Paus family

The Paus family is a Norwegian dynastic and genealogical family associated with Oslo and, particularly from the seventeenth century onward, Upper Telemark and the towns of Skien and Drammen. The name appears in medieval Oslo records, including references to a city farm called Pausinn and to Nikolas Sigurdsson Paus, an Oslo law-speaker recorded in 1347. The precise genealogical connection between those medieval references and the later documented family has not been conclusively established, although historians and genealogists have considered a relationship plausible. The name may reflect Low German or Dutch influence and may ultimately derive from a medieval term associated with a pope or a pious person. The earliest certain ancestors of the modern family are generally identified as the brothers Hans Povelsson Paus and Peder Povelsson Paus, born in Oslo in the late sixteenth century. Both received university education in Copenhagen and entered the Lutheran clergy. Peder became parish priest in Vinje and Kviteseid and provost of Upper Telemark, while Hans served in the church hierarchy in Oslo and later became a parish priest in Fredrikstad. Their careers established the family's long association with education, clerical office and state service. For much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Paus family members belonged to the educated official elite of Upper Telemark. They served as parish priests, schoolmasters, legal officials and district judges. The district judgeship of Upper Telemark passed through four generations of the family over approximately 106 years, from 1668 to 1774. This position placed the family near the apex of the region's administrative and social order, an elite sometimes described as an aristocracy of officials. Their status rested less on a single hereditary title than on education, professional office, property, marriage alliances and service to the Danish-Norwegian state. During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, members of the family expanded into commercial and industrial life. Relatives became ship captains, shipowners, merchants, bankers and timber interests in Skien, Drammen and other port communities. In nineteenth-century Christiania, now Oslo, members of the family became prominent steel industrialists. The company Paus & Paus was established by family members, while other relatives owned or co-owned substantial enterprises, including interests connected with the shipping company Wilh. Wilhelmsen. The family also acquired or controlled estates in Sweden; Herresta remains associated with a branch of the family. The family is especially important in Norwegian cultural history because of its close relationship with Henrik Ibsen. Both of Ibsen's parents came from the extended Paus kinship network or its closely connected households. Ibsen drew on family relationships, social tensions, religious customs and local traditions when creating characters and situations in works such as Peer Gynt, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm and Hedda Gabler. The family therefore appears not as a commercial brand but as a historical lineage studied in genealogy, Norwegian social history and Ibsen scholarship. Other notable descendants and relatives include the industrialist Ole Paus, the adventurer and diplomat Thorleif von Paus, General Ole von Paus, singer-songwriter Ole Paus, the diplomat and art patron Christopher de Paus, and several public figures in politics, law, film and theatre. Christopher de Paus donated a collection of classical sculpture to Norway's National Gallery and received a papal comital title in 1923. A settlement and church in India, Pauspur and Pauspur Church, were named in connection with the family's nineteenth-century activities there. The family's historical identity is represented through genealogy, estates, heraldic traditions and cultural associations rather than through a unified corporate organization.

