Johannes Vastovius

Who is Johannes Vastovius?

Johannes Vastovius was a Swedish priest and writer in the late reformation period.

Vastovius was a convert to Roman Catholicism and one of the followers of Polish-Swedish king Sigismund III Vasa. He became protonotarius publicus and canon in Warmia in Poland, and served Sigismund as chaplain and librarian. He is best known for his Vitis aquilonia, a collection of stories or legends of Scandinavian, mostly Swedish, saints from about 850 until the early 16th century, which was printed in Cologne in 1623. A new edition of the Vitis aquilonia was published in Uppsala in 1708 with comments by Erik Benzelius the Younger, who praised the carefulness and clarity of style of Vastovius. A 20th-century Swedish historian and philologist, on the other hand, has characterized the Vitis aquilonia as a "young and unclear" source in relationship to its medieval subject matter.