Olof Verelius

Olof Verelius

Olof Verelius (born February 12, 1618 in Häsleby parish, Jönköpings län ; † January 3, 1682 in Uppsala ) was a Swedish linguist and antiquarian.

He was the son of pastor Nils Petri, but took the name "Verelius" at a young age.

Life

He studied in Dorpat in 1633 and in Uppsala in 1638. Axel Oxenstierna hired him as a teacher for young noblemen. 1648–1650 he stayed abroad, including in Leiden and Paris . Back in Sweden he wrote the work Epitomarum Historiæ Svio-Gothicæ libri quattuor et Gothorum extra patrium gestarum libri duo. (1682), in which a very patriotic view of the Swedish prehistory emerges. His impeccable Latin led to this work being used as a reading book for Latin lessons. In 1652 he became professor of rhetoric in Dorpat, but never took up this position. In 1653 he received the post of rent master at the Academy in Uppsala, which he held until 1679. In 1662 he was appointed to the chair for "Swedish Antiquities", which had been specially set up for him. In 1666 he became Reich archivist and assessor in the College of Antiquities. In 1675 he resigned from this office. In 1679 he became a university librarian while retaining his professorship. In 1671 and 1680 he was the rector of the university.

Act

Ever since Jón Rugmann had brought many Icelandic manuscripts to Uppsala, Verelius has dealt intensively with the Old Norse language and antiquity. His sense of duty was paired with professional rigor and incompatibility, which led to a bitter scholarly dispute between him and his colleague and former friend Johannes Schefferus over the location of the pagan temple of Uppsala in the years 1672–1681 . He started from an ancient knowledge of the ancestors, while Schefferus argued more historically and critically. As bitter as this dispute became in the later years of life, it had the fruit of justifying the beginning of a scientific method in the treatment of ancient traditions. Verelius made a great contribution to the creation of an Icelandic lexicon Index linguæ veterìs scytho-scandicæ sive gothicæ (Ed. 0lof Rudbeck , Uppsala 1691). Together with Schefferus, he also translated the Icelandic Gautreks saga and the Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar in 1664 , the Bósa saga ok Herrauðs in 1666 , the Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks in 1672 and others. He also wrote the runological writing Olai Vereli Manuductio compendiosa ad runographiam Scandicam antiquam . Henricus Curio, Uppsala 1675, in Latin and Swedish.

literature

• Claes Annerstedt: Verelius, Olof . In: Theodor Westrin, Ruben Gustafsson Berg, Eugen Fahlstedt (eds.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 31 : Ural vertex . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1921, Sp. 1216-1217 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).

This article is based on a public domain text ( "public domain") from the Swedish-language encyclopedia Nordisk familjebok in the first edition from 1876 to 1899 or the 2nd edition from 1904 to 1926. Please remove this notice only when you revised the article as far or have rewritten that the text reflects the current state of knowledge on the subject.