag in Norway.
When Ulfeldt was eventually sentenced and escaped from Sweden in 1660, his library was seized and transported to the royal library in Stockholm. A major part of the library was thus lost in the fire of 1697. Nevertheless, parts of it had been given to the Antiquities Archive before the fire, and some volumes had been given to Emund Gripenhielm (1622–1675), who was the head of the royal library and received duplicates. After his death, the Bibliotheca Gripenhielmiana was given to Lund University Library.86 After the dissolution of the Antiquities Archive in 1780, books were transferred to the royal library in Stockholm. Therefore, some books from Ulfeldt’s library have survived in Stockholm and Lund.
Ulfeldt had not taken all of Seefeld’s books, however. According to Zacharias Lund, Seefeld kept 4,000 books and soon acquired new ones. When war broke out again between Sweden and Denmark in August 1658, Peter Julius Coyet (1618–1667) obtained the permission to take possession of the rest of the library. These books were brought to Stockholm, and then to Coyet’s manor Ljungbygaard (present-day Trolle-Ljungby) in Scania. Coyet, who was one of the Swedish delegates at the peace negotiation in Roskilde in 1658, had received the manor in 1662.87 He donated some of the manuscripts to the Antiquities Archives in Uppsala, and decades after his death, his son, Wilhelm Julius Coyet (1649–1709), sold most of his fathers’ remaining books at auctions in Stockholm and Uppsala during the years 1700–1701.
Some decades later, in 1710 during the Great Northern War, the Danish troops in Scania seized both the library and the archive of Ljungbygaard as war booty.88 The manuscripts and archival material from Ljungbygaard were handed over to the Danish Royal Library, and the rest of the books were sold at an auction at which the Royal Library also acquired some of them. Some parts of the archival material were given to the Danish National Archives and other parts were exchanged with Sweden in 1929.89 Thus, a number of books and manuscripts from the Coyet family are today in the Royal Danish Library and to some extent in other Danish collections. Among these items we can find some books and manuscripts from Jørgen Seefeld’s library.
Thanks to his thorough research, Otto Walde was able to show that books from Seefeld’s library originally from Ulfeldt’s library can be found in the National Library of Sweden, in the Lund University Library, in the National Archives and in private collections.90 Jørgen Seefeld had a characteristic ex libris with his family blason with three hearts on the shield, but he used it for only few of his books.91 Apparently, he did not as a rule write his name or other owner’s marks in his books. In some of the manuscripts there is however an ‘FS’ on the binding.
In 2020 the Royal Danish Library acquired a book which, according to a previous owner, came from Seefeld’s library: a copy of Sjællandske Lov, 1505.92 On a flyleaf, the book contains the following proverbial spell that is also known from medieval manuscripts:
Since the proverbial saying is dated 1632, it could be in Seefeld’s handwriting, but this still remains to be tested by paleographical analysis. If it were written by Seefeld, it would have been a powerful prophecy of Ulfeldt’s death.
6 A Danish War Booty: the Gottorp Library
In the present study, I have described various incidents involving libraries taken as war booty from Danish libraries. There is, however, also an important case of an entire library being taken by Danish troops as war booty: the Gottorp Library. During the seventeenth century the dukes at Gottorp Castle in Schleswig brought together a splendid library. The library (which drew upon previous possessions of the dukes) was founded as an institution in 1606 by Duke Johann Adolf (1575–1616) and was continued by his successors. It was particularly famous for its approximately 350 medieval manuscripts, but it also contained more than 10,000 printed books. Several of the medieval manuscripts and the incunabula came from the monasteries of Bordesholm and Cismar, which had been secularized after the Reformation.
In February 1713, during the Great Northern War (1700–1721), Gottorp Castle was taken by Danish troops, and the library became Danish booty of war. Between 1735 and 1749 the library was transferred (together with other cultural treasures which were incorporated into the royal collections) to the Royal Library. From Gottorp castle come the Royal Danish Library’s copy of the Gutenberg bible, and many of its medieval manuscripts. The fragment of Lucretius De rerum natura, (GKS 211 folio, often referred to as Schedae Gottorpienses), which is one of the oldest manuscripts in the Royal Library, also comes from the Gottorp collection. The fragment was well known and was studied by scholars while it was still in Gottorp Castle. Substantial amounts of research have been done in recent years concerning provenances of the books from the library of Gottorp Castle.94
Not only the Royal Library but also the Royal Treasury collection benefited from the booty of war.95 One object was not transferred to Copenhagen. The celebrated celestial globe, constructed in the years 1655–1657, was presented as a gift from King Frederick IV to Peter the Great and transferred to Saint Petersburg, where it was installed in the tower of the newly founded Kunstkamera in 1717.96
7 Dispersal and Collection
Dispersal and collection are to a certain extent two faces of the same coin. The dispersal of book collections often benefit other book collectors, in a manner that can be described with the old proverb ‘unus colligit, alius collecta dispergit’, (one collects, and the other one scatters what has been collected).97 Danish book collectors have profited from calamities in the rest of Europe. When Frederick III was creating the Royal Library after having ascended to the throne in 1648, the Danish book collector and public official Joachim Gersdorff tried to make Villum Lange buy books for the Royal Library at the auction of Mazarin’s library (sold as a result of La Fronde), but Villum Lange arrived in Paris too late, long after the auction.98 Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) also aspired to buy books from the Mazarin library, but apparently the books remained in Paris, and she sold them back to Mazarin when he returned to power.99
Some Danish book collectors benefited indirectly from the Swedish war booty from the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, many of the most important Danish book collectors were present at the auction of the Strängnäs cathedral library in Stockholm in November and December 1763, and some of their purchases eventually ended up in public collections in Copenhagen. Victor Madsen identified 103 incunabula from that sale in the holdings of the Royal Library in Copenhagen, of which 52 had been bought by Otto Thott (1703–1785).100 Many of the books from the Strängnäs cathedral library were Swedish war booty from the Thirty Years’ War.
