Cornelius Pleier

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Cornelius Pleier (also: Pleyer, Player, Bleier, Pleyer von Pleyern; * 1595 in Coburg , † 1646 or 1649 in Prague ) was a Franconian doctor and opponent of the persecution of witches .

Live and act

Cornelius Pleier was born in Coburg in 1595 and baptized on August 17th of that year. His father was the Archidiaconus Petrus Pleier from Coburg . His mother's name is not known.

Between 1609 and 1611 Pleier attended the Casimirianum grammar school in Coburg . From 1611 he studied in Jena . In 1615 he enrolled in Wittenberg and finally in 1620 in Basel . There he received his doctorate in medicine in the same year.

In 1622 Cornelius Pleier became Coburg City Physician. In May of the same year he married Anna Christina Reinhardt, whose father was the Princely Saxon kit master Philipp Heinrich Reinhardt. A year later he became a professor of medicine at the Casimirianum high school. As early as 1624, Pleier took up the post of Kitzingen city ​​doctor . In Kitzingen his wife gave birth to a son who was baptized on August 13, 1625 with the name Laurentius Cornelius. In 1628 Pleier gave up his position in Kitzingen again. Around the same time he apparently converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and left the city between 1628 and 1629.

As a field doctor, Cornelius Pleier took part in the Thirty Years' War on the imperial side and was ennobled before 1635 and appointed Count Palatinate . A letter of application for the position of Bohemian country doctor from 1640 also shows that Pleier was also active as a country doctor in Carinthia and Styria between 1628 and 1638 . In 1638 Cornelius Pleier took over a professorship for medicine at the Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague . He was one of three professors at this faculty. His colleagues were Johannes Marcus Marci and Nicolaus Franchimont von Frankenfeld . In Prague, Pleier married Susanna Stork a second time. He died in Prague in either 1646 or 1649.

The "Malleus Judicum"

The "Malleus Judicum that is: the law of the merciless witch judges forged by a number of Christian masters and now reborn by a merciful Catholic Christian" appeared in two prints between 1626 and 1630 without giving the author, place and year. The pamphlet comprises 112 pages in octave format. The text opposes belief in witches, witch persecution and inhuman litigation practices.

A handwritten note on the title page of a copy kept in the Bamberg State Library, which originally belonged to the library of the Bamberg lawyer Johann Neydecker, names Cornelius Pleier as the author. This information appears credible, insofar as various passages indicate that the polemic was written by a Franconian doctor. In addition, the clearly emerging Protestantism in the book in contrast with the information on the title page that the text was written by a "Catholic Christian" is a clear indication of the authorship of Cornelius Pleier, since, as mentioned above, he converted from Protestantism to Catholicism was.

Works

  • (together with Michael Wolf) Disquisitio physica prima corporum mixtorum forma videlicet meteoris , Jena 1613.
  • Examen tractatus Guil. Adolphi Scribonii anno MDXXCV Basileae sub falso praetextu contra uromantes impostores, ipsi uropotas dictos editi , Erfurt 1617.
  • Problemata philosophico-medica , Basel 1620.
  • Runnt and short pestilentz plaque in the epidemic, which is now rampant throughout Europe [...] , Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1625 (lost).
  • Medicus Criticus Astrologus , Nuremberg 1627.
  • Malleus Judicum that is: the law's hammer of the merciless witch judges forged by several Christian masters and now forged anew by a merciful Catholic Christian, n.d. n.d. (attributed).

literature

  • Karel Beránek: Pražka lekarská fakulta v letech 1638-1654 , in: Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis (Acta Universitatis Carolinae) 7 (1966), pp. 73-80, p. 75.
  • Karel Beránek et al .: Biografický slovník pražke lékařské fakulty 1348-1939 , Vol. 2, Prague 1992, pp. 54f.
  • Gunther Franz: The "Malleus Judicum, that is: the law hammer of the merciless witch judges" by Cornelius Pleier in comparison with Friedrich Spees "Cautio Criminalis" , in: Hartmut Lehman, Otto Ulbricht (eds.): Vom Unfug des Hexen-Triales. Opponents of the witch hunt from Johann Weyer to Friedrich Spee . (= Wolfenbüttel research; 55). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1992, ISBN 3-447-03356-8 , pp. 199-222.
  • Cornelius Lange: Cornelius Pleier (1595-1646 / 49) and the "Malleus Judicum" , in: Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 78 (2015), pp. 227-251.
  • Cornelius Lange: Cornelius Pleier - a picture of life , in Coburger Geschichtsblätter 24 (2016), pp. 11–26.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lange 2015, p. 230.
  2. ↑ Lange 2015, p. 230f.
  3. ↑ Lange 2015, pp. 231–233
  4. ↑ Lange 2015, p. 234
  5. ↑ Jaroslaus Schaller: Description of the royal. The capital and residence city of Prague with all the interesting sights it contains , vol. 2, Prague 1795, p. 115.
  6. ↑ Beránek 1966, p. 75.
  7. ↑ Franz 1992, pp. 199-222.
  8. ↑ Franz 1992, p. 201.
  9. ↑ Lange 2015, pp. 240–248.
  10. ^ Friedrich Anton Reuss: Franconian Medicinal Ordinances from the XVI. to XVII. Centuries , in: Medicinisches Correspondenz-Blatt bayerischer Doctors 2 (1841), pp. 16,30-32, p. 32.
personal data
SURNAME Pleier, Cornelius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pleyer, Cornelius; Player, Cornelius; Bleier, Cornelius; Pleyer, Cornelius; Pleyern Cornelius of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician, witch theorist and convert
DATE OF BIRTH August 1595
PLACE OF BIRTH Coburg
DATE OF DEATH 1646 or 1649
Place of death Prague