Anna Germundsdotter or ''Girmundsdotter'' (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

; ''Anna Germundi'', died 23 March 1538) was a Swedish writer and Roman Catholic nun of the

Bridgettine The Bridgettines, or Birgittines, formally known as the Order of the Most Holy Savior (; abbreviated OSsS), is a monastic religious order of the Catholic Church founded by Saint Birgitta or Bridget of Sweden in 1344, and approved by Pope Urban ...

order and

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic ...

of the

Vadstena Abbey The Abbey Pax Mariae ( la, Monasterium sanctarum Mariæ Virgìnis et Brigidæ in Vatzstena), more commonly referred to as Vadstena Abbey, situated on Lake Vättern in the Diocese of Linköping, Sweden, was the motherhouse of the Bridgettine Orde ...

from 1518 until 1529.

Life

Anna Germundsdotter was from

Söderköping Söderköping is a locality and the seat of Söderköping Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 6,992 inhabitants in 2010. Söderköping is, despite its small population, for historical reasons normally still referred to as a ''town''. ...

and the maternal niece of Ingemund Petrusson,

Canon (priest) A canon (from the Latin , itself derived from the Greek , , "relating to a rule", "regular") is a member of certain bodies in subject to an ecclesiastical rule. Originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a clergy house or, later, i ...

of the

Linköping Cathedral Linköping Cathedral ( sv, Linköpings domkyrka) is an active Lutheran church in the Swedish city of Linköping, the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Linköping in the Church of Sweden. One of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Europe, it is situat ...

. She became a member of the Brigettine order of the Vadstena Abbey in 1489. She was the author of the ''Codex Holm. A 3'', a list documenting the rules of the abbey, from 1502. In 1518, she was elected abbess by a majority of votes from the monks but a minority of votes from the nuns of the double convent, but the bishop granted her the election victory and had her installed as abbess. She hosted king

Christian II of Denmark Christian II (1 July 1481 – 25 January 1559) was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union who reigned as King of Denmark and Norway, from 1513 until 1523, and Sweden from 1520 until 1521. From 1513 to 1523, he was concurrently Duke ...

in 1521. In circa 1526, the famous scandal about '' Liten Agda och Olof Tyste'' was to have taken place at the abbey, and the following year, when the

Swedish Reformation The Reformation in Sweden is generally regarded as having begun in 1527 during the reign of King Gustav I of Sweden, but the process was slow and did not end definitively until the Uppsala Synod of 1593 and the following War against Sigismund, with ...

was introduced, king

Gustav I of Sweden Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson of the Vasa noble family and later known as Gustav Vasa (12 May 1496 – 29 September 1560), was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death in 1560, previously self-recognised Protector of the Realm ('' Riksföre ...

gave instructions to the abbess through Bishop

Hans Brask *Hans Brask (1464–1538) was a Swedish Bishop of Linköping. Biography Brask was born in Linköping in 1464 to a bourgeois family. He studied philosophy and law at German universities, e.g. Rostock, and around 1500 he received a doctoral degr ...

, with reference to the scandalous elopement of the nun Agda, who had been placed in the abbey against her will, with her lover Olof, that no-one should be allowed to become a nun at the abbey in the future without permission from the monarch. The existing members were also given royal permission to leave the convent if the wished to do so: some of the younger nuns made use of this permit, and the abbess Anna Germundsdotter was forbidden to stop them.Historiskt bibliotek utgifvet af Carl Silfverstolpe
/ref> In 1529, two monks and their confessor attended the

Örebro Synod The Örebro Synod took place at Candlemas in Örebro in Sweden in 1529. It was the first Synod in Sweden since the introduction of the Protestant Swedish Reformation in 1527, and regarded as the theological completion of the Reformation, following t ...

, and was noted to have changed their sympathies to the Protestant reformers. The same year, Anna Germundsdotter chose to resign as abbess and retire as an ordinary member of the convent.

Notes

References

* Syster Patricia, OSsS 2003: ”Vadstena klosters abbedissor”. I: Beskow, Per & Annette Landen (red.) Birgitta av Vadstena. Pilgrim och profet 1303–1373. Natur och Kultur, Stockholm. S. 297–314.
Historiskt bibliotek utgifvet af Carl Silfverstolpe
* http://www.sofi.se/images/smp/pdf/germund.pdf
Vadstena klosters minnesbok [microform] Diarium vazstenense (1918)
* http://www.nordlund.lu.se/Fornsvenska/Fsv%20Folder/Person.html {{authority control 1538 deaths Year of birth missing Bridgettine nuns Swedish Roman Catholic abbesses 16th-century Swedish nuns 16th-century Swedish women writers