Editing Frederick II of Denmark (section)

== Areas of interest ==
[[File:Portrait_of_Frederick_II,_King_of_Denmark_and_Norway_by_Hendrick_Goltzius_Rijksdienst_voor_het_Cultureel_Erfgoed_NK1360.jpg|left|thumb|342x342px|Frederick II in his later years.]]
=== University of Copenhagen ===
Frederick was a great [[Patronage|patron]] of the [[University of Copenhagen]], where he introduced educational reforms in the 1570s and 1580s. Frederik increased the university's budget almost exponentially, expanding the size of its teaching staff and providing substantially higher salaries.<ref name=":32">Lockhart, Paul D., page 78</ref> While demanding higher educational standards from the priesthood, Frederick and his advisers provided more support for impoverished students. One hundred students, selected by the faculty, received room and board free of fee from the crown, each for a period of five years. Four especially promising students would be awarded the ''stipendium regium'', which paid all costs for [[International student|study abroad]] so long as the recipient returned to [[Copenhagen]] to finish his doctorate.<ref name=":32"/>

=== Medicine ===
The interests of Frederik II and his intellectual circle of wise men were more wide-ranging than that of [[Christian III of Denmark|his father]]'s [[Theology|theological]] one. Frederik had a strong proclivity for [[Paracelsianism|Paracelsian medicine]]: in 1571 he appointed Johannes Pratensis to the medical faculty of the [[University of Copenhagen]], and in the same year [[Petrus Severinus]] became his personal physician. Severinus wielded considerable influence among Paracelsian practitioners, following the publication of his Idea ''medicinæ philosophicæ'' (1571).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Shackelford, Jole.|title=A philosophical path for Paracelsian medicine: the ideas, intellectual context, and influence of Petrus Severinus (1540/2-1602)|date=2004|publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Cophenhagen|isbn=978-87-7289-817-9|location=Copenhagen|oclc=56966680}}</ref>

=== Alchemy, astrology and Tycho Brahe ===
[[File:Tycho_Brahe.JPG|thumb|383x383px|[[Tycho Brahe]]]]
Frederik II's fascination with [[alchemy]] and [[astrology]], common to contemporary sovereigns, sped the rise of the astronomer [[Tycho Brahe]] to international renown as a pioneer in Europe's [[Scientific Revolution]]. Tyge Brahe came from the highest ranks of the Danish ruling elite: his father, [[Otte Brahe]] til Knudstrup, was a fiefholder in [[Scania]] and a member of the [[Council of the Realm (Denmark)|Council of the Realm]], as was Tyge's brother {{ill|Axel Brahe|da|Axel Ottesen Brahe}}.<ref name=":25">Lockhart, Paul D., page 80</ref><ref name=":34">{{cite web|title=Life and Times of Tycho Brahe|url=http://reformation.org/tycho-brahe.html|access-date=15 August 2016|publisher=reformation.org}}</ref><ref name=":35">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://denstoredanske.dk/Danmarks_geografi_og_historie/Danmarks_historie/Danmark_1536-1849/J%C3%B8rgen_Brahe_-_Havn?highlight=J%C3%B8rgen%20Thygesen%20Brahe|title=Jørgen (Thygesen) Brahe|encyclopedia=Den Store Danske|access-date=15 August 2016}}</ref>