Some private libraries, such as the libraries of Heinrich Rantzau and the library of Jørgen Seefeld, benefited from books that were taken by force from ecclesiastical institutions. During the Thirty Years’ War some of these private libraries were taken as war booty. This led to their dispersal as smaller book collections. The libraries as such were lost, but a small amount of books from these libraries survived. Many such printed books and manuscripts were on the move until some of them came to be preserved more permanently in public libraries.
The existence of libraries has been an important precondition for books to survive. But not even great public libraries are necessarily permanent locations for all books. Books in libraries also risk dispersal or removal, and perhaps more so now than just a few decades ago. Digitisation, which makes possible the ubiquitous presence of a simulacrum of one copy of an edition, has led to the idea that one copy of an edition is sufficient and other copies of the same edition redundant. As a consequence, some public libraries are being dissolved and other public libraries are discarding historical collections. For instance, in Denmark, the Navy’s Library, which was founded in 1765, was merged in 2010 with other libraries into a new entity called the Library of the Armed Forces (Forsvarets bibliotek), and some of its old manuscripts seem to have been sold in the process.101
In the first wave of digitisation, it was believed that this procedure could become a means to share cultural heritage through digital repatriation.102 But digital repatriation was an oxymoron and would seem to remain a wishful metaphor. Digital reproduction could not completely replace the aura and the material significance of the physical object. In the Baltic area, there have been cases involving physical ‘repatriations’ of manuscripts on a small scale in recent years. In 2011, the Royal Danish Library received what was believed to be the earliest manuscript of the law of Jutland, Codex Holmiensis C37 (C 37), a manuscript in the Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm, in exchange for a manuscript of the Swedish provincial law, Södermannalagen (NKS 2237 4to).103 There had been considerable pressure from the national conservative party Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party) in favour of returning the manuscript, but, as the late head of the Royal Library, Erland Kolding Nielsen (1947–2017) observed, it was precisely the fact that the manuscript was not war-booty, that made the exchange possible.104 In 2019, the government of Iceland created a task force for planning negotiations with Denmark about having more Icelandic manuscripts transported from Copenhagen to Iceland than had been delivered in the period 1971–1997, following an agreement from 1965.105 Instead, in 2021, a Danish-Icelandic Working Group on Old Icelandic Manuscripts was created. The group would ‘focus on ways to strengthen and promote research regarding the manuscripts and the dissemination of the research’.106 In 2021, the National Library of Norway requested medieval manuscripts from the Royal Danish library and from the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection at the University of Copenhagen for a permanent exhibition, but only the manuscripts from the Royal Danish Library were made available as temporary loans.107 In spite of the fact that 2022 witnessed the outbreak of war in Europe, book battles in Scandinavia are not related to military conflict but rather to peaceful political negotiations concerning cultural heritage, a heritage which has been shaped by battles of the past and which is not stable but always under negotiation.
Flavia Bruni and Andrew Pettegree (eds.), Lost Books: Reconstructing the Print World of Pre-Industrial Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
Andrew Pettegree, ‘The Legion of the Lost: Recovering the Lost Books of Early Modern Europe’, in Bruni and Pettegree, Lost Books, pp. 1–27, p. 23.
The author of Traité des plus belles bibliothèques de l’Europe, ‘sieur de Gallois’ was identified as Pierre Le Gallois by Alexandre Cioranescu, Bibliographie de la littérature française du dix-septième siècle (3 vols., Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965), 2, p. 1240, n. 41.755. For further information on the author, see Claude Jolly et al. (eds.), Histoire des bibliothèques francaises (Paris: Éditions du Cercle de la librairie, 1988); J. Rouvière, ‘Le Gallois (Pierre)’, in Jules Balteau et al. (eds.), Dictionnaire de biographie française (22 vols., Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 2011), 20, p. 879.
