Lund

Lund, a city of Sweden, the seat of a bishop, in the district (län) of Malmöhus, 10 m. N.E. of Malmö by rail. Pop. (1900) 16,621. A university was founded here in 1668 by Charles XI., with faculties of law, medicine, theology and philosophy. The number of students ranges from 600 to 800, and there are about 50 professors. Its library of books and MSS. is entitled to receive a copy of every work printed in Sweden. Important buildings include the university hall (1882), the academic union of the students (1851) containing an art museum; the astronomical observatory, built in 1866, though observations have been carried on since 1760; the botanical museum, and ethnographical and industrial art collections, illustrating life in southern Sweden from early times. Each student belongs to one of twelve nations (landskap), which mainly comprises students from a particular part of the country. The Romanesque cathedral was founded about the middle of the 10th century. The crypt under the raised transept and choir is one of the largest in the world, and the church is one of the finest in Scandinavia. A statue of the poet Esaias Tegner stands in the Tegners Plads, and the house in which he lived from 1813 to 1826 is indicated by an inscribed stone slab. The chief industries are sugar-refining, iron and brick works, and the manufacture of furniture and gloves.

Lund (Londinum Gothorum), the “Lunda at Eyrarsund” of Egil’s Saga, was of importance in Egil’s time (c. 920). It appears that, if not actually a seaport, it was at least nearer the Sound than now. In the middle of the 11th century it was made a bishopric, and in 1103 the seat of an archbishop who received primatial rank over all Scandinavia in 1163, but in 1536 Lund was reduced to a bishopric. Close to the town, at the hill of Sliparabacke, the Danish kings used to receive the homage of the princes of Skare, and a monument records a victory of Charles XI. over the Danes (1676), which extinguished the Danish claim to suzerainty over this district.