Order of the Argonauts
The Order of the Argonauts was a social circle that existed in Braunschweig at the end of the 18th century, jokingly imitating Masonic forms.
history
The Brunswick court councilor and former Freemason Paul August Schrader (1726–1780) founded a sociable order in 1771 that was also accessible to women. It was named after the Greek Argonauts legend about Jason and his companions, who went on their ship Argo in search of the Golden Fleece . The Order of Argonauts met in the no longer existing “Water Palace” on the island in the Kreuzteich in Riddagshausen at the gates of Brunswick. The main focus was on Johann Gottfried Schnabel's utopian novel “Die Insel Felsenburg", To which the design of the" Water Palace "referred. The 32 members of the association included the writers Johann Anton Leisewitz and August Siegfried von Goue . After Schrader's death, the order existed until around 1789.
literature
- Norman-Mathias Pingel: Argonauten-Orden , in: Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon, published on behalf of the city of Braunschweig by Manfred RW Garzmann and Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf with substantial assistance from Norman-Mathias Pingel, supplementary volume, p. 17, Braunschweig 1996, ISBN 3- 926701-30-7
- Horst-Rüdiger Jarck (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon. 8th to 18th centuries , p. 632, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937664-46-7