‘Le Dannemarc a aussi quelques Bibliotheques fort considerables dans Coppenhague: Il y a eu premierement celle de Henry de Rantzau Gentilhomme Danois … Il y a encore dans l’Université de Coppenhague une tres-belle Bibliothèque, qui doit une partie de ce qu’elle est à plusieurs autres Bibliotheques, qui y ont esté reunies par la libéralité de quelques particuliers.’ (Denmark also has some considerable libraries in Copenhagen: First of all there was the library of the Danish nobleman Heinrich Rantzau … There is still in the university of Copenhagen a very beautiful library, which owes part of what it is to several other libraries which have been integrated into it thanks to the generosity of some private persons.) Pierre Le Gallois, Traité des plus belles bibliothèques de l’Europe (Paris, Estienne Michallet, 1680), pp. 119–120.
Shelf mark GKS 1813 4to.
Louis Jacob de Saint-Charles, Traicté des plus belles bibliothèques publiques et particulières qui ont été et qui sont à présent dans le monde (Paris: Rolet le Duc, 1644), USTC 6035314, pp. 237–242.
‘De ce nombre [‘les plus considérables’] sont à Copenhague la bibliotheque de l’université, & celle qu’y a fondée Henri Rantzau, gentilhomme Danois.’ (The most important […] in Copenhagen are the library of the University, and the one which was founded there by Henry Rantzau, a Danish nobleman.) Anon., ‘Bibliothèque’, in Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert (eds.) Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers par une Société de Gens de Lettres (36 vols., Paris: Chez Samuel Faulche & Compagnie, 1751), 2, p. 234.
Timothy Allen et al., ‘Plundering Philosophers: Identifying Sources of the Encyclopédie’, Journal of the Association for History and Computing, 13:1 (2010).
James Raven, What Is the History of the Book? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017), p. 75.
Chr. Bruun et al., Bibliotheca Danica: Systematisk fortegnelse over den danske litteratur fra 1482–1830. (5 vols., Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1877–1931, revised edition ed. by Erik Dal: Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1961–1963).
Lauritz Nielsen, Dansk Bibliografi 1482–1600 (5 vols., Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1919–1935, revised edition Copenhagen: Det Kgl. Bibliotek & DSL, 1996).
Poul Helgesen, Chronicon Skibyense, (Copenhagen: Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab, 1937), p. 120.
Birgitte Langkilde, ‘Monastic Books in Sixteenth-Century Denmark’, in Lars Bisgaard et al. (eds.) The Dissolution of Monasteries: The Case of Denmark in a Regional Perspective, (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2019), pp. 357–384, p. 377.
Sophus Birket-Smith, Om Kjøbenhavns Universitetsbibliothek før 1728 især dets Håndskriftsamlinger (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1882), p. 13.
Harald Ilsøe, ‘Universitetets biblioteker til 1728’, in Svend Ellehøj and Leif Grane (eds.), Københavns Universitet 1479–1979, 4: Gods, bygninger, biblioteker (Copenhagen: Gad, 1980), pp. 294–295.
Holger Fr. Rørdam, ‘Bidrag til den danske Reformationshistorie. VIII: Om Reformationen af Herreklostrene’, Ny Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, 2 (1862), pp. 755–756.
Birket-Smith, Om Kjøbenhavns Universitetsbibliothek før 1728, p. 13.
Langkilde, ‘Monastic Books in Sixteenth-Century Denmark’, p. 377.
The main manuscript Royal Danish library, NKS 276 8vo. The Latin text was originally published in: Martin Clarencius Geertz (ed.), Scriptores minores historiæ Danicæ medii ævi (2 vols., Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til dansk Historie, 1917–1922), 2, pp. 325–367.
Bjørn Kornerup, Den danske kirkes historie, 4: Det lærde tidsrum (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1959), pp. 42–43.
Otto Blom, ‘Middelalderlig Literaturs skæbne’, For ide og virkelighed, 1 (1869), p. 93.
Chr. Bruun, De illuminerede Haandskrifter i Det store kongelige Bibliothek (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1890), pp. 19–20.
Royal Danish library, Schiønning 2 8vo. Bent Christensen and Chr. Gorm Tortzen (eds.), Liber compositionum: Christian IV’s latinske brevstile 1591–1593 (Herning: Systime, 1988).
Vello Helk, Dansk-norske studierejser: Fra reformationen til enevælden 1536–1660 (Odense: Odense universitetsforlag, 1987), pp. 42–43.
