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Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen: Otto Sperling the younger’s Latin biography of Leonora Christina (ca. 1690) Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen: The Danish antiquarian Otto Sperling the younger (1634‑1715) worked for most of his life on a manuscript titled ‘De foeminis doctis’, now in the collection of the Royal Library, shelfmark GKS 2110 quarto, which containedshort biographies of a total of 1,399 learned women from all ages and nations (cf. Fund og Forskning, 2012, pp. 187‑212). One of these is Leonora Christina (1621‑1698), the daughter of Christian IV and his morganatic wife, Kirsten Munk, and a major figure in Danish literature thanks to her prison narrative Jammers Minde and her so-called ‘French Autobiography’. Sperling’s Latin biography focuses on her literary achievements and contains information not found elsewhere. It has been known to scholarship for generations, and a partial translation from the eighteenth century exists in manuscript, but the text has never been published, probably because it consists of 24 pieces distributed over 18 different pages between pp. 306 and 401 of vol. I of the manuscript. It is here edited and translated into Danish for the first time, and it is argued that Sperling composed it on the basis of a series of interviews with the ageing Leonora Christina after her release from prison in 1685. In other words, Sperling functioned as Leonora Christina’s ghostwriter, and the text should really be considered autobiographical and placed alongside the Jammers Minde and her French Autobiography as an authentic expression of her personality.

The article examines how five Danish historians, two before and three after the introduction of Absolutism in 1660, have dealt with dynasticism. Contrary to what one would expect dynasticism played only a minor role in national history writing (Arild Huitfeldt, Vitus Bering, Ludvig Holberg) both before and during Absolutism. The reason seems to be the force of tradition and the difficulties of constructing a readable narrative mirroring the confusing world of dynastic connections. The two serious attempts at dynastic history (Claus Christoffersen Lyschander and Hans Peter Anchersen) had two traits in common: They were both private initiatives and they shared the ambition to trace Danish history back to a distant and heroic past.