Academic funeral

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Laubober's funeral
(Würzburg 1825)

Academic funerals were funeral procession to honor deceased professors and students . The custom dates back to the 13th century and was held at German universities until the Weimar Republic .

History and meaning

Burial of a Saxon-Prussian (E. Fries, 1861)

The custom of the funeral service in a specific university context is documented as early as the time of the medieval universities : For example, formal statutes for funeral services were introduced at the University of Paris around 1200 . For a long time they were the only form of university self-expression. With the help of the funeral sermons given there, the universities were also able to present themselves nationwide. Particularly elaborate funerals were held for a rector (prorector) who died in office .

The right to an independent funeral was part of academic freedom for the student body : the University of Göttingen organized a funeral for the late canon lawyer Johann Salomon Brunnquell (1735). The students should march behind the city council together with citizens of the city. In response to their protests, the council stayed away from the funeral; he apologized to the students. Because of this distinction between student and citizen, a student custom developed that differed from funeral funerals. Historically significant is the fact that student funerals honored not only outstanding personalities, but also students who died during their studies. This emphasized and clarified the special position of students in society up to the 19th century.

The order in which a funeral should take place (including academic ordination , boyish descent or jumping into the dark ) was repeatedly controversial among the student body. Students from Tübingen fought around them at the funeral for Chancellor Johann Friedrich Cotta on January 4, 1780, which resulted in a prison sentence for the leader . Usually the pedel was responsible for organizing the academic funerals. Vollmann describes in his Burschicosen dictionary the funeral for a deceased student that fellow students had registered with the university:

“A black- draped four-in-hand car drives ahead with two charged men , these are in black wank, surrounded by chapeaux d'honneurs and parade thugs. This is followed by the black-fringed death wagon, followed by a four-in-hand with charged men. Behind it the music for the dead, followed by the students, marching in two rows with torches. With dull, slow music, the train moves to the cemetery, where the dead is lowered into the grave by four students. After singing student songs, the torches are burned in the market, a parade of the dead is struck and a Gaudeamus igitur is sung. Afterwards everyone goes home calmly. "

- Johann Grässli

Lectures were not allowed to take place during an academic funeral .

Bonn

A funeral at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn became the scene of the Kulturkampf in the summer semester of 1894 . Although they had been banned from participating, the Catholic connections that had resigned from the general assembly of the student body forced themselves into the funeral procession for Emil Dreisch , professor at the Agricultural Academy in Poppelsdorf . For fear of similar demonstrations and possible brawls, the university management forbade the entire student body to participate in the funeral procession in the summer semester of 1896 on the occasion of the funeral of Carl Maria Finkelnburg .

Goettingen

Tomb of Adolph von Stralendorff

Many students at the Georg August University of Göttingen , including Karl von Hahn and Adolph von Stralendorff , were honored with funerals. Their tombs in the Bartholomäusfriedhof have been preserved. For the period from 1735 to 1800, 294 student funerals are documented for the University of Göttingen. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow reported in the Old Dominion Zeitung, handwritten by American students in Göttingen, about such a funeral in February 1829. The procedure and clothing for student funerals were laid down in the comment of the Göttingen Senior Citizens' Convention :

"If a member or a savage of any country team has died and this wants to accompany him to the grave with a solemn procession, the other country teams are obliged to take part. No member may exclude himself from it without a justified cause. The batches are: general leaders, general decision makers, four marshals, twelve chapeaux d'honneur. The order of the procession is as follows: The choir of musicians walks in front of the coffin, on both sides of which are the chapeaux d'honneur. At a reasonable distance behind the coffin follows the general leader with two marshals, then the procession that ends with the general decision maker and two marshals. The general leader wears a striker trimmed with white plushes, an all black suit, tailcoat and silk stockings. A white pile runs from the right shoulder down to the left side over the hips and ends in a loop. A black pile is wound around the vessel of the sword. The marshals also wear strikers, but with black plumes. The pile around the body is also black. Otherwise they are dressed like the former. In their hand they carry a mourning stick with black pile wound around it. The Chapeaux d'honneur go chapeau bas with a black mourning for on the hat and around the arm. The other aides also go all black, wear strikers and parisiens. All the others wear dark, if possible black, tailcoats and dark undergarments. The headgear is arbitrary. But no one is allowed to put on a cap of whatever type. Wild people are also allowed to take part in all of these elevators, but they are not allowed to wear groups. "

- SC-Comment of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (1809)

Daniel Ludwig Wallis describes the Chapeaux d'honneur in his student dictionary Most common expressions and idioms of the Göttingen students 1813 as follows:

