Arne Søby Christensen (born 1945) is a Danish

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

. He is an associate professor in history at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

Biography

Arne Søby Christensen was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

in 1945. He received a

cand.mag. Candidatus magisterii (male), or candidata magisterii (female), abbreviated as cand.mag., is an academic degree currently awarded in Denmark. The degree is officially translated into English as Master of Arts and currently requires 5 years of stud ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

from the

in 1975. His book ''Lactantius the Historian'' was published in 1980. From 1989 to 1998, Christensen was a member of the Danish Historical Society. Christensen received his PhD in history from the University of Copenhagen in June 2002. His

disputation In the scholastic system of education of the Middle Ages, disputations (in Latin: ''disputationes'', singular: ''disputatio'') offered a formalized method of debate designed to uncover and establish truths in theology and in sciences. Fixed ru ...

was supervised by Ian N. Wood and Niels Lund. His thesis, ''Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths'', concerned the reliability of ''

Getica ''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae oths'), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'', written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of th ...

'' by

Jordanes Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Goths, Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history (''Romana ...

and the latters alleged chief source, the now lost '' Origo Gothica'' by

Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' w ...

. In his thesis, Christensen claims that the ''Origo Gothica'' and ''Getica'' are entirely fabricated accounts without any foundation in

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

oral tradition, being instead based upon a dubious synthesis of

Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...

sources. Christensen claims that the Greco-Romans knew nothing about the Goths until the 3rd century AD, and that archaeological evidence on Gothic origins is useless. On this account, Christensen recommended that the history of the

migration period The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...

be rewritten. An

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

translation of Christensen's thesis was published in 2002 by

Museum Tusculanum Press Museum Tusculanum Press (Danish: ''Museum Tusculanums Forlag'') is an independent academic press historically associated with the University of Copenhagen, publishing mainly in the humanities, social sciences and theology. It was founded in 1975 as ...

. Christensen's thesis has generated much interest among scholars. It was praised by

Walter Goffart Walter Goffart (born February 22, 1934) is a German-born American historian who specializes in Late Antiquity and the European Middle Ages. He taught for many years in the History Department and Centre for Medieval Studies of the University of To ...

as a useful work. Anthropologist Peter S. Wells considered it a significant contribution to the study of ancient peoples of northern Europe. Ian N. Wood considered it an interesting work, although he thought Christensen went too far in denying Gothic elements in the texts. Sigbjørn Sønnesyn considered Christensen's theories suspiciously similar to

circular reasoning Circular may refer to: * The shape of a circle * ''Circular'' (album), a 2006 album by Spanish singer Vega * Circular letter (disambiguation) ** Flyer (pamphlet), a form of advertisement * Circular reasoning, a type of logical fallacy * Circular ...

Michael Whitby L. Michael Whitby is a British ancient historian of Late Antiquity. He specialises in late Roman history, early Byzantine history and historiography. He is currently pro-vice-chancellor and head of the College of Arts and Law at the University ...

dismissed Christensen's work as extreme and a mere footnote to what has already been written on the subject.

Dick Harrison Dick Walther Harrison (born 10 April 1966) is a Sweden, Swedish historian. He is currently a Professor of History at Lund University. His main areas of interest are the European Middle Ages, including the medical history of the period and the h ...

considered Christensen's book interesting, although he criticized its rejection of archaeological evidence and refusal to respond to the views of dissenting scholars.

Selected works

* ''Kristenforfølgelserne i Rom indtil år 250'', 1977 * ''Lactantius the Historian. An Analysis of the De Mortibus Persecutorum.'', 1980 * ''Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths: Studies in a Migration Myth'', 2002

References

Bibliography

External links

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of Arne Søby Christensen 1945 births 20th-century Danish historians 21st-century Danish historians Living people People from Copenhagen University of Copenhagen alumni Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen {{Denmark-historian-stub