A short history of... Uppsala University

Uppsala’s History

Uppsala University

Welcome to the new Uppsala history series written by me (Jonatan Gustafsson)! I will be writing short articles about historic places in your new home Uppsala! This first article will be about Uppsala university, it´s foundation and history up till the 18th century.

Uppsala university is the oldest university in the Nordic countries. The Nordic countries are Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. The university was founded in year 1477 by the catholic archbishop Jakob Ulfsson. The archbishop received a order by Pope Sixtus VI in February that year to establish an institution to educate priests. The university started it´s education in October that same year. When Gustav Vasa became the first protestant king, the universities catholic activities were disbanded in the mid-1500s after the protestant reformation. The university was later reopened in 1953.

Many famous Swedish historical figures have donated to and expanded the university. One of the most famous is king Gustav Adolf II who donated 400 farms, crofts, windmills and forests in Uppland and Västmanland to the university. In 2007 the estimated value of this donation today is 2 billion crowns. During this time Sweden was expanding it´s power and the king wanted to increase the kingdoms intellectual prowess in order to make Sweden Europe’s new great power. Perhaps the most valuable donation the university has ever received is the gothic Silver bible, it was written during the 6th century and was donated to the university in 1669. It first came to Sweden in 1648 as a war trophy from Prague. During the 17th and 18th century natural science became an immensely popular field of study. Science and reason ruled during the 18th century. Some of the most famous scientists attended the university, such as Olof Rudbeck, Anders Celsius and Carl von Linné.

By Jonatan Gustafsson