Christian Cassius (lawyer, 1640)

Christian Cassius (* 1640 presumably in Lügumkloster ; † April 18, 1699 at Gut Tanderup near Herning ) was a German civil servant in the Swedish and Danish services.

Live and act

Christian Cassius was probably a son of the Gottorf resident bailiff in Lügumkloster named Johann Cassius († 1649) and thus a grandson of the clerk Andreas Cassius . His mother's name is not recorded. On July 6, 1660, he enrolled at the University of Helmstedt and probably studied philology and law. He probably had influential advocates who helped him to prestigious positions at a young age. He initially worked as a commission secretary in Swedish services. In early 1668 he was appointed professor of eloquence and poetry at the new Lund University. In January 1669 he gave his inaugural address. Since the university had an associate professor for both subjects, Cassius was given leave of absence in 1670.

Cassius then worked as a general auditor for the Swedish army and in the administration of the war commissariat. At the turn of the year 1676/77 he resigned from his offices and then tried unsuccessfully to get a job as an assessor at the court in Stockholm. Then he looked for a job with the Danish state, just as unsuccessfully. In 1678 he had a residence in the Danish occupied Wismar . There he made sure that the city commandant could pick up a Swedish courier who was carrying letters from the Duke of Gottorf. Since Christian Albrecht von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf was allied with Sweden against Denmark, Cassius had blocked the possibility of finding a new job in Sweden or his homeland. Instead, he had to hope for the Danish king .

After several petitions, Cassius was given a position as auditor in Prince Christian's regiment in 1680. At the beginning of 1682 he lost this position again. From May of the same year, he initially received monthly maintenance payments of unlimited duration. In 1684 he got a new permanent position as a private tutor to Crown Prince Friedrich until he came of age. It is not known what part he himself played in the fact that Frederick IV later turned out to be poorly educated.

From June 1690 Cassius worked as the 4th land judge ( landsdommer ) in North Jutland and moved to Viborg . In the same year he was appointed secretary of the chancellery, and in 1696 a judiciary. In 1691 he bought the Hvolris farm in the parish of Hersum , and in 1693 the Tanderup estate near Herning . In the last years of his life he obviously had major financial problems, also because he did not receive his salaries.

In his youth, Cassius wrote several panegyric speeches in Latin, which were intended for important members of the Swedish aristocracy. Later he rarely wrote casual poetry. After the end of his time as a university professor in Lund, no further works were created.

family

On April 13, 1668, Cassius married Magdalene Sibylle Ermann, who died after 1718. When he died he had six daughters still alive and a son Friedrich. There is evidence that he worked as secretary of the Danish chancellery in 1711 and as secretary of the German chancellery in Copenhagen from 1733 to 1735 .

literature

• Dieter Lohmeier: Cassius, Christian . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 6 - 1982. ISBN 3-529-02646-8 , pages 51-52.