Lund

Lund (Londinum Gothorum), a city of Gothland, in the extreme south of Sweden, by rail 374 miles SW. of Stockholm and 10 NE. of Malmö. In the 10th century it was a large and powerful city, was made a bishopric in 1048, and an archbishopric in 1104. The archbishop claimed ecclesiastical supremacy over the whole of Scandinavia. At the same period Lund was the chief seat of the Danish power in the Scandinavian peninsula, and for a long period the capital of the Danish kingdom; at the epoch of its greatest prosperity it is said to have had 200,000 inhabitants. But after the introduction of the Reformation by Christian III. in 1536, the city began to decay, and had sunk down to a mere village before the end of the 17th century. The principal building is the fine Romanesque cathedral, dating from the 11th century; it has an imposing crypt. Lund owes its revival to the founding there of a university in 1668 by Charles XI. It is now attended by about 800 students, and has a library of 120,000 volumes and 3000 MSS., an excellent zoological museum, and a botanic garden. Tegnér was a professor from 1813 to 1826, and here he composed his masterpiece, Frithjof. Pop. (1885) 14,835.