All he tells us himself is, that Absalon, Archbishop of Lund from 1179 to 1201, pressed him, who was "the least of his companions, since all the rest refused the task", to write the history of Denmark, so that it might record its glories like other nations.

Absalon was previously, and also after his promotion, Bishop of Roskild, and this is the first circumstance giving colour to the theory--which lacks real evidence--that Saxo the historian was the same as a certain Saxo, Provost of the Chapter of Roskild, whose death is chronicled in a contemporary hand without any mark of distinction.

It is unlikely that so eminent a man would be thus barely named; and the appended eulogy and verses identifying the Provost and the historian are of later date.

Moreover, the Provost Saxo went on a mission to Paris in 1165, and was thus much too old for the theory.
Nevertheless, the good Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, took this identity for granted in the first edition, and fostered the assumption.

Saxo was a cleric; and could such a man be of less than canonical rank?
He was (it was assumed) a Zealander; he was known to be a friend of Absalon, Bishop of Roskild.