Peder Winstrup

Peder Pedersen Winstrup (30 April 1605 – 28 December 1679) was Bishop of Lund in Scania. Winstrup was bishop there during a period spanning both Danish and Swedish sovereignty and periods of war when the land was contested. He was married to the Danish noblewoman, Dorothea von Andersen who was an influential person in her own right in Scania and known to be strongly pro-Danish.

Early life and education Winstrup was born in Copenhagen, then the capital of Denmark–Norway, on 30 April 1605. He was the son of Peder Jensen Vinstrup, Bishop of Zealand and professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen. After his father's death in 1614, his mother married his successor as bishop. Peder Winstrup the younger studied at the universities of Rostock, Wittenberg, Leipzig, and Jena in Germany and graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1633. In 1635, he was appointed royal chaplain in the household of King Christian IV. He was awarded a doctorate in theology in 1636 and was made bishop of Lund in 1638.

Career After Scania and the other provinces included in his diocese had been ceded to Sweden through the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, Winstrup pledged loyalty to his new sovereign, Charles X Gustav, and he was ennobled under the name Himmelstierna, a name he never actually used. In 1658, he suggested that a new university should be founded in Lund (at the location of the former Academy of Lund) and where there was already a renowned Latin School, but received little response from the king. When the Swedish authorities eventually decided to start up a university there a few years later, at least part of the initiative lay with a subordinate priest in the diocese, Bernhardus Oelreich, and Winstrup now turned against the idea.

After the University of Lund was officially inaugurated in 1668, Oelreich was appointed the prokansler ("pro-chancellor"), despite the statutes giving this position to the Bishop. After a long political struggle, Oelreich was sent off to Germany and Winstrup was appointed to this position in 1671. Despite rumours accusing him for lack of loyalty to the Swedish crown, he remained bishop until his death in 1679. The Swedish governor-general Sperling appointed a Swedish vice bishop to keep an eye on Winstrup during his later years and Winstrup very much resented this.