Mikkelsen, Hans

Mikkelsen, Hans a noted Danish Biblical student, author of the first Danish version of the New Testament, was originally mayor of Malmoe, in Scaiaa, and subsequently secretary to Christian II of Denmark. When the king was, in 1523, obliged to flee from his dominions and take refuge in Holland, Mikkelsen accompanied him, and it was while there that, at the suggestion of his sovereign, he set himself to the work of translating the New Testament. Driven by the bigoted jealousy of the papal party in the Netherlands from his place beside the king, he retired to Harderwick, in Guelderland, where he died about the year 1532. His translation, which was published in 1524 (small 4to), professes to be made from the Latin, but this applies only to the four Gospels, in translating which he seems to have followed the version of Erasmus; for the other books he has closely followed the German version of Luther. See Henderson, Dissertation on Hans Mikkelsen's Translation (Copenhagen, 1813); W.L. Alexander, in Kitto, Cyclop. Bibl. Lit. s.v.