Eike von Repgow

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Eike von Repgow from the Oldenburger Sachsenspiegel

Eike von Repgow (also von Repkow , von Repko , von Repchow , von Repgau or von Repchau as well as Heiko ) (* between 1180 and 1190 in Repgow ; † after 1233) was the author of the Sachsenspiegel and thus formative for German legal history .

Life

Eike von Repgow presumably comes from a family free of judicial rulings with headquarters and ancestral estate in Reppichau . She was one of the vassals of the archbishops of Magdeburg . The ancestors of the family were Lower Saxony from an East Westphalian tribe .

In his youth Eike von Repgow received instruction from a secular clergyman or from learned laypeople. Whether it was Johannes Teutonicus Zemeke is disputed in the literature. In the “Sachsenspiegel” you can see knowledge of the basic rules of grammar. This suggests a stay in a cathedral school . Presumably it is the Halberstadt Cathedral School (or Magdeburg ).

Eike von Repgow has remained a stranger to urban life due to his rural origins. He traveled in the retinue of noble gentlemen and through this got to know the courtly life. He had a special friendship with Count Hoyer von Falkenstein , who was at the same time bailiff of Quedlinburg and probably liege lord of Eike von Repgow. This had a decisive influence on the spread of the "Sachsenspiegel". Overall, Eike von Repgow was mentioned six times between 1209 and 1233:

Thus Eike von Repgow got an insight into the rural, knightly and spiritual way of life, which had an effect on the "Sachsenspiegel". He also had moderate knowledge of canon and Roman law . He received his extensive legal knowledge as a participant in notarizations, negotiations and court days with Count Hoyer von Falkenstein. Most likely, Eike von Repgow was working as a lay judge. It has not been proven whether he also held a permanent lay judge's chair, as he appears in documents of several sovereigns.

After 1233, Eike von Repgow's track is lost. The date of his death and his burial place are unknown.

Saxony mirror

The Sachsenspiegel was the first German legal book and also one of the first German prose works . It is an attempt to record, systematize and standardize the law of the Saxons. This is also the great achievement of Eike von Repgow, because until then land and feudal law were not codified and differed from region to region based on customary law. The work was created between 1220 and 1230. This is due to the fact that the peace of King Henry VII was mentioned in 1221 - provided that this was already in the primary work. There is also no evidence that Eike von Repgow originally wrote the Sachsenspiegel in Latin. At the request of Count Hoyer von Falkenstein, he wrote it in Low German. A primary work does not exist, only later copies to which additions were added in the course of legal developments. The work comprises the areas of land law and feudal law. The influences of Roman and canon law are unmistakable in later copies, which the author had consistently opposed in his rhyming prefaces. In the Sachsenspiegel, Eike von Repgow represents the original form of the two-sword doctrine , that is, the separation between secular and ecclesiastical law, thus the separation of powers - a view also held by his contemporary Walther von der Vogelweide - and created the feudal hierarchy in seven army shields .

Saxon World Chronicle

For a long time Eike von Repgow was the author of the Saxon World Chronicle . This covers the history of the world up to the year 1230. It has a verifiable similarity to the "Sachsenspiegel", which led to such assumptions about the author. However, considerable doubts arose in the literature in recent decades (cf. the dissertation (1972) by Hubert Herkommer on the transmission history of the Saxon World Chronicle). It is currently assumed that the “Saxon World Chronicle” was created around 1260 and only refers to the “Sachsenspiegel”.

memory

Memorial stone in Reppichau
Memorial stone at Falkenstein Castle

Monuments in Magdeburg , Dessau , Reppichau , Halberstadt and at Falkenstein Castle (Harz) remember Eike von Repgow. In Berlin (Moabit) the Eyke-von-Repkow-Platz is named after him. A marble bust of the scholar stood as a minor figure at the side of the Brandenburg Margrave Albrecht II in monument group 4 by the sculptor Johannes Boese in the former Berlin Siegesallee ("Puppenallee"). It has been in the Spandau Citadel since May 2009 .

Reppichau, also known as "Eike von Repgow-Dorf", has dedicated an open-air permanent exhibition to Eike von Repgow. It consists of display boards as well as wall paintings and signs that quote from the Sachsenspiegel .

The city of Magdeburg and Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg award the Eike von Repgow Prize and the Eike von Repgow Scholarship every two years to personalities who are scientifically involved with the history and culture of Central Germany and the region of the middle Elbe, in particular with the historical region of Saxony as a topic of history, legal history , German studies or social sciences.

In Magdeburg, the building of the justice center (district court, labor court, social court, administrative court and higher administrative court for the state of Saxony-Anhalt and Magdeburg public prosecutor's office) is named after Eike von Repkow.

The vocational school 1 for business and administration in Magdeburg also bears his name.

literature

  • Siegfried Brie:  Eike von Repkow . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, pp. 751-755.
  • Karl August Eckhardt : The land law of the Saxon mirror . 2. Processing. In: Germanic Rights . Volume 14. Muster-Schmidt Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Göttingen 1955.
  • Karl August Eckhardt : The feudal right of the Saxon mirror . In: Germanic Rights . Volume 15. Muster-Schmidt Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Göttingen 1956.
  • Hans Fehr : The state conception of Eikes von Repgau . In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History (German Department) . Volume 37, 1916, p. 131 ff.
  • Alexander Ignor: About Eike von Repgow's general legal thinking . Schöningh, Paderborn 1984, ISBN 3-506-73342-7 .
  • Peter Johanek : Eike von Repgow, Hoyer von Falkenstein and the creation of the Sachsenspiegel . In: Festschrift for Heinz Stoob on his 65th birthday . 1984, pp. 716-755.
  • Gerd Kleinheyer, Jan Schröder: German and European lawyers from nine centuries . Müller, Heidelberg 1996, ISBN 3-8252-0578-9 , pp. 123-126.
  • Hiram Kümper:  Repgow, Eike von. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 24, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-247-9 , Sp. 1208-1213.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Rolf Lieberwirth : Eike von Repchow and his Sachsenspiegel . Council d. District (local history museum), Köthen 1980.
  • Cl. Freiherr von Schwerin (Ed.): Sachsenspiegel (Landrecht) , introduced by Hans Thieme, Reclam 3355, Stuttgart 1953 ff. (Text of the Sachsenspiegel with an introduction to Repgow)
  • Erik Wolf : Great legal thinkers in German intellectual history . 4th edition. Mohr, Siebeck 1963, ISBN 3-16-627812-5 , pp. 1-29.
  • Julius Wolff : The Sachsenspiegel. Made around 1909 (a novel-like depiction of the creation of the Sachsenspiegel)
  • Heiner Lück: About the Sachsenspiegel, origin, content and effect of the legal book , Dome and Castles Foundation in Saxony-Anhalt, Dössel 2005, ISBN 3-89923-093-0

Web links

Commons : Eike von Repgow  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Eike von Repgow  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto v. Zallinger: Die Schöffenbarfrei des Sachsenspiegel , Innsbruck, 1887. Pages 202 to 219 (see literature )
  2. ^ Mirror of the Saxons . 1295-1363. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Eike von Repgow
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heiko von Repkow
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Author of the Sachsenspiegel, the oldest legal book in German
DATE OF BIRTH between 1180 and 1190
PLACE OF BIRTH Repgow, today Reppichau
DATE OF DEATH around 1235