Andrew of Lund

ANDREW OF LUND (ANDERS SUNESÖN): Archbishop of Lund; b. at Knarthorp (3 m. n.w. of Copenhagen) about 1160; d. on the island of Ivö (in Lake Ivö, near Lund) June 24, 1228. He came of the noble family of Hvide whose members filled the highest offices in Church and State. In 1182 he went to Paris, completed his studies there, and, returning in 1190, was made dean of the cathedral of Roeskilde, where his elder brother was bishop. Canute VI. made him at the same time court-chancellor. In 1194-96 he was on mission to Rome and Paris in regard to the repudiation, by Philip Augustus of France, of his wife Ingeborg, a sister of the Danish king. In 1201 Andrew succeeded Absalon as archbishop of Lund, an office which carried with it the dignities of primate and papal legate.

Andrew was zealous in the suppression of concubinage among the priesthood, active in raising the standard of learning among them, and an enemy to the sale of indulgences. In 1206 he preached a crusade against the heathen inhabitants of the island of Oesel off the coast of Esthonia. When Albert of Riga was compelled to seek the aid of the Danes against the Russians and Esthonians in 1218, he agreed to place the bishopric of Esthonia under the authority of the archbishop of Lund, and in the following year Andrew was engaged in regulating the affairs of that see. In 1223 he resigned his office and retired to the island of Ivö in the lake of the same name, achieving a reputation for wonder-working sanctity. He was the author of Lex Scandiæ provincialis (ed. P. G. Thorsen, Copenhagen, 1853) and Hexaëmeron (ed. M. C. Gertz, ib. 1892), a dogmatic poem in twelve books, expository of the theology of Peter Lombard.

(F. Nielsen).

Bibliography: P. E. Müller, Vita Andreæ Sunonis, Archiepiscopi Lundensis, Copenhagen, 1830; F. Hammerich, En skolastiker og en Bibeltheolog fra Norden, ib. 1865.