Absalon (1128-1201) was a Danish archbishop, warrior, and statesman who is considered the founder of Copenhagen. He acted as chief adviser to two Danish kings.
Absalon was born in October 1128 in Fjenneslev, near Sorø, on the large Danish island of Sjælland. He belonged to a powerful noble family. He grew up with a foster brother named Valdemar, whose grandfather had been a king of Denmark and whose father had been murdered. As a young man, Absalon studied in Paris and became a priest. In 1157, his childhood friend took the throne of Denmark as King Valdemar I. Absalon served as the king’s chief adviser.
In 1158, Valdemar helped Absalon get elected bishop of Roskilde. Absalon helped Valdemar defeat the Wends, who lived east of Denmark along the Baltic Sea, and convert them to Christianity. In about 1167, Valdemar granted Absalon land to build a fortress near a small settlement called Havn (meaning haven or harbor) on the northeastern coast of Sjælland. A trading town grew up around the castle and later became the city of Copenhagen.
In 1178, Absalon became archbishop of Lund (now in southern Sweden but then ruled by Denmark). After Valdemar’s son Canute VI inherited the throne in 1182, Absalon dominated the government and pursued a policy of military expansion to the south and east.
In the mid-1180’s, one of Absalon’s clerks, later known as Saxo Grammaticus, began to write a history of Denmark in Latin with the archbishop’s support. Saxo’s 16-volume Gesta Danorum (History of the Danes), completed about 1220, is the source for much of what historians now know about early Danish folklore and history. Absalon retired from the bishopric of Roskilde in 1191 but remained archbishop of Lund until his death on March 21, 1201.
See also Copenhagen; Valdemar I.
