Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/167

Rh troversy he was full of fiery passion, and his pen poured forth venom and gall upon his enemies; but his position was one eminently calculated to embitter his feelings, for he fought single-handed against all, opposing Catholics as well as Protestants, as he discovered serious faults in both parties. He by no means ceased to expose those abuses in the Catholic church which at an earlier time had offended him, and he continued to denounce the avarice, pride and immorality of the upper class of the clergy, and the result was that the Catholics looked on him with suspicion, while in the eyes of the Lutherans he was merely a contemptible renegade. In the general opinion of the people he was and remained a "Vendekaabe," and so in spite of the great talents he possessed he achieved but little in the way of stemming the tide of contemporary events.

Paul Helgesen, who also took part in the ecclesiastical controversy that was raging in Sweden,—for instance, by addressing a letter to Gustav Vasa—did not confine his literary activity to religious works, and there is no doubt that the so-called Skiby Chronicle was produced by him. It continued down to 1534, and is the only historical work of importance from that time. On account of its peculiar blending of the objective enumeration of events in the form of annals with a passionately subjective criticism of persons and things, it furnishes an exceedingly interesting mirror in which are reflected the history of the age, and at the same time the different moods of the author contemplating the political and ecclesiastical events.

The influence of the Reformation on the development of poetical literature was not particularly great, though it may have been the cause of an increase in the production of poetry in the Danish tongue. By the leaders of the Reformation and by a few others a number of hymns were written partly on the basis of the psalm literature begun near the close of