Johan Peringskiöld
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Johan Peringskiöld was the name of two generations of linguists and antiquarians in the 17th and 18th centuries.
[edit] Johan Peringskiöld, the elder
Johan Peringskiöld was born in Strängnäs October 6, 1654 and died in Stockholm March 24, 1720.
His father was Lars Fredrik Peringer, a senior master at the gymnasium and his mother Anna Maria Mulich. He began his studies at Uppsala University in 1677 and he was an ardent student of the national antiquities. In 1680, he received a position at the newly established college of antiquities. He advanced to the position of clerk at the college in 1682, and he could then accompany Johan Hadorph on scientific excursions in the countryside, during which he listed and made drawings of runestones, hill forts, grave fields and other prehistoric monuments.
In 1689, he was appointed deputy judge, and in 1693, he was knighted and received the name Peringskiöld as a sign of his nobility. In 1693, he was also appointed secretary of the college of antiquities, a task which was added to his work as a translator of Icelandic sources. In 1711, he left the work as translator to his son, and in 1719, he applied to be removed from his offices. The request was granted and he received instead the title of chancellor, and the following year, he died.
He assiduously created an extensive collection on his country's history, but some of it was destroyed in the fire of Stockholm Palace in 1697. What remains of his work is stored in the Swedish national archives and library. Like that of most historians of his time, his work lacked the scholarly criticism of modern days.
[edit] Johan Peringskiöld, the younger
Johan Peringskiöld was born on September 13, 1689, in Stockholm, and he died March 2, 1725. Johan studied at Uppsala and was appointed as his father's successor in 1712 as "translator antiquitatum" at the archive of antiquities. In 1719, he was appointed secretary and antiquarian, and he succeeded his father in 1720. He interpreted Adam of Bremen's description of Sweden (1718) and Jordanes' work Getica (1719), and he published Sögubrot af nokkurum fornkonungum í Dana- ok Svíaveldi (1719) in both Old Norse and translated form. Moreover, he translated Hjálmþés saga ok Ölvis (1720), Fragmentum runicopapisticum (1721) and Ásmundar saga kappabana (1722), in addition to publishing his father's translation of Ættartolur.
[edit] References
- Hofberg, H; Heurlin, F; Millqvist, V; Rubenson, O. (1909). Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon, tome II. p. 296 and p. 297. Stockholm, Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri.
- The article Peringskiöld in Nordisk familjebok (1915).
