Anders Sørensen Vedel was a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 and historiographer. He translated the Gesta Danorum

Gesta Danorum

Gesta Danorum is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th century author Saxo Grammaticus . It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark and is an essential source for the nation's early history...

by Saxo Grammaticus

Saxo Grammaticus

Saxo Grammaticus also known as Saxo cognomine Longus was a Danish historian, thought to have been a secular clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author of the first full history of Denmark.- Life :The Jutland Chronicle gives...

 into Danish in 1575, and published the influential "Hundredvisebogen" in 1591.

Biography

Anders Sørensen was born in Vejle

Vejle

Vejle is a town in Denmark, in the southeast of the Jutland Peninsula at the head of Vejle Fjord, where the Vejle and Grejs Rivers and their valleys converge. It is the site of the councils of Vejle Municipality and the Region of Southern Denmark...

, from which place the Vedel name comes. 14 years old he moved to study in Ribe

Ribe

Ribe , the oldest extant Danish town, is in southwest Jutland and has a population of 8,192 . Until 1 January 2007, it was the seat of both the surrounding municipality, and county...

, and after finishing his education he moved on to Copenhagen University in 1561. In 1562, he was the tutor of astronomer Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...

 on Brahe's Grand Tour in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, forming a lasting bond of friendship with him. Vedel started studying at Wittenberg

Wittenberg

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....

 in 1565, which he finished in 1566, and was appointed priest at Copenhagen Castle

Copenhagen Castle

Copenhagen Castle was a castle on Slotsholmen in Copenhagen, Denmark, built in the late 14th century at the site of the current Christiansborg Palace....

 in 1568. Vedel's historical knowledge was admired by leading politicians including Christoffer Valkendorf,
Bjørn Andersen, Arild Huitfeldt

Arild Huitfeldt

Arild Huitfeldt was a Danish historian and state official, known for his vernacular Chronicle of Denmark.-Life:...

 Johan Friis

Johan Friis

Johan Friis was a Danish statesman. He studied in Odense and in Copenhagen before completing his education abroad....

 and Peder Oxe

Peder Oxe

Peder Oxe was a Danish finance minister and Steward of the Realm.-Background:...

, and he was seen as the right man to continue Christiern Pedersen

Christiern Pedersen

Christiern Pedersen was a canon, humanist scholar, writer, printer and publisher.-Education:Christiern Pedersen was born in Helsingør, Denmark. He was schooled in Roskilde and studied from 1496 at the University of Greifswald...

's Danish language

Danish language

Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

 translation of the Latin chronicle Gesta Danorum

Gesta Danorum

Gesta Danorum is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th century author Saxo Grammaticus . It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark and is an essential source for the nation's early history...

by Saxo Grammaticus

Saxo Grammaticus

Saxo Grammaticus also known as Saxo cognomine Longus was a Danish historian, thought to have been a secular clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author of the first full history of Denmark.- Life :The Jutland Chronicle gives...

.

He started the translation work in 1570, and the finished work "Den danske Krønicke" was published in 1575. The work was both a translation and rewriting of the original Latin phrases. While working on the translation, he was given the income of a canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

 at Ribe Cathedral

Ribe Cathedral

Our Lady Maria Cathedral is located in the ancient city of Ribe on the western coast of southern Jutland, Denmark- History :Ribe is Denmark's oldest surviving city. Ribe began as an open trading market on the north bank of the Ribe River where it runs into the ocean...

 in 1573. After pressure from Peder Oxe, Niels Kaas, and Jørgen Rosenkrantz, Vedel wrote a proposal for a Latin continuation of Saxo's work in 1578 which was finalized in 1581. He was relieved of his priesthood in Copenhagen, and moved to Ribe in 1581.

He was appointed Royal historiographer in 1584 and received a prelature

Prelate

A prelate is a high-ranking member of the clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin prælatus, the past participle of præferre, which means "carry before", "be set above or over" or "prefer"; hence, a prelate is one set over others.-Related...

 at Ribe to support himself, and undertook the task of continuing the Danish chronicle in that year. However, he overreached himself in his attempt to do so. He planned an ambitious work in twenty-two books dealing with both language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 and topography

Topography

Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...

 as well as with history. However other tasks, lack of help from secretaries, his own slowness and carefulness—and perhaps also a general underestimation of the demands of this work—led to very modest results. In 1594, after the death of chancellor Niels Kaas, the task was given to Niels Krag, under Vedel's protestations. He got a one-year reprieve, but could not produce satisfactory results, after which he turned his work over to Niels Krag. Much of what he had written was lost at the fire of Copenhagen in 1728

Copenhagen Fire of 1728

The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 was the largest fire in the history of Copenhagen, Denmark. It began on the evening of October 20, 1728, and continued to burn until the morning of October 23. It destroyed approximately 28% of the city , left 20% of the population homeless, and the reconstruction lasted...

.

One spin-off from this task which survived was his "Hundredvisebogen" (1591) of a hundred Danish ballads which became a solid foundation of later knowledge of the elder Danish literary tradition. It was published with the support of Queen Sophie. Vedel's own re-creation of some of the ballads shows his ability as a poet.