Anna Fickesdotter Bülow
摘要
Anna Fickesdotter Bülow (1440s–1519) was the abbess of Vadstena Abbey, a Birgittine monastery in Sweden, in the early sixteenth century. She came from an aristocratic family of German and Danish origin and entered Vadstena Abbey in 1462 to become a Birgittine nun. She was elected abbess of Vadstena Abbey in 1501 and remained in this office until her death in 1519. Anna Fickesdotter was described as a learned woman in the Diarium Vadstenense, the monastery’s memorial book. She contributed to the monastery’s literary production as author, translator, and supervisor of the sisters’ manuscript production. Among her translations are the Legend of Saint Joachim and the Revelations of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, which were part of a compilation of texts intended for the sisters’ table reading. Around 1515, she also wrote Chronicon Genealogicum, one of the earliest genealogical chronicles in medieval Sweden, which was printed in 1718. The chronicle was written on behalf of the bishop of Linköping and contains information about Anna Fickesdotter’s own family history, personal memories, as well as a survey of kinship relations within the Swedish aristocracy mainly from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries.