Poul Helgesen

Paulus Helie (Poul Helgesen, 1480-1539) was a Carmelite friar and a Catholic reformer, theologian and history writer during the Danish Reformation. He was the period’s greatest intellectual character and most eloquent writer. His Lutheran antagonists called him a turn-coat, present-day historians describe him as the first political journalist in the history of Denmark. His many works in the Danish and Latin languages include translations, religious and political controversies, poems, letters, and historical narratives. Among the latter is the famous Chronicon Skibyense, which was the greatest intellectual work of literature in Denmark since the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus. 3.2 (2) Catalogus accusationum adversus regem Christiernum Catalogus accusationum adversus regem Christiernum) 3.2.1 Incipit 3.4 (4) Historia compendiosa regum Danorum Historia compendiosa regum Danorum) 3.4.1 Title Paulus Helie was born about 1480 in Varberg (Halland) to a Danish father and a Swedish mother. As a child he entered the Carmelite friary in his native town and spent the rest of his life as a friar of that Order. The scattered biographical information, given by himself and his contemporaries, should therefore be interpreted in the light of the life and traditions of the Carmelite Order. (Unfortunately, this is seldom the case as up to now only four historians have tried to do it: ENGELSTOFT 1848, ANDERSEN 1936a, 1936b, 1944–1946, VALKNER 1963, RÜBNER JØRGENSEN 1979, 1986, 1991–1995). The Swedish humanist, Sveno Jacobi, who later became bishop of Skara, was among his teachers, but where he was educated is not known. However, after the lector degree of the Order he must have followed courses in Rhetoric and Theology either at the University of Copenhagen or at some foreign university. His handwriting, which is a fine humanist cursive similar to those used in Italy in the 1490s, could support the latter alternative. In our sources he is first mentioned in 1517 and was presumably already then a Bachelor of Theology. Two years later he became regent of the newly founded Carmelite College in Copenhagen and lecturer in Theology at the University. Already in his early lectures he seems to have been influenced by the Italian humanists and Erasmus Roterodamus’s biblical humanism. Despite the impetuous and passionate attacks on Erasmus by the Carmelites elsewhere in Europe, this humanist attitude with its demand for a moral reformation, based on the Bible and the Fathers, not only of the Church, but also of living human beings in general, affected him for the rest of his life. In the years around 1520 he appears to have supported King Christian II (1513–1523) and the king’s wishes for clerical and educational reform, but in the summer of 1522 he quarrelled with the king and took refuge in Jutland, where he joined the rebel party and became one of the king’s most ardent enemies. Also, in the last years of the 1510s he seems to have favoured the Lutheran cause. When Luther, however, broke with the Roman Church, he reacted against the German reformer and became a prominent Catholic writer and protagonist, although he was in no way a conservative Catholic. Like Erasmus he often advocated a middle course between traditional Catholicism and Lutheranism, difficult to understand for his contemporaries, Lutherans and Catholics alike (cf. RÜBNER JØRGENSEN 2002). Soon after being elected provincial prior of his Order in 1521 or 1522 he left the University, but continued with his studies, readings and writings. During the 1520s and 1530s he often participated in the diets of the realm. In the diet of 1530, for instance, he was one of the Catholic theologians officially debating with the Protestants, and in the diet of 1533 he functioned as prosecutor against the reformer, Hans Tausen, who was condemned to exile by the judges. (2) A Catalogue of Complaints against King Christian II. 1523. An anonymous and extensive catalogue, introducing the election chart