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Inger Larsson

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Inledning till Johannes Franckenius Botanologia

    2018. Inger Larsson, Urban Örneholm, Bengt Jonsell. Johannes Franckenius Botanologia

    Chapter

    Johannes Franckenius (1590–1661), whom Linnæus called ‘The father of Swedish botany’ was appointed professor of anatomy and botany at Uppsala University in 1628, making him Sweden’s first professor of botany. Mainly, however, he was interested in botanical pharmacology. Franckenius’ most significant botanical works are Speculum Botanicum and Speculum Botanicum Renovatum (Latin-Swedish plant lists) from the years 1638 and 1659 respectively. They mark the transition from the old remedy books and herbals to botanical (floristic) works and, according to Franckenius himself, they were for use in teaching. They are our oldest lists of Swedish plant names in which the plants are identified by a botanical expert, and consequently they are of great value to our understanding of early 17-th century botanical knowledge in Sweden. They have been commented on in detail by Professor Mats Rydén in his Johannes Franckenius och den svenska floran (Uppsala 2015).

    Less well known, and now largely overlooked, are the contents of Franckenius’ lectures in medicine, pharmacology and botany at Uppsala. They were given in Latin, as was the custom, and from the early 1640s a manuscript with lecture notes attributed to Franckenius has been preserved. These were published in Latin, in 1877, by Robert Fredrik Fristedt with the title Bota­nologia. This work, together with the two editions of Speculum, constitute our main sources of knowledge of botany and pharmacology in Sweden during the first half of the 17th century. The selection of plants in Botanologia and the many details of their alleged properties communicated in higher education are an important source to how the medical traditions of the Middle Ages and the 16th century were affected by the early scientific approach to botany and medicine of the 17th century. From the perspective of the history of ideas and science, nationally and internationally, and not least from a general cultural historical perspective Botanologia is of immense importance.

    Botanologia contains over 700 pre-Linnean names of around 550 species. The first editor, R. F. Fristedt, identified all the plants, and for this current edition Professor Bengt Jonsell has brought Fristedt's plant names into line with modern scientific terminology. Fristedt also entered the written sources he had used to identify Franckenius’ plant-names in his Latin edition. In the present edition all of Fristedt’s references are included, making it easier for interested readers to immerse themselves in the historical background of Botanologia.

    Botanologia has now been translated into Swedish, with a commentary concerning both the plant names and, to some extent, the Latin medical and pharmacological terminology. A slightly revised edition of Franckenius’ Latin manuscript with Fristedt’s comments is published in parallel to the Swedish translation.

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  • Medeltida klostergrunder på Island - vegetation och flora, kultur och reliktväxter, samtida växtnamn

    2012. Inger Larsson (et al.).

    Report

    Icelandic medieval monastic sites – vegetation and flora, cultural- and relict plants, contemporary plant-names The colonization of Iceland began in the late 9th century and in the year 1000 the Althing chose Christianity to replace paganism as the religion of the country. The bishopric of Skálholt was established in 1056 and Hólar in 1106. There are traces of twelve to fifteen monasteries, of which nine are recognized as having lasted for some time. Of these only Skriðuklaustur has been fully excavated, exhibiting a European building model. Viðeyjarklaustur and Kirkjubaejarklaustur have been partly excavated not revealing any specific monastic buildings as yet. Archaeobotanical investigations have only been undertaken on Viðey and at Skriðuklaustur. The exact localisation of the monastic buildings, or possible monastic cultivation. are only presumptions at all other places, as is the type of monastic building, whether traditional Icelandic farm type or continental monastery building type. The questions that this project seeks to answer are which cultivated plants on the whole, and garden plants in particular, were known and used in the medieval Icelandic monastic context, and whether it is possible to find medieval relict plants in connection with the Icelandic monastic sites. All monastic sites were surveyed for landscape and plants, and complete lists of the plants found are published in Bilaga 1. Medicinal, utility and ornamental plants, known in Iceland and abroad, have been recorded, but their status as true medieval monastic relict plants cannot be fully determined at this stage of research. The very special conditions in which a hitherto uninhabited island was colonized in some hundred years by people bringing and adapting their knowledge of farming, cultivating and using plants for both utility and pleasure led inevitably to a situation where common knowledge became integrated with the specific uses of plants and plant medicine in a monastic context. Many of the plants found today, such as Angelica, Alchemilla, Allium, Filipendula, Plantago or Sanguisorba have a medieval past as medicinal herbs. We cannot, however, establish for sure whether some of these plants’ properties were not common knowledge to the Icelanders of the Middle Ages but were specific monastic plants. The Icelandic monastic sites, as well as all Iceland, are today dominated by farming leaving little space for herbs to grow and survive. There are however traces of deliberate use and possibly cultivation of plants at Skriðuklaustur and Viðeyjarklaustur, although more archaeobotanical evidence from monastic sites is needed as well as an archeological search for traces of cultivation. This is required not only at these two sites but at all monastic sites in Iceland. Medieval plant-names tell us little since most of the medico-botanical literature are translations of the Dane Henrik Harpestræng’s works. The Icelandic laws, another source for plant-names, are heavily influenced by Norwegian law and therefore may only be used with caution for the documentation of Icelandic matters. Later historic plant-names, however, reveal many interesting details about the local use of some plants, although some of these names are loans from or translations of Scandinavian or German names and may not reveal anything about their local Icelandic use.

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  • Örtagården i Skalholt

    2012. Ingólfur Guðnason, Inger Larsson. Medeltida klostergrunder på Island - vegetation och flora, kultur och reliktväxter, samtida växtnamn

    Chapter
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