Canutus Hahn (1633-1687) was a Swedish clergyman who served as

bishop of Lund List of (arch)bishops of Lund. Until the Danish Reformation the centre of a great Latin (arch)bishopric, Lund has been in Sweden since the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. The Diocese of Lund is now one of thirteen in the Church of Sweden. Cathol ...

1680–1687. Hahn was born on 13 November 1633 in Skye in Uråsa parish (Kronoberg County), son of a farmer Abraham Knutsson Hahn. He went to school in Kalmar and Växjö, enrolled at the universities of Greifswald in 1652 and studied there and at Wittenberg and Rostock until 1654. He enrolled at Uppsala, and graduated as a magister in 1661. He became professor of philosophy at the gymnasium in Lund (now Katedralskolan) in 1662, and professor of logic and metaphysics at the newly established University of Lund in 1667, and was its

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

1669–1670. Ordained a clergyman in 1671, he served as vicar in

Ronneby Ronneby is a locality and the seat of Ronneby Municipality in Blekinge County, Sweden with 12,029 inhabitants in 2010. Ronneby is regarded as the heart of "the Garden of Sweden", and in 2005 the park "Brunnsparken" in Ronneby was voted Sweden's m ...

and

Backaryd Backaryd is a locality situated in Ronneby Municipality, Blekinge County, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of Swe ...

parishes in

Blekinge Blekinge (, old da, Bleking) is one of the traditional Swedish provinces (), situated in the southern coast of the geographic region of Götaland, in southern Sweden. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea. It is the country's second ...

1671–1679. In 1679, he was appointed vicar of

Landskrona Landskrona (old da, Landskrone) is a town in Scania, Sweden. Located on the shores of the Öresund, it occupies a natural port, which has lent the town at first military and subsequent commercial significance. Ferries operate from Landskrona t ...

parish and vice bishop of Lund, to assist the aging bishop

Peder Winstrup Peder Pedersen Winstrup (30 April 1605 – 28 December 1679) was Bishop of Lund in Scania. Winstrup was bishop there during a period spanning both Danish and Swedish sovereignty and periods of war when the land was contested. He was married to t ...

(who was also regarded as politically unreliable by the Swedish authorities). In 1680, after Winstrup's death, Hahn succeeded him as bishop of Lund (and pro-chancellor of Lund University). Hahn has been characterized (Olsson, see below) as a man less suited to learning than to practical issues, and his main achievement was as leader of the Swedification of the provinces Skåne and Blekinge. Through the

Treaty of Lund The Peace of Lund, signed on 16 September ( O.S.) / 26 September 1679, was the final peace treaty between Denmark–Norway and the Swedish Empire in the Scanian War. The war had started when Sweden on French initiative attacked Brandenburg-Prussi ...

in 1679, the former Danish provinces had been allowed the right to keep their Danish laws and customs. The realization of "uniformity" in church language, liturgy and education was a violation of the treaty but the war had convinced the Swedish authorities that it was necessary to push it through in order to retain the provinces. Hahn called in an assembly of parish priests from the diocese in 1681 and convinced them to send a request to Governor-General Rutger von Ascheberg for the realization of uniformity throughout the provinces. According to Hahn's biographer Bror Olsson, the Swedification went smoothly and was largely completed by his death in 1687. He was appointed bishop of Växjö in 1687 but died on 29 December of that year, before he could take office.

References

*Bror Olsson, "Hahn, Canutus",

Svenskt biografiskt lexikon ''Svenskt biografiskt lexikon'' () is a Swedish biographical dictionary, started in 1917. The first volume, covering names ''Abelin'' to ''Anjou'', was published in 1918. As of 2017, names from A to S are covered. Volumes # ABELIN – ANJOU (1 ...

vol. 17, pp 758 f. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hahn, Canutus 1633 births 1687 deaths Lutheran bishops of Lund 17th-century Lutheran bishops 17th-century Swedish people