Annales Colbazenses

by Anders Leegaard Knudsen

Annales Colbazenses is the name currently used for the earliest extant set of annals from Denmark. The writing of the annals was begun at the cathedral in Lund sometime between AD 1137 and AD 1150. The annals cover the years from the Creation until AD 1568, but only the years AD 1130-1181 concern Danish history. The annals were still in Lund in AD 1177, but soon after they were taken to Pomerania by an unknown route (see below under section 8 on transmission and reception). At Colbaz, the annals were continued until AD 1568 – the first entry on Pomeranian affairs concerning the year AD 1183.

- see also Annales Lundenses

- see also Annales Ryenses

- see also Annales Suecici

- see also Chronica Sialandie

- see also Compendium Saxonis & Chronica Jutensis

Title

No original title is known. The annals are named after the Cistercian monastery Colbaz in present day Kołbacz (Poland). The name Annales Colbazenses has been used by scholars since the first edition from 1866 (ARNDT 1866, 710).

Incipit

Prima etas in exordio sui continet creacionem mundi. Primo enim die Deus in lucis nomine condidit angelos.

Explicit

The part concerning Danish history: 1181. Waldmarus, rex Dacie, obiit.

The Pomeranian part: Anno 1568 6. Nouembris obiit ducissa Lunenburgensis, Barnimi senioris vxor, sepulta Stettini 12. Nouembris in aede scilicet diui Ottonis.

Size

The Danish section takes up eleven pages in KROMAN’S edition (KROMAN 1980).

Editions

• ARNDT, W. 1866: Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores 19, 710-720 (Beginning with the Christian Era and continuing until AD 1568)
• PRÜMERS, R. 1877: Pommersches Urkundenbuch I. Band 2. Abtheilung, 467-493 (Beginning with the Christian Era and continuing until AD 1568)
• WAITZ, G. 1892: Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores 29, 174-176 (Only the Danish section: AD 1127-1181)
• JØRGENSEN, E. 1920: Annales Danici medii ævi, Copenhagen, 39-43 (From the Creation until AD 1181)
• KROMAN, E. 1962: CCD 5, Copenhagen (Facsimile of the manuscript)
• KROMAN, E. 1980: Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, Copenhagen, 149–76 (From the Creation until AD 1181)

Translations

• (Danish) STEENBERG, J. 1965: Kilder til Danmarks historie i 12. århundrede. Fifth ed. Copenhagen, 16-17 (selections).

Date and place

Annales Colbazenses were begun at the cathedral in Lund between AD 1137 and AD 1150. They were continued by several hands and remained in Lund until AD 1177. Shortly afterwards, however, they were taken to Pomerania and eventually ended up in the monastery in Colbaz. A continuation, made by several hands, eventually came to cover the years AD 1183-1568.

Composition and style

Annales Colbazenses is written in a terse and simple style, which is characteristic of Danish annalistic writing. Years are given as anno mundi from the Creation to the birth of Christ, and after that as years of the nativity. Dates are according to the Roman Calendar.

Sources

An Anglo-Norman set of annals forms the basis for Annales Colbazenses (JØRGENSEN 1920, 5-6). No particular set of annals can be identified as the source, but similar sets of annals from Normandy and England have been found. This Anglo-Norman set of annals is itself a compilation. The part dealing with history from the Creation until the birth of Christ is based on Isidore of Seville’s Epitome in Etymologies 5, 39 or occasionally his Chronica Majora. No source for the information on the date and year of the birth and death of Christ has yet been found, but the piece following it comes from a compilation from Cologne, which eventually made its way to Dijon and Normandy as well. Here, more additions were made and eventually the compilation made its way to England and from thence to Denmark. In Lund, information from Necrologium Lundense and Chronicon Roskildense on events in the years AD 1130-1137 was added to the text of the Anglo-Norman annals (KRISTENSEN 1969, 36-43). Sources for the entries of the remaining years of the Danish part of Annales Colbazenses are harder to discover. It is highly likely, however, that they were literary, rather than oral tradition.

Purpose and audience

Consensus among scholars is that Annales Colbazenses is connected with archbishop Eskil of Lund (r. AD 1137-1177). Its purpose is entirely conjectural. The composition and style make it unlikely that it was intended for a wide circulation among learned readers at home or abroad, but it might form a useful basis for the library of an ecclesiastical institution. This might explain why it ended up in a monasterial library in Pomerania. It could furnish the monks with a grounding in the history of Denmark in relation to universal history.

Medieval reception and transmission

Annales Colbazenses is transmitted in only a single manuscript: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Abendländische Handschriften. Ms. theol. lat. fol. 149. (Rose 1905, 1007-1011). The manuscript was continuously updated and added to. At Colbaz, as mentioned above, additions were made until 1568, but parts of the original text were erased as well to make room for additions and corrections. This has made the manuscript difficult to read in some places and important bits of text are almost illegible. To make matters worse, PRÜMERS used acid on some of the difficult parts, and these are now impossible to read. Before the manuscript left Denmark, one or more copies were made, and these influenced many of the subsequent annals written in Lund (cf. Annales Lundenses and Annales Danici). As the starting point of annalistic writing in Denmark, Annales Colbazenses have been the subject of much research, very capably summed up by KRISTENSEN (KRISTENSEN 1969), who advanced our knowledge considerably. Her treatment remains the best analysis of annalistic writing in medieval Denmark.

Bibliography

• BOLIN, S 1931: Om Nordens äldsta historieforskning: Studier över dess metodik och källvärde (Lunds Universitets Årsskrift Ny följd, Avd. 1. Bd. 27. Nr. 3). Lund, 133-140.
• HEMMINGSEN, L. 1996: By Word of Mouth: The Origins of Danish Legendary History: Studies in European Learned and Popular Traditions of Dacians and Danes before A.D. 1200. Unpublished Ph.D.-thesis, University of Copenhagen. (Available at The Royal Library, Copenhagen), Part III, section 1.5 & Part V, section 2.1.
• JØRGENSEN, A.D. 1871: Bidrag til Nordens Historie i Middelalderen, Copenhagen. 202-206.
• JØRGENSEN, E. 1931: Historieforskning og Historieskrivning i Danmark indtil Aar 1800. Copenhagen, 5-7, 10.
• KRISTENSEN, A.K.G. 1969: Danmarks ældste annalistik. Studier over lundensisk annalskrivning i 12. og 13. århundrede (Skrifter udgivet af det Historiske Institut ved Københavns Universitet 3), Copenhagen.
• KROMAN, E. 1962: CCD 5, Copenhagen.
• ROSE, Valentin 1905: Verzeichniss der Lateinischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, Band 2: Die Handschriften der Kurfürstlichen Bibliothek und der Kurfürstlichen Lande, 3. Abteilung (Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, Band 13), Berlin.
• ROSENSTOCK, L.H. 1957: “Colbazårbogen” Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder 2. Copenhagen, 577-578.
• SCHÄFER, D. 1872: Dänische Annalen und Chroniken von der Mitte des 13. bis zum Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts, mit Berücksichtigung ihres Verhältnisses zu schwedischen und deutschen Geschichtswerken kritisch untersucht. Hannover. 115-118.
• WAITZ, G. 1887: “Zur Kritik Dänischer Geschichtsquellen,”. Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für Ältere Deutsche Geschichtskunde XII, 25sqq.
• WEIBULL, L. 1909-1910: “Annalerne og Kalendariet fra Colbaz,” HistTD 8 R. II, 170-187.