Ellen Jørgensen, ‘En Bogliste fra det 16. Aarhundredes Slutning [Jacob Ulfeldts Bogsamling]’, Danske Magazin, 6, række 3 (1923), pp. 175–182; Philipp Melanchthon, Loci præcipui theologici: Nunc denuo cura et diligentia summa recogniti, multisque in locis copiose illustrati; cum appendice disputationis de Coniugio (Lipsiae: in officina haeredum Valentini Papae, 1559), USTC 673479, Shelf mark 88, 28 00654.
Shelfmark: GKS 500–505 folio. An owner’s mark in one of the volumes of these relations states that Jakob Ulfeldt had bought them in Padua in 1590: ‘Jacobus Ulffelt Patavii 1590’.
Federico Zuliani, ‘En samling politiske håndskrifter fra slutningen af det 16. århundrede: Giacomo Castelvetro og Christian Barnekows bibliotek’, Fund og Forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger, 50 (2011), pp. 229–257.
Hans Poulsen Resen, Herrens Borg: Den XLVI. Kong Davids Psalme, om en sand oc fast Trøst i dette Leffnets Strijd, til visse Seyervinding Offuer Christian Barnekovs til Birkholm, Kgl. May. Befalnings Mand paa Landskrone Slot, hans Lijg i Helsingøer 26. Mart. 1612 … nognlunde viist oc forklaret (Copenhagen: Salomon Sartor, 1613), (no USTC number), pp. Diiir–Diiiv.
These manuscripts came from the Dietrichstein library to Chicago in the twentieth century. The Dietrichstein library was founded by Baron Adam Dietrichstein (1527–1590) and enlarged by his son Franz (1570–1636), bishop of Olomouc, in Moravia. After the conquest of Nikolsburg by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years’ War, in 1645, the entire library was sent to Sweden as war booty, see Otto Walde, Storhetstidens litterära krigsbyten en kulturhistorisk-bibliografisk studie (2 vols., Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1916–1920), 1, pp. 247–305. Subsequent generations of the Dietrichstein family created a new library and the Castelvetro manuscripts entered this new library. The manuscripts from this Dietrichstein library were sold at an auction in Lucerne in 1933.
Quoted from Kathleen T.B. Butler, ‘Giacomo Castelvetro 1546–1616’, Italian Studies, 5 (1950), pp. 1–42, here p. 28. Cf. Anders Toftgaard, ‘“Måske vil vi engang glædes ved at mindes dette”: Om Giacomo Castelvetros håndskrifter i Det Kongelige Bibliotek’, Fund og Forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger, 50 (2011), p. 195.
Due dialoghi. L’uno di Mercurio et Caronte, nel quale … si raconta quel, che accade nella guerra dopo l’anno MDXXI: l’altro di Lattantio et di uno archidiacono, nel quale … si trattano le cose avenute in Roma nell’ano MDXXVII di spagnuolo in italiano con molta acutezza et tradotti, et revisti, ([s.l.]: [s.n.], [s.a.] [after 1546]), USTC 861673, Edit 16 CNCE 50696, cf. Anders Toftgaard, ‘Proverbi italiani nell’Europa del Nord. Il Significato d’alquanti Proverbi dell’italica favella di Giacomo Castelvetro’, in Giuseppe Crimi and Franco Pignatti (eds.), Il Proverbio nella letteratura italiana dal XV al XVII Secolo. Atti delle giornate di studio Università degli Studi Roma Tre – Fondazione Marco Besso Roma 5–6 Dicembre 2012 (Marziana: Vecchiarelli, 2014), pp. 367–393.
Øystein Rian, Sensuren i Danmark-Norge: Vilkårene for offentlige ytringer 1536–1814 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2014); Jesper Düring Jørgensen, ‘Censur og bogundertrykkelse 1500–1849’, Magasin fra Det Kongelige Bibliotek, 8 (3), (1993), pp. 89–94.
Charlotte Appel, Læsning og bogmarked i 1600-tallets Danmark (2 vols., Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum, 2001), 1, pp. 381–383.
Corfitz Ulfeldt, Høytrengende Aeris Forsuar, imod den publiceerde Usandferdig Kiøbenhaffns Beretning, anlangende Dinæ oc Walters Sag, som ved Uordentlig Proces samme stetz bleff udført Anno 1651: Med hosfølgende Aarsager som hafuer nød oc tuungen mig underskrefuen (for en tid) at begifue mig aff mit kiere Fæderneland ([s.l.]: [s.n.], 1652); Kong Frederik den Tredies Declaration, dat. Kiøbenh. d. 18. Sept. 1652, ang. Corfitz Ulfelds Høytrengende Aeris Forsvar ([Copenhagen]: [s.n.], 1652), cf. V.A. Secher, Corpus constitutionum Daniæ: Forordninger, Recesser og andre kongelige Breve, Danmarks Lovgivning vedkommende 1558–1660, vol. 6 (Copenhagen: (s.n.), 1887), pp. 107–113.