“To be a chapeaux d'honneur is an honorary position that occurs particularly well at festive funeral parades and at vivat events. There it is those who go by the hearse and touch the shroud; theirs are usually fourteen. ... Your suit is black, like silk stockings, a striker under your arm, and a cour sword on the side. "

Tübingen

At the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen , funerals were regulated in the academic funeral regulations. At the funeral for the orientalist Christian Friedrich Seybold on January 29, 1921, the official representatives in official costume took part. The order in the funeral procession was set as follows:

  1. Music band
  2. Hearse
  3. Third pedel
  4. students
  5. Second pedel
  6. University officers and teachers walking
  7. Other sufferers walking on foot
  8. Venture out with the acting clergy and closest relatives
  9. University representatives' car
  10. Car of the invited guests of honor
  11. Dare any other university representatives (faculties)
  12. Car of the participants invited by the family

literature

  • Mathias Kotowski: The public university. Event culture of the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in the Weimar Republic. Stuttgart 1999, pp. 130-146
  • Report on the academic funeral of Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut in Heidelberg on April 1, 1840: Frankfurter Konversationsblatt: Belletristische supplement. Frankfurt am Main 1840, p. 388.
  • Johann Georg Krünitz et al .: Economic-Technological Encyclopedia, or General System of State, City, House and Country Management, as well as the description of the earth, art and natural history, in alphabetical order. Volume 74. Joachim Pauli, Berlin 1798. p. 142.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c J. Vollmann (= Johann Grässli): Burschicoses dictionary. Ragaz 1846, p. 300
  2. ^ Konrad Burdach : Student language and student song in Halle a hundred years ago. Reprint of the Idiotikon der Burschenssprache , from: "Remarks of an academic about Halle and its inhabitants, in letters" by Christian Friedrich Bernhard Augustin , Niemeyer, Halle / Saale 1894, p. 73, online
  3. ^ Georg Kaufmann: History of the German Universities. Volume I: Prehistory. Graz 1958, pp. 250-251
  4. ↑ Jens Blecher: Highly honored and much criticized. The Leipzig University Rectors and their Office until 1933 , in: Franz Häuser (ed.): The Leipzig Rector's Speeches 1871–1933, Vol. 1: The Years 1871–1905 Berlin, New York 2009, pp. 7–8
  5. ^ Mathias Kotowski: The public university. P. 130
  6. ↑ See Horst Schmidt-Grave: funeral speeches and funeral sermons Tübingen professors (1550–1750). Investigations into biographical historiography in the early modern period. Tuebingen 1974
  7. ^ Marian Füssel : Academic Solenities. University festival cultures in comparison , in: Michael Maurer (Ed.): Festival cultures in comparison. Staging of the religious and the political. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2010, p. 49 f.
  8. ^ Stefan Brüdermann: Students as residents of the city. In: Göttingen. History of a university town. Volume 2: From the Thirty Years War to the annexation to Prussia. Göttingen 2002, p. 424 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  9. ^ Stefan Brüdermann: Göttingen students and academic jurisdiction in the 18th century. Göttingen 1990, p. 252
  10. ^ Hans-Wolf Thümmel: The Tübingen University Constitution in the Age of Absolutism. Tübingen 1975, p. 398
  11. ↑ Silke Wagener: Pedels, maids and lackeys. Dissertation, University of Göttingen 1994, p. 272
  12. ↑ August Tholuck : The Academic Life of the Seventeenth Century. Halle 1853, p. 125.
  13. ↑ Dominik Geppert: Kaiser-Kommers and Bismarck cult. Bonn students in the German Empire. In: Thomas Becker (ed.): Bonna Perl on the green Rhine. Studying in Bonn from 1818 to the present. Bonn University Press at Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht unipress, 2013, ISBN 9783847001317 , pp. 83-104, here p. 94 f.
  14. ↑ Wolfgang Gresky: The burial of the boy (1829) - on the Sunday of the Dead (November 20). In: Göttingen monthly sheets. November 1977, pp. 4–5 with reference to SUB Göttingen Cod. Ms. hist. Lit. 20 h
  15. ↑ 14 of the oldest SC comments before 1820. Einst und Jetzt , special issue 1967, p. 132 f.
  16. ↑ VI. Section on The Göttingen Student, or remarks, advice and instructions about Göttingen and student life on the Georgia Augusta. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1813, p. 97 ff. Digitalisat
  17. ↑ Mortuary regulations of the academic senate. Tuebingen 1853
  18. ^ Mathias Kotowski: The public university. P. 136 f.