Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/336

318 so absolutely from the remaining population, and thus the laity was not wholly abandoned to ignorance. The result was that even in this period the Swedish language played a certain part in literature.

The number of historical works dating from the middle age is not large. The oldest is the "Chronica regni Gothorum," by (died 1486), compiled chiefly from rhymed chronicles. The number of works in other scientific departments is equally small. Worthy of notice, however, is the encyclopædia, written in the Swedish language about the beginning of the sixteenth century by the bishop, (died 1534), of which there are extant several sections (about medicine, mining, etc.), and which seems to have been compiled from foreign tongues.

The celebrated book, "Um Styrilsi kununga ok Höfdinga," (On the reign of kings and princes), occupies a very prominent place, and is justly regarded as the most valuable literary production from the Swedish middle age, and is a genuine ornament to Swedish literature. The authenticity of this very remarkable document which forms a parallel to the Norwegian "King's Mirror," has long been contested, but it has now been fully established that the oldest extant manuscript is from the fifteenth century, and it may even have been written in the first half of the fourteenth century. It presents a robust, fresh view of life, and is full of sound maxims, expressed in short, pregnant moral and political precepts, and may in this particular without hesitation be compared with Havamal and the proverbs of Solomon. It is, moreover, written in clear, vivid and comparatively pure Swedish. The author was evidently not a clergyman, for he is by no means friendly to the worldly power of the church. The various guesses in regard to the identity of the author are all void of foundation.

The old provincial laws are of invaluable importance to the history of the Swedish language and of social culture.