Harald Ilsøe, ‘Censur og Approbation: Lidt om bogcensurens administration i 1600-tallet’, in John T. Lauridsen and Olaf Olsen (eds.), Umisteligt. Festskrift til Erland Kolding Nielsen, (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Bibliotek, 2007), pp. 119–135.
Kong Christian den Femtis Danske Lov: Ved Justitsministeriets Foranstaltning udg. paa Grundlag af den af V. A. Secher med Kildehenvisninger forsynede Udgave af 1911, [reprint] (Copenhagen: Gad, 1944).
Torben Bramming, Rantzau: Den hellige kriger. (Copenhagen: Kristeligt Dagblad, 2016).
Peter Zeeberg, Heinrich Rantzau: A Bibliography (Copenhagen: Society for Danish Language and Literature, 2004); Dieter Lohmeier, ‘Heinrich Rantzau und die Adelskultur der frühen Neuzeit’, in Dieter Lohmeier (ed.), Arte et marte: Studien zur Adelskultur des Barockzeitalters in Schweden, Dänemark und Schleswig-Holstein (Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz, 1978).
Approximately 6,500 according to Lauritz Nielsen, Danske Privatbiblioteker gennem Tiderne, 1: Indtil Udgangen af det 17. Aarhundrede (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1946), p. 35, and more than 6,000 according to Peter Lindeberg, Hypotyposis arcivm palatiorvm, librorvm, pyramidvm, obeliscorvm, molarvm, fontivm, monumentorum & epitaphiorum ab … Henrico Ranzovio, Prorege … Holsato, conditorum edita & conscripta à Petro Lindebergio. (Rostock: Muellemann, 1590), USTC 664598, p. 7.
Walther Ludwig, ‘Der Humanist und das Buch. Heinrich Rantzaus Liebeserklärung an Seine Bücher’, Illinois Classical Studies, 19 (1994), p. 266.
Ludwig, ‘Der Humanist und das Buch’, p. 266, n. 4.
‘Meæ deliciæ, mei lepores’ is a quotation from Catullus 32. According to Walther Ludwig, the poem was written in imitation of the Italian Neo-Latin poet Marcantonio Flaminio (1498–1550), but the imitation is limited to the invocation of the books.
Otto Walde, ‘Henrik Rantzaus bibliotek och dess öden’, Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen, 1 (1914), pp. 181–192.
Peter Lindeberg, Hypotyposis arcium, palatiorum, librorum, pyramidum, obeliscorum, cipporum, molarum, fontium, monumentorum & epitaphiorum ab … Henrico Ranzovio … conditorum … conscripta et edita à Petro Lindebergio, Rost. (Frankfurt am Main: apud Ioannem Wechelum, 1592), USTC 664595, pp. 26–27.
Zeeberg, Heinrich Rantzau, pp. 24–28.
Tycho Brahe, Tychonis Brahe Astronomiæ instauratæ mechanica. (Wandsbek: [Tycho Brahe], 1598), USTC 699876.
Nielsen, Danske Privatbiblioteker gennem Tiderne, 1, p. 38.
Peter Zeeberg, ‘Patron of the Arts and Bibliophile’, Renæssanceforum, 15 (2019), p. 18.
Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
Klaus Rytter explains on fol. 69v: ‘och ther wdj Meldorp feck Johann friss tiil hesselagger thene bog och andtuorde hand meg Claws Rytter ther thene bog, som ieg thend tid war sin tienere, att skulle förre same bog hiem’, (and there, in Meldorp. Johann Friis to Hesselager got this book and he made me, Klaus Rytter, who was his servant, responsible for bringing this book home), cf. the catalogue record on <handrit.is/manu script/view/en/AM04-0002/>. The entire text written by Klaus Rytter has been published as ‘En kort Beretning om Ditmarskens Erobring 1559. Af Klavs Rytter, Kansler Johan Friis’s Tjener’, in Rørdam Holger Fr., Monumenta historiæ Danicæ: Historiske Kildeskrifter og Bearbejdelser af dansk Historie, især fra det 16. Aarhundrede (2 vols., Copenhagen: Gad, 1885) II, 2, pp. 563–570.
Johannes Magnus, Historia Ioannis Magni Gothi Sedis apostolicae legati Svetiae et Gotiae primatis ac archiepiscopi vpsalensis, de omnibvs Gothorvm Sveonvmqve regibvs qvi vnquam ab initio nationis extitere, eorúmque memorabilibus bellis late varieqve per orbem gestis, opera Olai Magni Gothi fratris eiusdem autoris ac etiam archiepiscopi vpsalenlis in lucem (Rome: Giovanni Maria Viotti, 1554), USTC 839648; Historia Ioannis Magni, 753–776.
The speech has since been proven to have been most probably a work of Johannes Magnus himself.
