General Knowledge: The murder at Locus Peccatorum

Do you feel like CSN is not enough? Well, I do too. But when we think about it, the situation is pretty good, after all. If we would jump into the time machine and travel back in time, all the way back to 1829, there would be a whole different situation. And no, the students…

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Do you feel like CSN is not enough? Well, I do too. But when we think about it, the situation is pretty good, after all. If we would jump into the time machine and travel back in time, all the way back to 1829, there would be a whole different situation. And no, the students during the early 19th century did not live like Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. Many of the students in Lund lived a life in sharp contrast to the life of the upper class, or in contrast to how students in Lund live today. The majority could not even afford food at a local inn, so to solve that problem, they had to beg for food from females in the city, and the quality of that food was said to be anything else than good. Also, a number of students had bad behaviour, causing several incidents on the streets of Lund. The peak of this, however, occurred in 1829, when a student named Jacob Wilhelm Blomdahl beat his study mate Anders Emanuel Landén to death as the result of a conflict between the two students. Blomdahl was a theology student from Västergötland who came to Lund in 1825. Landén was also studying theology and came from Bohuslän. Both of them were members in Göteborgs Nation.

It is unsure what actually triggered the conflict between the two of them, but some say that Blomdahl wanted Landén to pay a debt, which Landén refused to do. Some people also believed that they adored the same girl, which could be seen as another trigger point between the two of them. A third reason to why Blomdahl committed the murder might have been a mental illness. Worth mentioning is that Blomdahl had a hard time studying in Lund, with bad results in school and he was also sick for a longer period. He had therefore decided to leave Lund and join the military. Blomdahl visited Landén on the 7th of september in his home, a room at a student house in central Lund, only two days before he planned to leave the city. There, the two of them got into a fight. Out of the two, Blomdahl were more skilled than Landén in combat. When Landén was hit in the head, he fainted, and Blomdahl kept on beating him until he died.

Landén’s body was left by Blomdahl outside another house on Adelsgatan. When it was discovered the morning after, a track of blood led directly to Landéns room, in which Blomdahl was found, along with Landén’s keys and his wallet. The funeral of Landén was found only three days after Blomdahl committed the murder. There could be no doubt Blomdahl was guilty, and he was later executed by beheading. Back in the 19th century, the city of Lund had a spot where all executions took place, located close to the area in between Getingvägen and Norra Ringen where we today can find stables. Landén’s name was deleted from the member’s register at Gothenburg Nation, of which he was a member.

As a result of this incident, other students and professors realized that something needed to be done to improve the situation of the students besides their studies, as the current situation could not provide them with enough stimulance. After a couple of years, the institution we today know as the Academic Society (AF) was founded. This would allow the students to interact with each other under more regulated conditions with more stimulance. The building in which the murder was committed was a student house until 1898, in which the house came into the possession of Kulturhistoriska Föreningen (Kulturen), who still owns the building today. It is located on the backside of Akademiska föreningen, just next to the entrance of ‘’Källarsalen’’ at AF-borgen.You might recognize it as a house looking a bit misplaced, built centuries ago, made out of wood and brickstones. It was actually built centuries ago, and a lot of things have for sure happened, among them a murder. Since then, the house is known as ‘’Locus Peccatorum’’ – The house of sins.

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