Adam of Bremen

Adam of Bremen was invited by archbishop [Adalbert of Bremen]? to come and write the history of Hamburg and of the Northern lands . Adam came to Bremen in 1068. There are no certain dates known, but he is believed to have come from Meissen (Latin Misnia) in Saxony.

Adam's works consist of four books, three on history and one on geography. He personally visited king [Svend Estridson]?, who had knowledge of history and geography of the Northern lands . Adam of Bremen was the first one to record Vinland in a land centuries later called America.

Bremen was a major trading towns and ships ,traders and missionaries went from there to many different locations. The earlier archbishopric seat in Hamburg had been destroyed and attacked several times and thereafter Hamburg and Bremen were combined for protection. For three-hundred years Hamburg, starting with bishop Ansgar,then Hamburg-Bremen archbishopric had been designated as "Mission of the North". It had jurisdiction over all missions in Scandinavia, Northern Russia, Iceland and Greenland.

Then the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen had a falling-out with the pope and in 1105 a seperate archbishopric for the North was established in Lund .

Adam had based his works on Einhard, Cassiodor and other earlier historians accounts. In 1072 he had finished his works,known as the "Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum".

Until the thirteenth century , the works by Adam of Bremen's were the only conprehensive histories available.