Jens Billes visebog () is the second oldest major collection of Danish poetry, after the Heart Book.E. Kroman, 'Jens Billes Visebog', Danske Studier (1923), 170-79 (p. 170). http://danskestudier.dk/materiale/1923.pdf . It was compiled in the second half of the 1550s.E. Kroman, 'Jens Billes Visebog', Danske Studier (1923), 170-79, http://danskestudier.dk/materiale/1923.pdf ; http://duds.nordisk.ku.dk/tekstresurser/aeldste_danske_viseoverlevering/viseboegerne/
The collection has also been called Jens Billes håndskrift (), Jens Billes poesiebog (), and erroneously Steen Billes Haandskrift. Today, the is book held by the Danish National Archives, having been acquired as part of Karen Brahe's library (E I,2).
Format The manuscript is a small quarto in size (20×14½cm), paper, with 162 folios, all with the same watermark. The manuscript contains 87 poems written in around 17 different hands of which the most important are those of Jens Bille (1531–75), Sten Clausen Bille, and Anne Skave; they are numbered in pencil by Svend Grundtvig.E. Kroman, 'Jens Billes Visebog', Danske Studier (1923), 170-79 (pp. 171-72). http://danskestudier.dk/materiale/1923.pdf . It is from Jens Bille, who named himself in the manuscript as its owner, that the manuscript takes its modern name. Poems 1-86 were written in the period 1555–89, and poem 87, on the death of Frederick II of Denmark, in 1589.Riising, Anne, Katalog over Karen Brahes Bibliothek i Landsarkivet for Fyn: Håndskriftsamlingen (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1956), p. 161.
Contents The book contains some of our earliest attestations of Scandinavian ballads, such as Elvehøj. Many of the texts it contains are edited in Danmarks gamle Folkeviser.
History How the manuscript came into Karen Brahe's library is not clear, but it is likely to have been through inheritance; Karen Brahe inherited a large part of her library from her maternal grandfather's sister, the scholar Anne Gøye. Anne's sister was married to a grandson of Jens Bille and one of her brothers was married to a granddaughter of Jens Bille.E. Kroman, 'Jens Billes Visebog', Danske Studier (1923), 170-79 (pp. 177-78). http://danskestudier.dk/materiale/1923.pdf .
External links and sources contents list Kroman, E., 'Jens Billes Visebog', Danske Studier (1923), 170–79. https://web.archive.org/web/20130824064038/http://danskestudier.dk/materiale/1923.pdf Thuesen, Karen, 'Til Jens Billes Visebog', Acta Philologica Scandinavica, 31 (1976), 58-69
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