Stephan Hansen Stephanius

Stephan Hansen Stephanius , (Danish Stephen Hanssøn) (born July 23, 1599 in Copenhagen ; † April 22, 1650 ) was a Danish philologist and historian .

Life

His father was Hans Staphensen (also Johannes Stephanius), professor at the University of Copenhagen . Since his father became head of the school and the monastery in Sorø in 1608 , he too went to school first in Sorø, then in Herlufsholm. From there he went to the University in Copenhagen in 1615. In 1618 he received the degree of Baccalaureus in philosophy. During his studies he devoted himself primarily to Latin philology and Patriotic history and antiquities.

Towards the end of the 1610s he married Anne Jacobsen, the daughter of the doctor Matthis Jacobsen in Aarhus and sister of his friend and college friend in Leiden Jacob Matthiesen, who became Bishop of Aarhus in 1645 . His wife died on February 10, 1633. On October 26, 1634 he married Thale Eisenberg, daughter of Elias Eisenberg, first professor in Copenhagen, then provost in Samsø .

Education

At the age of 22 he started traveling. He attended the universities in Rostock and Leiden. On his return home he was rector of the school in Slangerup in 1624 and master's degree at the University of Copenhagen in 1625. The inheritance after his father's death in 1625 enabled him to continue his studies abroad. He got to know Ole Worm and was inspired by his archaeological research. Throughout his life they remained in a learned correspondence. In 1626 he enrolled again at the University of Leiden, where he came into contact with the famous classical scholars Gerhard Johannes Voss and Daniel Heinsius .

In 1627 he published his first book Breves notæ et emendationes in Saxonem Grammaticum in Leiden . This was followed by smaller writings with sentences on the same subject. With them he not only earned praise from Ole Worm, but also from the history- interested Chancellor Christian Friis zu Kragerup. He also won the royal Danish historian Johannes Isaksen Pontanus, who was a professor in Harderwijk, as a friend. This gave him material for a collection for various historical-topographical works and treatises on Denmark, Norway and the duchies, which he published in 1692 under the title De regno Daniæ etc. tractatus varii .

Act

Sorø Academy

In 1629 he was appointed professor of rhetoric at the Sorø Academy. In the winter of 1630 he returned to Denmark and took up his position in March 1630. He had received a letter from Pontanus to the Chancellor Friis, in which the latter praised his erudition and described him as suitable for re-editing the work of Saxo Grammaticus . This then became his main task. In addition, he dealt with language maintenance. In 1631 he became a member of the Commission of Professors in Sorø, which took care of the improvement of the school system and the publication of suitable school books. In 1633 he published the textbook Colloqvia familiaria , for the younger pupils Colloqvia minora , a very long authoritative textbook. They were joined in 1634 by the dictionary Nomenclator Latino-Danicus I , which included nouns and adjectives, and in 1638 Part II with the verbs, which was called Verba Stephani and was in use in schools in Denmark, Norway and even Sweden for over 100 years . He later wrote the Latin stylistics Phraseologia Latino-Danica , but it only appeared after his death. It was also in use for a long time.

But he received his lasting importance as a national historian because of his talent for finding old sources and making them usable. When Johannes Meursius, professor of history and royal historiographer in Sorø, died in 1639, he was his successor in both positions. He continued his work, which up to the time of Christian III. (1550) had progressed. Since the work only up to King Christian III. Death should be enough, he could soon devote himself to his real task, the editing and commenting on the Saxo Grammaticus. Now it turned out to be a hindrance that he did not speak Old Norse, so that he could not evaluate the old manuscripts that Ole Worms sent him from the Icelandic scholars. As a kind of introduction to Saxo Grammaticus he wrote Svenonis Aggonis filii, qvæ extant, opuscula (1642).

When the Saxos text was completed, it became clear that there was no printer in Denmark or in Holland who wanted to publish the extensive work. None of his friends were willing to finance the printing, so that the work would have been almost in vain if Chancellor Christian Thomesen Sehested had not procured the necessary paper with government support. In 1645, Saxonis Grammatici Historiæ Danicæ libri 16, notis uberioribus illustrati was finally published . The merit of collecting and copying all available sources on Denmark's history is hardly less, apparently with the intention of creating a collective edition, which he was prevented from doing because of his death. But this collection became an important groundwork for the work of the Danish historian Jacob Langebek 100 years later .

His later work was significantly hampered by the great financial consequences of Christian IV's unfortunate Kalmar War . He almost never got his wages on time, sometimes not at all. In addition there was an illness with severe pain. In his last lifetime he devoted himself particularly to the publication of his story Christian III. Historiæ Danicæ libri 2, qvi res memoratu dignas complectuntur in Dania gestas, regnant Chr. III from a. 1550 ad a. 1559 . But the work did not come out until some time after his death.

He left an extraordinarily large library and an enormous collection of manuscripts. His widow and friends tried to sell this collection to the state in exchange for the arrears wages and a small widow's pension. However, since there was insufficient interest, the widow sold the estate to Sweden, where some of the manuscripts are still available. It is thanks to this fact that the copies and excerpts of the old sources were not affected by the great fire of the university library in 1728, where it was destroyed.

This article is based on a public domain text from the Danish-language lexicon Dansk biografisk leksikon in the 1st edition from 1887 to 1905. Please only remove this note if you have revised or rewritten the article to the extent that the text reflects the current state of knowledge on this topic.