Augustus Giese

Augustus Giese (born September 28 or 29, 1620 in Husum ; † February 15, 1697 there ) was a German lawyer and writer.

Live and act

Augustus Giese was a son of Joachim Giese († 1644) and his wife Salome, née Moldenit († before 1687). The father worked as city secretary and councilor, from 1632 also as a school supervisor in Husum. His ancestors came from Mecklenburg-Schwerin , where his father Joachim Giese worked as a pastor. The mother was a daughter of Asmus Moldenit, who worked as a land clerk in the eastern part of Eiderstedt. Her family came from the Duchy of Schleswig . Augustus had the brothers Friedrich and Joachim (* February 4, 1631, † March 14, 1694), who was pastor in Kaltenkirchen in 1657 , archdeacon in 1678 and chief pastor in Kiel in 1679, and catechisms and several funeral sermons were published.

Giese showed himself to be very talented as a child and attended school in Husum at the age of four. In 1635 he recited a long poem in school about the sinking of North Beach , which was written in Latin hexameters. Since he received a scholarship from the Princely School in Bordesholm Abbey to study at university, it can be assumed that he also attended this school. He began his law studies in Rostock in 1636 and then studied from 1637 to 1639 in Königsberg. He then lived in Husum for two years and continued his studies in Helmstedt from 1642 to 1644 . There he met the theologian Georg Calixt and lived in the house of the lawyer Hermann Conring . His legacy register with 35 entries from 1636 to 1645 documents his personal contacts from that time; it is in the Royal Library in Copenhagen.

In 1644, following his mother's request and a recommendation from Conring, Giese returned to Husum. Here he succeeded his father as City Secretary and Princely Court Secretary. In 1653 he was appointed councilor and judge. He had a very good relationship with Mayor Caspar Danckwerth , with whom he shared a practical piety that was based on social probation. In later years he became friends with Professors Christian Kortholt and Daniel Georg Morhof .

Giese supported poor people, mostly unpaid, and was known for his helpfulness, righteousness and puritanical lifestyle. Since he called for Christian action, dealing with him should not always have been easy. In 1681 the pastor Martin Holmer intrigued and made false accusations, which brought the magistrate in Husum against the Gottorfer Hof. Giese, who in the meantime had become a councilor, lost all offices like the two mayors. After that he devoted himself in particular to writing. In 1693 he suffered a stroke and was then paralyzed on one side.

Works

Gies wrote many prose texts, which Moller listed according to his statements. Many of these works, of which there were mostly only manuscripts, no longer exist today. The texts that are still known, however, are probably representative of his work as a writer. Giese preferred to write in the form of letters and tracts in which he advocated his concerns. He used many idioms and images from the vernacular and borrowed from popular sermons. In addition, he often used dialogue, which makes his texts appear extremely lively. Moller wrote that Giese's texts were similar to those of Johann Balthasar Schupp .

Giese himself wrote about his work that he “does not work from one paper to the other, but rather out of his head to paper”. He quoted only from the Bible and never from classical or contemporary scholars. In doing so, he consciously distanced himself from learned Orthodox preachers who, in his view, did not reach the parishioners and therefore could not achieve any effect. He himself wanted to put Christianity into practice and saw the greatest problem of his time in the severe separation of secular and spiritual interests, which led to the congregation and official church diverging from each other. He therefore saw it as his right to be able to express himself as a layperson on theological topics and to strengthen the community, especially in the field of poor relief.

family

Giese married Anna Axen around 1647. She was the eldest daughter of the Mayor of Husum, Titus Ax, and a sister of the scholar Peter Ax . The daughter Oßele, who married the Husum mayor Harro Feddersen, and seven sons, among them Joachim (born October 12, 1648; December 25, 1712), came from Giese's marriage. He worked 1680/81 as pastor in Padeleck, a place in the Lundenbergharde that was largely destroyed in 1634 and abandoned in 1717 , as court preacher in Husum from 1681–91 and from 1691 to 1709 as archdeacon of Husum's Marienkirche.

literature

• Dieter Lohmeier: Giese, Augustus . in: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , pages 94-96.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Giese, Augustus . in: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , pages 94-95.
2. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Dieter Lohmeier: Giese, Augustus . in: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , page 95.
4. ↑ Call number: FoF XXII, 1975–76, 58, 75
5. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Giese, Augustus . in: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , pages 95-96.
6. ^ Dieter Lohmeier: Giese, Augustus . in: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , page 94.