Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/344

326 in consideration of his great learning the sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. Here with his wife, who shared her husband's fate, he was treated with great severity. He was allowed to have books and writing materials, and during the twenty years he spent in prison, before death claimed him in 1637, he developed a startling literary activity.

His chief work is the "Scondia Illustrata," a history of Sweden, written partly in verse and partly in prose. The work was intended to consist of twenty parts, of which, however, the first to the thirteenth and the fifteenth made their appearance. Messenius believed that he was chosen by Providence to do this work, and that he partly for this purpose had to suffer his severe imprisonment. He proceeded with great thoroughness, and though the subject, particularly that part of it which relates to ancient Sweden, is treated in a very uncritical manner, still it is the first important step in this direction, and is even at present a valuable source of Swedish history of the sixteenth century. He entertained the hope that as a reward for his great work he would regain his freedom, but he died before the petition which he sent in had been considered. Besides the "Scondia Illustrata," Messenius produced several other historical works, among which are a bishop's chronicle, and the chronicle of St. Birgitta. They are written in Swedish, and a portion of them is in rhymed verses. Further on we shall have occasion to mention another side of his literary industry.

With the exception mentioned in the preceding chapter, the writing of dramas began in Sweden in the sixteenth century. For this kind of literature there was a peculiar element at hand, namely the "dance-plays," which had been very popular with the people from time out of mind, and which had been far more widely used in Sweden than in Denmark and Norway. On the basis of these plays Sweden might have developed a peculiar dramatic literature for the stage,