After an extensive education abroad, Tycho Brahe returned to Denmark not to pursue a career in state service as men of his blood typically did, but instead retreated to the [[monastery]] at [[Herrevad Abbey|Herrevad]],<ref name=":35" /> where he and his maternal uncle [[Steen Bille|Sten Bille]] experimented with the manufacture of paper and glass and maintained a private [[observatory]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Christianson, John Robert.|title=On Tycho's island: Tycho Brahe, science, and culture in the sixteenth century|date=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-00884-0|oclc=899038154}}</ref> Brahe's treatise on the [[supernova]] that appeared in [[Cassiopeia (constellation)|Cassiopeia]] in November 1572, published at the behest of the rigshofmester [[Peder Oxe]], brought his activities to the attention of Frederik and his court.<ref name=":26">{{Cite journal|last=West|first=Mary Lou|date=2001–2008|title=On Tycho's Island: Tycho Brahe and His Assistants, 1570–1601 On Tycho's Island: Tycho Brahe and His Assistants, 1570–1601|journal=Physics Today|volume=54|issue=8|page=47|doi=10.1063/1.1404849|s2cid=177365048 |issn=0031-9228|doi-access=free}}</ref> At the king's insistence, Brahe took up a lectureship at the [[University of Copenhagen]] in 1574,<ref name=":34" /> and two years later he was granted the island of [[Ven (Sweden)|Ven]] as his [[fief]].<ref name=":27">{{Cite book|author=Thoren, Victor E. |author2=Christianson, J. R. |title=The Lord of Uraniborg: a Biography of Tycho Brahe|date=1991|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-511-66541-7|oclc=776969800}}</ref> As a fiefholder, he turned out to be a minor disaster, but the observatory at his residence, [[Uraniborg]], drew students from all over Europe. From 1576 until his expulsion by [[Christian IV of Denmark|Christian IV]] in 1597, Brahe supervised the first publicly funded scientific research institute in European history.<ref name=":26" /><ref name=":27" />

=== Character as patron of science ===
In his later life, Frederik was fiscally cautious in all matters of state, but he gave an abundance of royal support when it was directed towards the life of the mind. Even after he dismissed [[Niels Hemmingsen|Hemmingsen]] from the [[University of Copenhagen]] in 1579, for example, he made sure that the theologian still had a gracious salary and the opportunity to study. [[Tycho Brahe]] received not only [[Ven (Sweden)|Ven]] as a 'free fief', but also several other [[fief]]s, [[canonries]], and farms in [[Scania]] to fund his work at [[Uraniborg]].<ref name=":32"/>

Frederik himself picked out the island of [[Ven (Sweden)|Ven]] as a place where Brahe could conduct his experiments without distraction. Perhaps the king was driven, in part, by a desire to enhance Denmark's reputation among the great nations of Europe, but even so he demonstrated a finely tuned appreciation for intellectual talent.<ref name=":25" />

As Frederick is alleged to have said to Brahe:<ref name=":32" />{{Blockquote|text=I will sail over to the island [Hven] from time to time and see your work in astronomy and chemistry, and gladly support your investigations, not because I have any understanding of astronomical matters ... but because I am your king and you my subject ... . I see it as my duty to support and promote something like this|author=Frederick II to Tycho Brahe|title=|source=}}

=== Hunting, drinking and feasting ===
[[File:Gamle Frederiksborg c 1585.jpg|thumb|502x502px|Hillerødsholm Castle (later [[Frederiksborg Castle]]) one of Frederick's favourite hunting-castles. Painting at [[Gripsholm Castle]].]]
Frederick's areas of interest did not consist only of [[Theology|theological]] and [[Science|scientific]] ones. Frederick is known very well for his love of [[hunting]], [[drinking]] and [[Banquet|feasting]].<ref name=":31" /> In his youth and in the start of his reign this was a way for Frederick to get away from the Danish court and its formalities.<ref name=":15" /> However, in Frederick's later reign he began using hunting and feasting as a political tool. In the peacetime years of his reign, Frederick would maintain a peripatetic court, moving from residence to residence throughout the Danish countryside, spending a fair share of his time [[hunting]]. This allowed him the opportunity to meet members of the [[Riksråd|Council]] individually and informally, in their own home regions. Most of his business with the [[Council of the Realm (Denmark)|Council of the Realm]] was therefor done on a one-to-one basis.<ref name=":15" /> This ensured a very close personal bond with each member of the council while minimizing the opportunity for the council to oppose him as a body. Frederik's personable disposition undoubtedly helped.<ref name=":32" />

==== Informal nature of court life ====
The king [[Hunting|hunted]], [[Banquet|feasted]], and drank with his [[councillor]]s and [[adviser]]s, and even with visiting European [[Dignitary|foreign dignitaries]], treating them as his peers and companions rather than as political opponents or inferiors. The eighteenth-century chronicler [[Ludvig Holberg]] claimed that when dining at the court of Frederick II, he would frequently announce that 'the king is not at home', which signalled to his guests that all court [[Formality|formalities]] were temporarily suspended, and that they could talk and joke as they pleased without restraint. The Danish court may have appeared unsophisticated to outside observers, but the openness and bawdiness of court life served Frederik's political purposes.<ref name=":15" />