Petrus Parvus Rosefontanus and Hans Svaning, Refutatio calumniarvm cuiusdam Ioannis Magni Gothi Upsalensis, quibus in historia sua ac famosa oratione Danicam gentem incessit … scripta a Petro Parvo Rosefontano … Huic accessit Chronicon siue Historia Ioannis Regis Daniæ … unà cum sententia illa iudiciali, quam duorum regnorum Daniæ atque Norvagiæ Patres, Anno 1505 die Julii prima, Calmarniæ, contra Stenonem Sture eiusque complices tulerunt … Anno 1560 (Copenhagen: Christoph Barth, 1561), USTC 302482.
Hær begynner thñ danskæ Krønnickæ well offuerseet och ræth (Copenhagen: Godfred af Ghemen, 1495), ISTC No. ic00476500, LN 232; Her Begyndes den Danske Krønicke paa Rim vel offuer seet oc bedre rettet end hun vaar føre (Copenhagen: Hans Vingaard, 1555), USTC 302343, LN 1401.
Någer stycker aff then danske cröneke, ifrå konung Woldemars tijd och hans effterkommande, ther inne the swenske bliffue fast groffueligen och med osanning antastade: Teslikest the swenskes rätferdelige och oumgångelige genswar, som the ingelunde kunde förbi gå, vthan ther sijn ähre och gode rychte ändeligen förswara moste, ther til the högt äre trengde och förorsakade (Stockholm: [s.n.], 1558), USTC 271389. Cf. Axel Nelson, ‘Peder Swarts gensvar 1558’, in Uppsala universitetsbiblioteks minnesskrift 1621–1921 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1921), pp. 139–166.
Harald Ilsøe, ‘Omkring Hans Svanings Refutatio og Chronicon Ioannis’, Historisk Tidsskrift, 12 (1973), pp. 21–58, here p. 36.
GKS 2577 4to: En retractat eller Forklaring paa den Beretning, som er nyligen udgangen de Svenske til vilge, om alt det, som er skied og forhandlit emellum the Danske oc the Suenske aar 1565. The text has been published in: Rørdam Holger Fr, Monumenta historiæ Danicæ = Historiske Kildeskrifter og Bearbejdelser af dansk Historie, især fra det 16. Aarhundrede, (4 vols., Copenhagen: Gad, 1873–1887), 2, pp. 117–162.
Laurs Rasmus Laursen, Danmark-Norges Traktater 1523–1750: Med dertil hørende Aktstykker (11 vols., Copenhagen: Gad, 1912–1949), 2, pp. 254–255.
Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, ‘Margaretica: Et bidrag til den dansk-svenske pennefejde i det 16. århundrede’, Historisk Tidsskrift, 87 (1987), pp. 209–236.
Harald Ilsøe, ‘Bog- og bibliotekshistoriske notitser’, Fund og Forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger, 21 (1974), pp. 165–166.
Additamenta 127 folio I, I (‘kk’ on the list).
Handwritten note on the flyleaf of a copy of Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium. (Venezia: arte & impensis Ioannes Forliviensi Gregorique fratrum [de Gregoriis], March 8. 1487), ISTC No. iv00036000, Shelf mark: Inc. Haun 4063 in the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen.
Biblia, das ist, Die gantze heilige Schrifft Deutsch Auffs new zugericht Doct. Mart. Luther. (Wittenberg: Hans Lufft, 1550–1551), USTC 616664, VD16 B 2729. Cf. Rolf Hardy Christensen, Om Frederiksborg-Bibelen og en række af Frederik 2. udgivne eller understøttede værker (Herlev: Eget Forlag, 2021).
Ilsøe, ‘Bog- og bibliotekshistoriske notitser’. Ilsøe was the first to mention this book: Zamorano Rodrigo, Compendio del arte de navegar (Sevilla: Ioan de Leon, 1588), USTC 342533. Shelfmark: 53, 33.
William Christensen, ‘Om den gamle Adels historiske Interesse’, in Festskrift til Kristian Erslev den 28. decbr. 1927 fra danske Historikere (Copenhagen: Hagerups Boghandel, 1927), pp. 326–329; Walde, Storhetstidens litterära krigsbyten, 2, pp. 404–406.
Arctander Niels Lauridsen, Petrafontanus Johannes Martini and Jensen Paaske, Mora Dei: Om Guds Dwælelse oc hvad Sager der ere til, at hand i vor Nød, under tiden tøffuer met sin Hielp oc Bønhørelse … En nyttig Forklaring udi … Christopher Lauritzsøns Seefelds, til Reffsnis, begraffuelse, i Nørkongsleff Kircke, den 16. Martij, Anno 1612 predictet (Copenhagen: Henrich Waldkirch, 1614), No USTC, p. C2r; C.O. Bøggild-Andersen, ‘Jørgen Seefeld, 7.3.1594-28.2.1662’, in Dansk biografisk leksikon, ed. Svend Cedergreen Bech et al., third edition (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1979).
