Anders Sunesen

Who was Anders Sunesen?

Anders Sunesen was a Danish archbishop of Lund, Scania, from 21 March 1201, at the death of Absalon, to his own death in 1228. He is the author of the Latin translation of the Scanian Law and was throughout his life engaged in integrating a Christian worldview into the old legislature. He managed to introduce tithe despite the resistance this measure had met from the population of Scania during Absalon's time, but his efforts to convince the priests of his day about the merits of celibacy was based mostly on his own example and relied on oratory rather than legal maneuvering. To educate the priests and to forward his ideas, especially about the integration between church and state, he wrote a didactic poem, Hexaëmon, consisting of 8,040 verses of Latin hexameter.

A nephew of Absalon and a member of the religious and political elite, Sunesen was well-traveled, having received his education in theology and philosophy in Paris, France, and his legal education in Bologna, Italy and at Oxford, England.