Christian Beyer (legal scholar)

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Christian Beyer, epitaph in the Evangelical Parish Church of St. Georg and Maria in Kleinlangheim
Memorial plaque on Markt 3, in Lutherstadt Wittenberg
Memorial plaque on Markt 6, in Lutherstadt Wittenberg

Christian Beyer (* around 1482 in Kleinlangheim ; † October 21, 1535 Weimar ) was a Saxon chancellor and legal scholar. Different names or spellings (Bayer, peyer, Bayarius, Bayoarius, Bavarus, Cristoferus bauari etc.) were sometimes used in documents.

Life

Christian Beyer was born around 1482 in Kleinlangheim in Lower Franconia as the son of the mayor Hans Beyer and was matriculated at the University of Erfurt in the winter semester of 1500/01 . In the summer of 1503 the young Franconian had himself entered in the album of the Wittenberg University as Cristoferus bauari de lanckhem (ie Christianus Baierus, quinomen magnum hat.) And was thus one of the first students at the university, which was rapidly gaining in importance. In 1505 he obtained his master's degree and in 1507 the highly talented young man was called a teacher at the artist faculty . Three years later he graduated from law school with a doctorate in both rights and got married. From this marriage the son Christian Beyer the Younger († 1561) and Barbara Beyer (she later married D. Leonhard Stetner, the Ansbach chancellor) emerged.

He acquired the Markt 6 property in Wittenberg , now known as the “Beyer-Hof”. In 1512 the property fell victim to a fire that broke out, but the professor was able to start rebuilding the house in the same year. Because the new building cost him so much, he later asked the elector to increase his salary by 30 guilders. Like most of the large new buildings of the time, this building also accommodated students. The payments for board and lodging for the students were an important source of income for the citizens of Wittenberg and the professors. Students also lived and lived in the houses of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon .

In 1513 Dr. jur. Christian Beyer was electoral Saxon councilor to Elector Frederick the Wise and mayor for the first time. He also held the mayor's office in 1516, 1519, 1522 and 1525 and sat in the council of the former spa town of Wittenberg in 1520, 1523 and 1526 as an advisory former mayor. In the years of the advancing Reformation he directed the fortunes of the city of Wittenberg and had to do his teaching post at the university. Although Martin Luther initially criticized him for not immediately renouncing the papal principles and, due to his stubbornness, continued to rely on the “Jus Canonicum”, he subsequently went through a change to evangelical faith.

In October 1520, Christian Beyer and other electoral councilors issued an opinion on the bull threatening Luther against Luther on the orders of Frederick the Wise . They said that "the matter should be treated safely and dilatorily ".

The Wittenberg movement began in 1521 , in which the Augustinian monks of the Wittenberg monastery abolished the first papal masses in the Wittenberg castle and town church . At that time Luther was hiding in the Wartburg and did not know what his friars were doing in Wittenberg. When he found out, he wrote them a letter. In this message he congratulated them and wished that the undertaking would proceed happily. The monks did not receive this letter immediately. Georg Spalatin held this back out of concern that Luther would thereby provoke even more indignation on the part of his opponents. However, this process had reached the ears of the court. The prior of the Augustinians, Konrad Helt , did not agree with what had happened and advocated the abolition of the incident. In doing so, he denounced the Augustinian monk Gabriel Didymun as the ringleader of the whole movement.

The elector Friedrich the Wise was very upset by this news and sent his then Chancellor Gregor Brück to the academy to stop the venture. However, the Augustinian monks were able to convince the Chancellor that this procedure was wrong, so that the Chancellor changed his position due to a discussion that had taken place. However, the elector was not at all satisfied with the outcome of his instructions. Therefore he hired Christian Beyer to clarify the matter. However, Christian Beyer could not achieve anything with the monks either, because the monks had a conviction of their conscience. On the basis of this dispute, not only the Elector Frederick the Wise will have converted to the Gospel, but also Christian Beyer. Following the successful enforcement of the monks, these changes were also made in other churches.

In 1522 Christian Beyer again had a lot to do as mayor. Andreas Bodenstein began to storm schools and churches. He had pictures and valuable insignia removed and destroyed. This went down in history as an iconoclasm . Because Christian Beyer was a member of the university and at the same time a member of the Wittenberg council, he had to calm the tumult and restore order. It is difficult to imagine how the busy lawyer reached an agreement between the Elector and Karlstadt. However, he was initially able to mitigate these efforts through a comparison.

The consequences of the development of the Reformation did not always meet with the approval of the city's citizens. When the bag order (a social order) negotiated between the reformers and the council came into force, the Bader Valten insulted the reformer Martin Luther and the mayor Beyer that they were “worth being hunted out of the statute” and was for punished his statements.

