Comparedto other countries, Denmark has very few extant testaments from the Middle Ages. More have once existed, for many have been lost through time. We shall never know the exact number of testaments that once existed, of course, but estimates have been made by modern historians. They differ a great deal. The estimates range from 73 to 87 before 1400.1 Other estimates say between about 50 and 230 between 1450 and the Reformation.2 Everyone agrees, though, that the number pales in comparison with the vast numbers of medieval testaments from Germany, England, or France. Furthermore, while the number of testaments continued to increase over time, their percentage fell in comparison to the overall number of extant documents from the same period.3 A bleak picture emerges: never especially significant to begin with, the importance of testaments allegedly decreased! According to this theory, the testament was an insignificant phenomenon in medieval Denmark. Important for modern historians, certainly, but mainly as sources for the history of mentality and the history of ecclesiastical institutions. The information they provide about genealogy, or everyday life and artefacts, has also been highly valued. But modern Danish historians have never considered the use of the testament in the Middle Ages to be an important fact. This article attempts to argue otherwise. The testament really was an important type of document. To begin with, it was more widely used than commonly believed. If we figure in the number of deperdita,we arrive at a considerably higher number of medieval testaments than previously assumed. From the period until 1500, we know of at least 388,4 or three time as many as used to be believed. When talking about documents from medieval Denmark, this is a far from insignificant number, but it really is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The loss of medieval documents from Denmark has been truly maswomen as issuers of testaments in medieval denmark 150 1 Vogt 2017: seventy-three until 1400; Bisgaard 2001: eighty-seven until 1399. 2 Jexlev 1980: ca. 50 until the Reformation; Bisgaard 2001: 238 until 1539. 3 Bisgaard 2001. 4 This number is based on my own extensive, but unpublished, research on the medieval testament in Denmark.
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