Jöns Budde

Jöns Andersson Budde , also known as Jöns Räk , (* approx. 1437 ; † 1491 ) was a monk in the monastery of Naantali in today's Finland . He is the first person in Finnish literary history to be known by name .

Memorial stone in Naantali

Life

Jöns Budde was probably born around 1437. From his language one concludes that he came from the Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia . After joining the Order of St. Birgit in 1461 or 1462 , Budde worked in the monasteries of Vadstena in Sweden and Naantali in present-day Finland. There he translated Latin-language spiritual literature into Swedish between 1469 and 1491 . This includes:

• the Liber specialis gratiae of Mechthild von Hackeborn
• Viridiarium celeste Sancte Birgitte , an abridged version of the visions of Saint Birgitta
• Claustrum animae , written by an unknown author
• the mediationes of Bernhard von Clairvaux
• the books of Judith , Esther , Ruth and parts of the Maccabees of the Old Testament .

In his first translation, the Liber specialis gratiae , he added an afterword in which he describes a revelation he experienced. This is the oldest known personal text by a Finnish author. Handwritten texts by Budde are preserved in a volume written in Naantali between 1487 and 1491, in which ten texts translated by him are bound together. The book is now known as Jöns Buddes bok ("The Book of Jöns Budde") and is kept in the Royal Library in Stockholm .

literature

• Jussi Nuorteva: Budde, Jöns Andersson. In: Olli Alho (Hrsg.): Kulturlexikon Finland . Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki 1998, ISBN 951-717-032-5 , p. 43.
• Pertti Lassila: History of Finnish Literature . Translated by Stefan Moster. Francke Verlag, Tübingen and Basel 1996, ISBN 3-7720-2168-9 .