On July 7, 1526, Luther's wife Katharina von Bora gave birth to her son Johannes Luther. According to custom, the toddler was baptized on the same day at around 4 p.m. in the town church by the deacon Georg Rörer. Among the godparents, who all belonged to the closest circle around the reformer, are Johannes Bugenhagen , Justus Jonas the Elder , Lucas Cranach the Elder , the wife of Mayor Hohndorf Benedikta († 1546) and the Electorate of Saxony Vice Chancellor Christian Beyer. From now on Luther referred to the lawyer in a friendly teasing manner as his " godfather ".

When the Elector Friedrich the Wise died and his brother Johann took over the business of government, Christian Beyer was appointed Chancellor to the court of the Elector Johann the Constant in Weimar in 1528 . This made him one of the highest officials in the electorate. Beyer now resigned his teaching post at the Wittenberg University "Leucorea" and renounced his rights as a Wittenberg council member.

In his function as Saxon Chancellor, we find him in the will of the Elector, which he signed in 1529. The Saxon Chancellor became famous because on June 25, 1530 from 3 to 5 o'clock in the afternoon at the Reichstag of Augsburg in front of Emperor Charles V and the Electors of the Roman Empire, the German edition of the " Confessio Augustana " worked out by Philipp Melanchthons , in the Chapter room of the episcopal palace lectured. He read them out loud and clearly audible, so that the crowd standing tightly packed in the courtyard could understand everything word for word through the open windows. This is the first official confession of the Lutheran churches that has remained binding to this day.

In his chancellery phase he attended the hereditary homage to the Elector Johann Friedrich in Gotha in 1532 , was at the convent in Braunschweig and confirmed the council privileges in Buttelstädt . In 1533 he witnessed the feudal letter when the Elector Count Wolff von Barby enfeoffed the castle and the city of Barby and signed the privileges of Werdau . In 1534 he stayed in what was then Ober-Kranichfeld (today Kranichfeld ), where he issued the loan letters. In 1535 the Chancellor Christian Beyer became a member of the arbitration tribunal between Elector Johann Friedrich von Sachsen and Duke Georg von Sachsen , which was supposed to decide on the disputes that arose over the Lords of Hopfgarten in Leipzig . Before the negotiations began, he died in Weimar on October 21, 1535. His property went to his son Christian Beyer the younger.

In 1917, the Kleinlangheim community erected an epitaph in his honor . There is also a memorial plaque on the residential building in Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

family

On October 3, 1510, Beyer had married Magdalena, the daughter of the mayor of Wittenberg, Ambrosius Gertitz. This marriage is said to have resulted in 21 children (a questionable tradition). After Beyer's death, Melanchthon took over the care of the children. Are known:

  • Christian Beyer the Younger († September 8, 1563 in Wittenberg), he married Sybille in 1541, the daughter of the physician Stephan Wild .
  • Sibylle Beyer , she married Caspar Beyer in 1545.
  • Andreas Beyer
  • Georg Beyer , he married Catharina Albrechts. He was princely councilor and mayor in Gera . Three of her sons, Georg, Andreas and Henrich, were employed by Duke Johann the Elder in Hadersleben ( Schleswig , Denmark ), and one daughter married in Flensburg . A fourth son, Johannes (Hans) became mayor of Eisenberg . Georg (Jorg, Jörgen) Beyer the Younger (around 1522–1587) became the Duke's secretary in 1547, married Magdalena Rickertsen, mayor's daughter from Flensburg in 1553 (famous epitaph in St. Mary's Church in Flensburg), he is in the Danish Dansk Biografisk Leksikon biographed.
  • Ascanius Beyer
  • Barbara Beyer († December 17, 1574 in Wittenberg), married to the princely margravial chancellor of Ansbach Leonhard Stetner († January 19, 1571 in Wittenberg)
  • Johann Beyer , magistrate in Altenburg

literature

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Ilse Guenther: Christian BEYER. In: Peter Gerard Bietenholz, Thomas Brian Deutscher (ed.): Contemporaries of Erasmus. Volume 1: A-E . University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1985, ISBN 0-8020-2507-2 . P. 144.
  2. ^ Theodor Wotschke: From Wittenberg church books. In: Archive for the history of the Reformation. (ARG) Vol. 29 (1932), pp. 169-223

Web links

Commons : Christian Beyer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Beyer, Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bayer, Christian; Peyer, Christian; Bayarius, Christian; Bayoarius, Christian; Bavarus, Christian; Bauari, Cristoferus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Saxon Chancellor
DATE OF BIRTH 1482
PLACE OF BIRTH Kleinlangheim
DATE OF DEATH October 21, 1535
Place of death Weimar