Absalon, the monk, kept his
body strong while soul and mind matured. When nothing more
adventurous befell, he chopped down trees for the cloister hearths.
But oftener the clash of arms echoed in the quiet halls, or the
peaceful brethren crossed themselves as they watched him break an
unruly horse in the cloister fen. Saxo tells us that he swam easily
in full armor, and in more than one campaign in later years saved
drowning comrades who were not so well taught.
The while he watched rising all about some of the finest churches in
Christendom. It was the era of cathedral building in Europe. The
Romanesque style of architecture had reached its highest development
in the very France where he spent his young manhood's years, and the
Gothic, with its stamp of massive strength, was beginning to
displace its gentler curve. Ten years of such an environment, in a
land teeming with historic traditions, rounded out the man who set
his face toward home, bent on redeeming his people from the unjust
reproach of being mere "barbarians of the North."
It was a stricken Denmark to which he came back. Three claimants
were fighting for the crown. The land was laid waste by sea-rovers,
who saw their chance to raid defenceless homes while the men able to
bear arms were following the rival kings.
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