Olaus Verelius

Olof Verelius ( born February 12, 1618 Häsleby parish, Jönköping County, † January 3, 1682 in Uppsala ) was a Swedish language and antiquary.

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

Career

He studied at Dorpat in 1633 and 1638 in Uppsala. Axel Oxenstierna hired him as a teacher of 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 meant that this plant was used as a reading book for teaching Latin. In 1652 he became professor of rhetoric at Dorpat, but resigned this job to never. In 1653 he received the post of Treasurer to the Academy in Uppsala, which he held until 1679. 1662 he was appointed to the specially created for him Chair of "Swedish Antiquities". In 1666 he became Reich and Archivist Assessor in antiquity College. In 1675 he resigned from this office. In 1679 he was university librarian while retaining his professorship.

Work

Since Jón Rugmann had brought many Icelandic manuscripts to Uppsala to Verelius dealt intensively with the Old Norse language and antiquities. His sense of duty coupled with technical rigor and intolerance, which resulted in the years 1672-1681 a bitter academic dispute between him and his colleague and former friend John Schefferus on the situation of the pagan temple of Uppsala. He came from an ancient knowledge of the ancestors, while Schefferus argued more historical- critical. So embittered this dispute in the later years of life was, so he had the fruit to justify the beginning of a scientific method in the treatment of old traditions. A great merit Verelius acquired with the creation of an Icelandic lexicon index Linguae Veteris scytho - scandicæ immersive gothicæ ( Ed. 0 Rudbeck, Uppsala 1691). He translated in 1664 along with Schefferus the Icelandic Gautreks saga and the saga Hrólfs Gautrekssonar, 1666 Bosa saga ok Herrauðs, 1672 Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks and more. He also wrote the script runologische Olav Vereli Manuductio compendiosa ad runographiam Scandicam antiquam. Uppsala: Henricus Curio, 1675, in Latin and Swedish.