Christoph Wacke

Christoph Wacke (born June 1596 in Naumburg ; † May 5, 1649 in Coswig , Anhalt ) was a German legal scholar.

Life

Born as the son of the lawyer and mayor of Naumburg Valerius Wacke and his wife Elisabeth Gartmann, he lost his father one day after his birth. Therefore, his mother worried about his education, which he enjoyed until he was twelve years old. Then he was sent to relatives in Leipzig , where he received lessons from private tutors. Prepared in this way, he attended legal lectures at the University of Leipzig in 1616 . In 1617 he went to the University of Jena and on June 26, 1618, moved to the University of Wittenberg , where he also intended to stay.

However, his mother could not finance his university studies. Therefore he went into the service of a Count's Oldenburg privy councilor, who sent him to Vienna . Since he had proven himself useful on this trip, he became secretary to Magdalena the widowed Princess von Anhalt , which office he held for three years. In 1625 he studied again at the University of Wittenberg, worked as an informator and inspector for Wolff Magnus Löser and later took a position as protonotary at the Wittenberg court.

After he had obtained his licentiate in law on March 23, 1630 , he was appointed to the advice of the Prince of Anhalt, took a position as a lawyer at the Wittenberg court in 1636 and worked as a private lecturer at the law faculty of the Wittenberg Academy. After his doctorate in law on July 4, 1637 , a professorship at the law faculty became vacant due to the death of Cornelius Crull , so he was appointed professor of the institutes by the Saxon elector on April 26, 1642.

In that capacity he administered the rector's office of the Wittenberg Academy in 1645 , he was praised as an astute practitioner and as a disinterested advocate for the poor and oppressed. During a visit to Coswig, he fell ill and died of a heart attack. His body was transferred to Wittenberg, where he was buried on May 9th.

On May 25, 1630 he married Euphrosene, daughter of the clerk Abel Volk. The marriage resulted in a son and a daughter who, however, died before their father. After his first wife died in 1635, he remarried on July 3, 1637 Martha Heller, with whom he had three children. Only Johann Christian Wacke and Anna Elisabeth Wacke survived their father.

Selection of works

• De jure singulari
• De jure sepultuae
• De juramentis

literature

• Fritz Roth : Complete evaluations of funeral sermons and personal documents for genealogical and cultural-historical purposes . Volume 2, R 1444
• Walter Friedensburg : History of the University of Wittenberg. Max Niemeyer, Halle (Saale) 1917
• Matriculation of the University of Wittenberg
• Wake or Wacke, Christoph. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 52, Leipzig 1747, column 1085 f.