E.C. Werlauff, ‘Jørgen Seefeldt og hans Bibliothek’, Historisk Tidsskrift, 2 (1856), p. 227.
Christian Kaaber, ‘Viden og fyrstepragt 1660–1728’, in Nan Dahlkild and Steen Bille Larsen (eds.), Dansk bibliotekshistorie (2 vols., Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2021), 1, pp. 86–87.
Nielsen, Danske Privatbiblioteker gennem Tiderne , 1, p. 87.
Zacharias Lund, ‘Jørgen Seefelds Bibliotek. (Af en gammel Copiebog)’, in Peter Frederik Suhm (ed.), Samlinger til den danske Historie, (2 vols., Copenhagen: Gyldendals Forlag, 1782), 2, pp. 185–187. According to Werlauff, ‘Jørgen Seefeldt og hans Bibliothek’, p. 222, there is another copy of the text in Klevenfelds samlinger in the Danish National Archives.
Nielsen, Danske Privatbiblioteker gennem Tiderne, 1, p. 86.
Kristian Kålund, ‘Den Nordiske (Norrøne) Oldlitteraturs Samling og Bevaring’, in Katalog over de Oldnorsk-Islandske Håndskrifter (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1900), p. XXIV.
It is referred to as Additamenta 421 oktav in Werlauff, ‘Jørgen Seefeldt Og Hans Bibliothek.’ and in Christian Walther Bruun, ‘Danske Privatbibliotheker i 17.–18. Aarhundrede’, Royal Danish Library, NKS 3680 4to, vol. 1, p. 13. In 1884, manuscripts from the additamenta collection, which had been originally bought by Arne Magnusson, were transferred to the Arnemagnean collection, cf. Kålund, ‘Den Nordiske (Norrøne) Oldlitteraturs Samling og Bevaring.’, p. LII and Carl S. Petersen, Det kongelige Biblioteks Haandskriftsamling (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1943), p. 47.
Anne Mette Hansen, ‘Marine Jespersdatters Bønnebog’, www.handrit.is/manuscript /view/da/AM12-0421 (last accessed 14 January 2022).
Hansen, ‘Marine Jespersdatters Bønnebog’.
Holger Fr. Rørdam, Historiske Samlinger og Studier vedrørende danske Forhold og Personligheder især i det 17. Aarhundrede (4 vols., Kjøbenhavn: G. E. C. Gad, 1891), I, p. 278.
Tycho de Hofman, Portraits historiques des hommes illustres de Dannemark: Remarquables par leur mérite, leurs charges & leur noblesse : avec leurs tables généalogiques, 5 (Hague: [s.n.], 1746), p. 67.
Walde, Storhetstidens litterära krigsbyten, 2, p. 396.
Ernst, Heinrich, Catalogvs librorum refertissimae Bibliothecae Mediceae, quae asservatur Florentiae in coenobio D. Laurentii (Amsterdam: apud Joannem Janssonivm, 1641), USTC 1030745, pp. 3–8.
Philipp Clüver, Introductio in universam geographiam tam veterem quam novam tabulas geographicis XLVI, (Amsterdam: apud Joannem Wolters, 1697), p. 229.
Steffen Heiberg, Enhjørningen Corfitz Ulfeldt (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2003), p. 95.
Erik Pontoppidan’s album: Royal Danish Library, Acc. 2020/96. Martin Rinckart, Circulorum memoriæ decas (Leipzig: Elia Rehfeld und Joh. Grossen 1629), USTC 2135360, VD17 23:275856C cf. Heiberg, Enhjørningen Corfitz Ulfeldt, p. 211.
Heiberg, Enhjørningen Corfitz Ulfeldt, p. 154.
Bengt Bergius, David Ståhl and Jöns Lind, Nytt Förråd af äldre och nyare handlingar rörande nordiska historien (Stockholm: Jacob Merckell, 1753), p. 209 cf. Walde, Storhetstidens litterära krigsbyten, 2, pp. 395, 401–402.
Hugues de Terlon, Mémoires du chevalier de Terlon: Pour rendre compte au Roy de ses Négociations, depuis l’année 1656 jusqu’en 1661 (Paris: chez la Veuve Louis Billaine, 1681), pp. 175–176.
Jakob H. Grønbæk and Wolfgang Undorf, ‘Dänemark und Schweden’, in Bernhard Fabian et al. (eds.), Handbuch deutscher historischer Buchbestände in Europa: Eine Übersicht über Sammlungen in ausgewählten Bibliotheken (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1998).
Dan H. Andersen, Store Nordiske Krig (Copenhagen: Politiken, 2021), p. 449.
Andersen, Store Nordiske Krig, p. 449.
