Bogislaw Philipp von Chemnitz

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Bogislaw Philipp Chemnitz , from 1648 Chemnitz (* 9. May 1605 in Stettin ; † 19th May 1678 court Hallsta, Västmanland ) was constitutional lawyer and historian , and is also a pugnacious Reich publicist known.

Life

His father Martin Chemnitz was a lawyer, professor at the University of Rostock and worked as the ducal Pomeranian Privy Councilor and Chancellor in Stettin. His grandfather was the theologian Martin Chemnitz . Bogislaw Philipp grew up in Rostock and studied history and law at the University of Rostock and at the University of Jena , without a degree. In Jena he was a student of Dominicus Arumaeus . His life was shaped by the events of the Thirty Years War .

In 1627 he was in military service for the Netherlands and in 1630 joined the Swedish army under Gustav Adolf after his landing in Pomerania . In this army he reached the rank of captain ( captain ). From 1637 he was employed in the Swedish army as an employee and began his publications on constitutional law and history. In it he proved to be an opponent of the German emperors from the House of Habsburg and one of the most important representatives of the Swedish idea of ​​great power. One of his most important works is a multi-volume story of the Thirty Years War from a Swedish perspective.

On January 3, 1644 he became the imperial historiographer of Queen Christine of Sweden . In 1646 he married Margaretha Alborn, the daughter of a Brandenburg bailiff from Tangermünde . On January 20, 1648 he was raised to the Swedish aristocracy and in 1675 appointed court counselor.

Bogislaw Philipp von Chemnitz died in 1678 on his estate in Sweden. His works were reprinted and published in translations until the 18th century.

Hippolithus a Lapide

Dissertation de ratione status in imperio nostro Romano-Germanico… title page

Under this pseudonym Bogislaw Philipp (von) Chemnitz published in the Netherlands from 1640 at least two editions of one of the most controversial books on the constitution of the German Empire ( Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ): The Dissertatio de ratione status in imperio nostro Romano-Germanico… Es it was a pamphlet against the German Kaiser , then Ferdinand III. and the House of Habsburg . In it he questioned the role of the emperor and took the view that the sovereignty of the empire did not lie with the emperor (and thus with the Habsburgs), but with the imperial estates .

The writing went public at the time of the final negotiations on the Peace of Westphalia . It was understood as a massive attack on the top of the German Empire in a delicate negotiating situation: Emperor Ferdinand III. had initially resisted the participation of the imperial estates in the peace negotiations, but was especially forced by France to allow the participation of the imperial estates. As a result, the appearance of the German Empire in Osnabrück , where the Peace of Westphalia was negotiated next to Münster from 1643 to 1648, not only meant negotiations between the Empire and Sweden, but also a German constitutional convention.

Although the participation of the imperial estates in the negotiations was repeatedly requested ( admissions question ), the emperor initially represented the empire alone. A Reichstag , which had met in Frankfurt since 1642/43 , discussed the constitutional problems of the Reich. Against this background, the Swedish ambassador Johan Adler Salvius accused the imperial negotiators as early as 1643 of usurping the rights of majesty and formulated: "Your security consists in the German estates liberty ."

The Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie characterizes Hippolithus a Lapide and this work with the words “... against the Habsburg dynasty, from whose complete displacement from German soil he alone expects salvation. It is an accusation against the House of Austria of great passion, a condemnation of its entire traditional policy, its goals, its striving and actions for centuries. With the Peace of Prague it seemed as if Austria had found a way to get along with the Reich and to reject foreign interference. To paralyze the effects of this peace, to rekindle the lulled hatred of Habsburg, to incite the war-ridden minds to continue the struggle to the point of complete humiliation of Austria and the recognized constitutional impotence of the Empire, is the purpose of the dashing pamphlet, in which the Swedish inspiration cannot be mistaken. "

Bogislaw Philipp von Chemnitz was not the only one who questioned the sovereignty of the German emperor. Johannes Althusius had already expressed such thoughts before him , and his contemporary Johannes Limnäus also supported in his works the view that sovereignty lies with the imperial people or their representatives, the imperial estates ( popular sovereignty ). But Bogislaw Philipp von Chemnitz was one of the most radical representatives in the debates about the imperial constitution of the 17th century.

His "Dissertatio de ratione status" is regarded as one of the most important constitutional writings in the so-called " Reichspublizistik " and became an important negotiating document for the opponents of the emperor. This work caused the emperor more damage than many lost battles in the Thirty Years War. It was forbidden in the imperial sphere of influence and its cremation was ordered by the executioner's hand .

The pseudonym is derived from the first name Philipp and from the meaning of the Slavic place and family name " Chemnitz ". This word goes back to the Slavic name Kamjenica ( Sorbian : Steinbach; cf. Kamenz ) (from kamjeń - the stone). “Stone” means lapis in Latin ; a lapide thus: "from the stone".

Works

Jaumann catalog raisonné: Handbuch Gelehrtenkultur.

  • Quaestio odiosa, sed notabilis, de remotione Austriacae Domus ab Imperiali dignitate.
  • Dissertatio de Ratione Status in imperio nostro Romano-Germanico. In qua tum, qualisnam revera in eo Status sit; tum quae Ratio Status observanda quidem, sed magno cum Patria Libertatis detrimento, neglecta hucusque fuerit; tum denique, quibusdam mediis antiquis Status restaurari ac firmari possit, dilucide explicatur. First edition without location, 1640. Second edition Freystadt = Amsterdam 1647. Publisher J. Jansson (ius). digitisat at Munich's digitization center
  • Royal Swedish war waged in Germany. Four volumes. Stettin 1648, Georg Rhetens heirs. Stockholm 1653 (new ed. Stockholm 1855–59, 6 volumes). Digitization at Munich digitization center
  • Vindiciae secundum libertatem Germaniae intra pacificationem Pragensem. That is: saving the old German freedom, against the harmful and shameful Prague peace strife.
  • All sorts of curious reasoning from the ninth Chur "Würde deß ... Herr Ernst " Augusti Hertzoge zu Braunschweig and Lüneburg. Digitization at Munich digitization center

literature

References and comments

  1. ↑ See the entry of Bogislaus Philipp Chemnitz's matriculation in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ^ Ernst Heinrich Kneschke : New general German nobility lexicon . Vol. 2. Leipzig, 1860. p. 260 . (Google Books)
  3. ↑ Georg Schmidt: History of the Old Kingdom. State and Nation in the Early Modern Age 1495–1806. Munich 1999. ISBN 3-406-45335-X . Page 178.
  4. ↑ ADB, Volume 4, pages 115-116.
  5. ^ Contributions by Johannes Limnaeus and Hippolithus a Lapide . In: Notker Hammerstein, Hasso Hofmann, Rudolf Hoke , Michael Stolleis: State thinkers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Reich journalism, politics, natural law . Frankfurt am Main 1977. ISBN 3-472-65347-7 . See page 119.

Web links

Wikisource: Bogislaw Philipp von Chemnitz  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Chemnitz, Bogislaw Philipp von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hippolithus a Lapide
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Swedish constitutional lawyer and historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1605
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH February 1678
Place of death Hallsta Farm, Västmanland