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Chap. VII.
THE CONVENT.
97
the warrior Archbishop of Lund, friend and adviser of
Valdemar the Great, and Esbern Snare.
It was Archbishop Absalon who, in conjunction with
his brother Esbern Snare, rebuilt and enlarged the
convent of Sorø, which greatly flourished during the
Valdemerian dynasty, but later fell into decadence, as the
epitaph of the last abbot is supposed to express, though
I really see no reason why it should more allude to the
state of the monastery than to the general transitory
events of this world. It runs—
“ Quicquis es humanis noli confidere rebus,
Jam mihi est magnum quin quod esse nihil.”
Then later * the convent was wholly suppressed, and
added to the fiefs of the crown, and a school founded
for thirty sons of the nobility. Among the many
personages of note who have been here educated may
be enumerated Frederic III. himself, at that time not
heir presumptive to the crown; Prince Valdemar, eldest
son of Christian IV. by Christina Munk; and many others.
Charles Gustavus of Sweden, too, here received his
early instruction; and when in 1659 he had reduced
nearly the whole of Zealand under his yoke, with a
proper feeling of gratitude towards the “ alma mater ”
ships, and were laying waste the country. Absalon hastily armed his
church vassals, with as many of the neighbouring peasantry as he could
collect, and, making a sudden onset upon the enemy, drove them back
to their ships with slaughter. No archbishop of Lund ever equalled
Absalon in grandeur, in whose favour his predecessor, worn out with
age, abdicated; but Absalon refused the honour. “ Nolo
Archiepis-copari,” he protested, “unless I may retain Roeskilde as well.” He
got his own way, and was henceforth styled “ Archbishop of Lund,”
“ Bishop of Roeskilde,” “ Grand Marshal of the realm,” “ First Captain
by sea and by land.”
* In 1580.
VOL. I.
II
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