Harald Ilsøe, Det kongelige Bibliotek i støbeskeen: Studier og samlinger til bestandens historie indtil ca. 1780 (2 vols., Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Bibliotek & Museum Tusculanum Press, 1999), I, pp. 289–312.
Walde, Storhetstidens litterära krigsbyten, 2, pp. 396–397.
See reproduction in Nielsen, Danske Privatbiblioteker gennem Tiderne, 1, p. 93.
Sjællandske Lov (Copenhagen: Gotfred af Ghemen, 1505), USTC 302266. Shelf mark: LN 133 copy 5.
Bénédictins du Bouveret, Colophons de manuscrits occidentaux des origines au XVIe siècle, 6: Anonymes, Spicilegii Friburgensis subsidia 2 (Fribourg: Ed. universitaires, 1982), p. 515 (no. 23589); Hans Walther, Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis medii aevi. Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters in alphabetischer Anordnung, 5 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), no. 30085, with bibliographical references.
Erik Petersen, ‘Bibliotheca Gottorpiensis Manuscripta: The Inventories of the Manuscripts of Gottorp’, Auskunft: Zeitschrift für Bibliothek, Archiv und Information in Norddeutschland, 28:1 (2008), pp. 117–128; Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, ‘Gottorp Books in the Royal Library of Copenhagen’, pp. 131–147, and Ivan Boserup, ‘Some New Ways to Identify Prints with a Gottorp Provenance in the Royal Library, Copenhagen’, pp. 149–168, both in Virtual Visits To Lost Libraries: Reconstruction of and Access To Dispersed Collections (London: Consortium of European Research Libraries, 2011); Dieter Lohmeier, ‘Die Gottorfer Bibliothek’, in Gottorf im Glanz des Barock, Kunst und Kultur am Schleswiger Hof, 1544–1713: Kataloge der Austellung zum 50-jährigen Bestehen des Schleswig-Holsteinischen Landesmuseum auf Schloss Gottorf und zum 400. Geburtstag Herzog Friedrichs III (Schleswig: Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, 1997), pp. 325–348.
Mogens Bencard and Jørgen Hein, Krigsbytte fra Gottorp (Copenhagen: Rosenborg, 1997).
Andersen, Store Nordiske Krig, pp. 200–201.
Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen, The Library: A Fragile History (New York: Basic Books, 2021), p. 100.
As stated in a letter from Lange to Gersdorff written in Paris in the middle of 1652, cf. Carl S. Petersen, ‘Marcus Meibom og Villum Lange: Et bidrag til Det Kongelige Biblioteks historie’, Fund og Forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger, 1 (1954), pp. 1–39.
Alfred Franklin, Histoire de la Bibliothèque Mazarine et du Palais de l’Institut, 2. éd. (Paris: Welter, 1901), pp. 100–101.
Victor Madsen, ‘Strängnäs-dubletter i Det kongelige Bibliotek i København’, Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen, 11 (1924), pp. 89–111; Otto Walde, ‘Strängnäsdupletter m.m. i danska och norska bibliotek’, Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen, 31 (1944), pp. 59–80.
In 2021 the Royal Danish Library bought three manuscript copies of the Danish translation by Barthold Johan Lodde of J.B. d’Apres de Mannevillette, Mémoire sur la navigation de France aux Indes (1768), Efterretning om Seilatsen fra Frankrig til Indien. The three manuscripts used to be part of the collection of the Navy’s Library and were mentioned as such in 1987 by Erik Gøbel, ‘Asiatisk Kompagnis sejlads på Indien 1732–1772 (The Danish Asiatic Company’s Voyages to India 1732–1772)’, Handels- og Søfartsmuseets Årbog, 46 (1987), pp. 22–86, here p. 81.
Ivan Boserup, ‘The Manuscript and the Internet: Digital Repatriation of Cultural Heritage’, IFLA Journal, 31:2 (2005), pp. 169–173.
The signature in the Royal Danish Library is Acc. 2011/157.
Erland Kolding Nielsen, ‘Jyske Lov som krigsbytte: En mytes opståen, udnyttelse og fald’, Fund og Forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger, 49 (2010), pp. 437–510, here p. 505.
Linda Corfitz Jensen and Morten Mikkelsen, ‘Island beder Danmark udlevere flere verdensarv-håndskrifter’. Kristeligt Dagblad, 4 September 2019.
‘Danish-Icelandic Working Group on Old Icelandic Manuscripts – memo April 2021’, ufm.dk/aktuelt/nyheder/2021/filer/danish-icelandic-working-group-on-old-icelandic-manu scripts-memo-april-2021 (last accessed 17 March 2022).
Thomas Westergaard, ‘Københavns Universitet afviser udlån af historiske dokumenter til Norge’, www.dr.dk, 23 December 2021, www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/koebenhavns-universitet-afviser-udlaan-af-historiske-dokumenter-til-norge (last accessed 17 October 2022).