The Paus name is documented in Oslo from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Medieval records mention Pausinn, a city farm associated with Oslo's urban elite, and several people using Paus as a cognomen. Nikolas Sigurdsson Paus, recorded as Oslo's law-speaker in 1347, is the most prominent medieval bearer of the name. Some historians have proposed that the medieval family may have been connected to merchants who arrived from northern Germany or the Netherlands. Other explanations suggest that the later family adopted the name from the place-name Pausinn. The evidence does not establish an unbroken line between the medieval bearers and the family documented from the sixteenth century. Genealogical research commonly places the earliest certain ancestors of the later family in the Oslo clergy. Hans Olufsson, who died in 1570, was a canon at St Mary's Church and later served at Oslo Cathedral. He held a substantial ecclesiastical prebend and belonged to an institution closely connected with royal administration. His presumed son Povel Hansson was a burgher and apparently prosperous merchant in Oslo. Povel Hansson is generally regarded as the likely father of Hans Povelsson Paus and Peder Povelsson Paus, although some details of the connection remain matters of genealogical interpretation. Hans Povelsson Paus was born in Oslo in 1587 and studied at the University of Copenhagen. After serving at Oslo Cathedral, he became parish priest in Fredrikstad in 1622. His descendants included clergy in Lier, Bragernes, Strømsø and Jevnaker. His younger brother Peder, born in 1590, also studied in Copenhagen. Peder worked as headmaster of the Skien Latin School, became parish priest in Vinje and Kviteseid, and was appointed provost of Upper Telemark in 1633. His descendants formed the principal continuing lines of the family. Peder's son Povel Pedersson Paus was parish priest at Hjartdal and one of the clerical representatives who signed the 1661 Sovereignty Act, which established absolute and hereditary monarchy in Denmark-Norway. Povel was known as an educated priest and Latin writer. His sons included Hans Paus, a parish priest, and Cornelius Paus, who became district judge of Upper Telemark. Through Cornelius and his descendants, the family held the regional district judgeship for more than a century. The office gave the family lasting authority in Upper Telemark and reinforced its links with other clerical, legal and landowning families. The Skien branch developed from Cornelius Paus and became connected to the town's merchant and shipping elite. His descendants entered legal practice, forestry administration, timber trading and shipowning. Cornelius Paus, a forest inspector, sold the family's former judicial farm at Haatvet in 1788 and moved to Skien. His children included Ole Paus and Hedevig Christine Paus. Hedevig married shipowner and merchant Johan Andreas Altenburg and became the maternal grandmother of Henrik Ibsen. Ole Paus became a Skien burgher and established a large line of descendants through marriage into the town's commercial patriciate. The nineteenth century brought a broader transition from official service in rural Upper Telemark to urban commerce and industry. Family members participated in shipping, timber, banking and steel production. Ole Paus, the steel industrialist, commissioned Villa Paus at Bygdøy and was the father of Thorleif von Paus, who became an adventurer and consul in Vienna. Thorleif's descendants included General Ole von Paus and the later singer-songwriter Ole Paus. Other branches were associated with Paus & Paus and with ownership or co-ownership of major Norwegian business interests, including Wilh. Wilhelmsen. A separate prominent branch was represented by Christopher de Paus, an art collector and heir to a major Norwegian timber fortune. His donation of classical sculpture to the National Gallery helped establish a lasting institutional association with the family. He was made a count by Pope Pius XI in 1923. From the early twentieth century, family branches also held several estates and castles in Sweden, including Herresta. Henrik Ibsen's relationship with the Paus network is central to the family's modern reputation. Ibsen grew up among households linked by close kinship and marriage, and he reused family names, relationships and social patterns in his plays. Scholars have identified echoes of Upper Telemark's clerical culture, the rise of a bureaucratic and puritanical civil-service order, and conflicts within the Paus-associated families in several dramas. The family consequently occupies an unusual position in Norwegian history: it is simultaneously a genealogical lineage, a representative example of the official elite, a participant in industrial and commercial development, and an important source of biographical and literary context for Ibsen.

• 1923

  Christopher de Paus receives a papal comital title

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  Christopher de Paus is made a count by Pope Pius XI after a career as an art patron and benefactor.

• 1798

  Ole Paus becomes a Skien burgher

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  Ole Paus receives burgher status in Skien and becomes the progenitor of a large and influential branch.

• 1788

  Move from Haatvet to Skien

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  Cornelius Paus sells the former judicial farm Haatvet and relocates to Skien, marking a transition toward the town's commercial and shipping society.

• 1774

  End of the 106-year judgeship sequence

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  The family's documented succession to the Upper Telemark district judgeship ends after approximately 106 years.

• 1668

  Beginning of the Upper Telemark judgeship succession

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  The district judgeship of Upper Telemark enters a Paus family succession that continues through four generations until 1774.

• 1661

  Povel Paus signs the Sovereignty Act

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  Povel Pedersson Paus is among the Norwegian clerical representatives who sign the act introducing absolute and hereditary monarchy in Denmark-Norway.

• 1633

  Peder Paus becomes provost

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  Peder Povelsson Paus is appointed provost of Upper Telemark after serving in the region's clergy.

• 1618

  Peder Paus enters Upper Telemark

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  Peder Povelsson Paus becomes parish priest of Vinje, beginning the family's durable association with Upper Telemark.

• 1570

  Death of Hans Olufsson

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  Hans Olufsson, a canon of St Mary's Church and later a priest at Oslo Cathedral, dies. Genealogists commonly identify him as a likely ancestor of the later documented Paus family.

• Nikolas Paus recorded as Oslo law-speaker

  [1]Paus familyen.wikipedia.org

  Nikolas Sigurdsson Paus is recorded as law-speaker of Oslo, placing a bearer of the name among the kingdom's small group of senior legal officials.

A historically prominent Norwegian family and lineage associated with public service, the clergy, law, commerce, industry, diplomacy and cultural history.

1. 1Paus familyen.wikipedia.org