The History of the Reformation in Sweden

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. OLAUS PBTEI. Op the smith Peter Olofsson, of Orebro, and his wife, Christna Larsdotter, were bom two sons: Olof, in the year 1497, and Lars, in 1499. Their father died in 1521. The mother afterward lived a widow for four-and-twenty years; enriched, amid cares and joys, by the zeal and conduct of her children; a witness of the disappointments of the elder, of the eminence of both. She saw, at her death, in 1545, the one aa shepherd of the chief church of Stockholm, the other as archbishop of Sweden. In the Roman church, whose law respecting Ihe celibacy of her clergy does not allow them to leave a legitimate issue, the dedication of a son to that office is regarded as an offering to God on the part of the parent. Whether it were such a motive, or the desire of improvement, according to the ideas of the times, that induced the parents of Olof and Lars, who were well disposed for study, to devote their sons to the offices of the church and literature, wo do not venture to decide. The opportunity of acquiring the elements of learning was afforded by the site of their patrimony, in the neighborhood of the monastery of the Carmelites. This order, which counted its own descent from the prophet Elisha, came originally from the monastery on mount Carmel, in Palestine; a hill, from remote times, the abode of Eremites, who, in memory of the prophets Elisha and Elijah, there established their seat. The order was translated, in the thirteenth century, to western Europe, where, in theyear 1245, it held of the pope the privileges of a begging order, for the redemption of the holy land. They came to the North slowly, and few in numbers. In the year 1407 was founded a monastery at Landskrona. In old Sweden the only monastery was at Orebro; probably founded in 1418. It...