Arild Huitfeldt

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Arild Huitfeldt (Arvid) (September 11, 1546 – December 16, 1609), was a Danish historian and state official, known for his Danish chronicle.

[edit] Biography

Huitfeldt, who was half Swede, was born into an aristocratic family from Scania. He was partly educated in Germany and France, made himself a career as state official and in 1573-1580 he was first secretary of the Danish Chancellery (”Home Office”). From 1583 until his death he was besides superintendent at Herlufsholm kostskole, the first Danish boarding school. In 1586 he achieved his highest promotion when he became Chancellor of the Realm (”Minister of Juridical Affairs”), a post he possessed until half a year before his death. Besides he owned some manor estates and handled some diplomatic tasks. As a politician and an official he seems to have been studious, conservative and sociable avoiding clashes with his colleagues.

What has made Huitfeldt famous is his effort as a historian. He wrote the first great history of Denmark written in Danish – Danmarks Riges Krønike (i. e. The Chronicle of the Realm of Denmark, 1595-1603) in eight volumes by which he followed in the footsteps of Saxo Grammaticus. Huitfeldt was not an official Danish historiographer. However all official attempts of writing a comprehensive book of Danish history in Latin had come to nothing. By his writing Huitfeldt created a work that superseded all earlier Latin attempts and more or less became the Danish history book until the works of Ludvig Holberg.

The chronicle deals with Danish history from the sage time till 1559. It is mostly limited by the reigns of the kings and it was published in non-chronological order beginning with the rule of Christian III. Through published rather quickly his work seems to have been prepared through several years. Being a state official with access to documents and with the possibility of using help from scribes Huitfeldt had many advantages as a writer. The form of the chronicle is annalist but not narrowly limited to each single year. What makes it most valuable is that Huitfeldt reproduces many documents and sources whose originals have been lost. In that way his book is also partly a collection of sources.

In his book Huitfeldt shows himself a pragmatic aristocrat, his main view is that history repeats itself and he more often stresses juridical and constitutional backgrounds than usual for his times. Like other historians he is subjective. His ideal is the aristocratic state with a king respecting the role and power of the nobility and beyond any doubt he shares the responsibility of the extremely negative picture of Christian II and the rose-coloured version of Christian III which for many years dominated Danish historical thinking. However as a whole Huitfeldt is sober and calm and his language is plain and relatively little affected. Through repeating the old sages he often shows himself sceptical about their probability, an attitude which partly applies to Middle Age sources. His prefaces to the singular volumes interestingly testify to his political ideals.

His self-chosen Christian name “Arild” is no real name but derives from “årild” – i. e. “old time”.