Hans Brask

2.2 Linköping Cathedral’s paper register (Linköping, Diocesan Library, Kh 54)) 2.2.1 Editions Hans Brask, who was son of the chief magistrate of Linköping, was to begin with educated in Skara, whereas his higher education took place in the 1480s, in Rostock and Greifswald. Hence he belonged to the generation of students that preceded the emergence of Humanism at these universities. By Bishop Henrik Tidemansson of Linköping, Brask was commissioned to carry out the printing of the Breviarium Lincopense , a task which was accomplished in Nuremberg in 1493. The sojourns in Germany gave a stimulus to his interest in both handicraft and cooking. Most likely he received the degree of iuris utriusque baccalaureus in Leipzig. After his return to Sweden, he was made chancellor at the episcopal court of Linköping. Bishop Tidemansson, who pursued a politic of centralization in the diocese, and Archbishop Jakob Ulvsson, whose politics aimed at a peaceful kingdom and a strengthened Council, both served as role models to Brask. At the turn of the century, he spent some years in Rome. As episcopal legate and as aspirant for higher ecclesiastical offices, he got insight into papal administration and bureaucracy, and, at some point, he received a doctorate of Canon Law. Before the departure from Rome, Brask was appointed to provost of Linköping, of which his adversary Hemming Gadh was the bishop elect, and to his new office was added a responsibility for the administration of the diocese. Brask had other official duties as well: as councillor he took an active part in several official assemblies. In addition, he also gained vast knowledge about the royal archives, from which he made transcriptions and inventories of records dealing with the relationship between church and regent as well as territorial claims of the kingdom (SCHÜCK 1976). In 1513, Hans Brask was appointed and ordained Bishop of Linköping. Some years later, in 1515, he performed the translation of the remains of Nicolaus Hermanni") . The ideal of a powerful and sovereign church and a state primarily governed by the Council characterized the politics of Brask. Due to his vast business in estates he made, however, several enemies among the aristocracy and the bourgeois. In the struggle for power between Sten Sture the Younger, i.e. the then regent, and Archbishop Gustav Trolle, Brask took up the role as mediator, but was in 1517 eventually forced to seal the Council’s non-canonical removal of Archbishop Trolle. Hoping that the enemies of the church should meet with a just retribution, Brask joined the Union king, the Dane Christian II. After the Massacre of Stockholm in 1520 when several prominent Swedes, for example two bishops, were executed, he took up another attitude. The events of 1520 had made Brask one of two bishops resident in Sweden. In the following year, Brask joined Gustav Eriksson (Vasa), who was elected as king in 1523. At this point, Brask indulged in great expectations of how the government of the young nobleman would change the state of affairs, both as revenge for the unheard territorial claims of Sweden within the Union of Kalmar as well as more peaceful situation of the ecclesiastical province of Sweden. The politics of the new king fell, however, short of the bishop’s expectations and instead the diocese of Linköping had to make vast financial contributions to the Crown. Furthermore, although counteracted by the king himself, Brask fought for the elected bishops to obtain papal confirmation. By way of his contacts in Rome and Lübeck, he continuously obtained information about the activities of the Lutheran movement. Hence, as one of the first, he supported the use of harsh means, i.e. inquisitorial, towards the Lutheran movement in Sweden, but mostly had to do so much on his own. Nonetheless, Brask collected and also distributed polemic, i.e. anti-Lutheran, writings, in particular letters and pamphlets by e.g. Henry VIII, John Fisher, Johann Eck, Kaspar Sch