Erik Moltke

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Erik Moltke ( April 4, 1901 in Laurbjerg - October 19, 1984 in Frederiksberg ) was a Danish medievalist , runologist and historian.

Life

Moltke came from a middle-class family; the father Carl Frederik Moltke (1872-1944) was a railway official, the mother was Frederikke Marie Johnsen (1868-1950). Moltke was first married to Inger Ermerud Lindberg, daughter of National Bank director Jakob K. Lindberg, until 1948. After the divorce, he married the architectural historian Elna Møller (1913–1994).

From 1919 on he studied Danish, English and Latin in Ålborg and completed these subjects with a master's degree. In the twenties, Moltke's later field of research, runology, took shape, initiated by Finnur Jónsson's lectures on general questions and problems of the scientific rune research of the time. As a result, Moltke deepened his knowledge and specialized, which led to the knowledge and scientific requirement to publish a new edition of the Danish runic inscriptions using modern means. With the support of Lis Jacobsen , the corpus of the inscriptions and new finds were viewed from 1927, examined on site and re-read and interpreted with the help of parking light photographs. The results led to the publication of the "Danish runic inscriptions" in two volumes from 1941 to 1942. The work is runological standard literature, the cataloging of which with the identifier DR + serial number is still valid today.

After the war, Moltke became the supervisor of the rune epigraphy department and exhibition at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen, which he subsequently expanded into the most important, internationally recognized Danish research center for runology. In 1959 he received his doctorate with the second volume of a work on the drawings of rune stones by Jon Skonvig (for Ole Worm ) and the historical research into Danish rune evidence. In 1970 Moltke took over the management of the department, exhibition and research center at the National Museum.

For the dating and origin of the runes, Moltke developed the thesis of an independent borrowing of the Futhark from comparable (European) alphabets based on the difficult question of successfully searching for the "sources" of the individual runes for research . On a modified basis of Ludvig Wimmer's Latin theory , which is preferred in Scandinavian research , the runic script, according to Moltke, only developed as an independent alphabet creation in Denmark (South Jutland, Funen, Zealand near the Angles and Herulers ) late in AD 100 . Through trade contacts from the Roman-Germanic Rhine zone in the north of Germania, the influences should have resulted from borrowing some - not all - runes from the Latin alphabet (especially the runes for f, r, b and m). As an interface, the acquisition of the Latin language and writing from Germanic trading partners should have been a driving force. Moltke and the researchers who followed him defended this thesis against others. Due to the discovery of the Meldorf rune primer and its dating to the 1st century ( Klaus Düwel ) and the cautious interpretation as "proto-runes", Moltke's decision was subsequently criticized and, in parts of the research, assessed as no longer tenable ( Elmer H. Antonsen; differently Henrik Williams and more reserved Düwel).

Selected works

Monographs
  • Danmarks Runeindskrifter I – II , 1941–42 with Lis Jacobson.
  • Jon Skonvig and other runetegnere. Et bidrag til runologiens historie i Danmark og Norge I-II, 1956–58.
  • Bernt Notkes altertavle i Århus Domkirke og tallinntavlen: with regesta and captions in German (Vol. 1-2). 1970.
  • Runerne i Danmark og deres oprindelse, 1976 (2nd edition in English translation by Peter Foote 1985 as Runes and their Origin. Denmark and Elsewhere )

Numerous articles and articles in periodicals, commemorative publications, series.

literature

  • Elmer H. Antonsen : The oldest runic inscriptions in today's view. In: Heinrich Beck (Hrsg.): Germanic problems in today's view. (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde - supplementary volumes , volume 1). 2nd edition, Walter De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1999, pp. 321–343 ( Germanische Altertumskunde online for a fee at de Gruyter ).
  • Ders .: Runes and Germanic Linguistics. (= Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, Volume 140). Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2002, ISBN 3-11-017462-6 , pp. 93ff.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Henrik Williams: The Romans and the Runes - Uses of writing in Germania. In: Staffan Nyström (ed.): Runor och ABC. Elva föreläsningar från ett symposium i Stockholm våren 1995. Stockholm 1997, pp. 179–194.
  2. ↑ Klaus Düwel:  Runic writing. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 25, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-017733-1 , pp. 571-585.
personal data
SURNAME Moltke, Erik
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish medievalist, runologist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Laurbjerg
DATE OF DEATH October 19, 1984
Place of death Frederiksberg