Asker (bishop)

Asker (*?; † May 5, 1137 ), also Ascer, Asser, Asger or Asker Svennson, was a Danish clergyman and the first Archbishop of Lund , which then belonged to Denmark .

Life

As the son of Sven Torgunnson and his wife Inga, Asker belonged to the upper class at the time and was related to the Danish royal family. On November 18, 1089, he was first ordained Bishop of Lund, but was still under the Archdiocese of Bremen-Hamburg . On a trip in 1095/96 to Pope Paschal II , whom King Erik wanted to ask for mediation in a dispute with the Archdiocese of Hamburg, the King also expressed the wish for a separate archdiocese for the north. Further negotiations with a legate 1102/03 were evidently positive, since a letter from the Pope dated May 8, 1104 already mentions an archdiocese of Lund. Thus church independence from the Archdiocese of Bremen-Hamburg was achieved and Lund became the church center of Denmark, to which the churches of Iceland , Norway and Sweden were also subordinate. From then on, Asker was archbishop.

Asker had several brothers who were also in high office. Eskil , the son of Asker's brother Kristian, was his successor after Asker's death.

literature

• Martin Kaufhold : Europe's north in the Middle Ages. The integration of Scandinavia into Christian Europe (9th – 13th centuries) . Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 2001, ISBN 3-89678-418-8
• Asker . In: Nils Linder (Ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 1st edition. tape 1 : A-barograph . Gernandts boktryckeri, Stockholm 1876, Sp. 1199 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).

predecessor	Office	successor
Ricwald	Archbishop of Lund 1089–1137	Eskil