An analysis of the Chronicon suggests that he had access to comital documents and that he participated in the 1447 negotiations at Lübeck between Adolf VIII of Holstein-Rendsburg and Duke of Schleswig and the free people of the Dithmarschen, wedged between Holstein and the sea.
This suggests that the anonymous presbyter may have hailed from the western country, or maintained links with the Cistercian monastery of Saint Lawrence/Our Lady at Itzehoe.
At the time of the Chronicon's compilation Adolf VIII was childless and facing a succession crisis in both Holstein and Schleswig, a fief of the Kingdom of Denmark that was often in dispute between the Holsatian counts and Danish kings.
[3] The maintenance of the high status of Itzehoe and the denigration of the claims of the counts of Holstein-Pinneburg to the county of Holstein-Rendsburg fuelled the anonymous presbyter of Bremen to compose his chronicle at this time.
In the anonymous's own words: ad complementum cronice quam pie recordacionis frater Helmoldus [...] de Holzacorum principibus et vicinis eorum fideliter composuerat ("to complement the chronicle that brother Helmold of pious memory faithfully composed of the princes of Holstein and their neighbours").