Erich Meuthen

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Erich Meuthen (born May 31, 1929 in Mönchengladbach ; † June 11, 2018 in Cologne ) was a German historian who mainly researched the late Middle Ages . Meuthen held professorships for medieval history at the universities of Bern (1971–1976) and Cologne (1976–1994). He discovered numerous sources from the 15th century and during his research work was one of the leading experts on the life and work of the humanist , philosopher and church politician Nikolaus von Kues (Cusanus).

Life

Erich Meuthen was the son of a vice-principal . He came from a strongly Catholic environment. He was no longer drafted into the Wehrmacht . But at the age of 16 he had to go on a trek to Westphalia in the spring of 1945 . After attending elementary school and high school in Gladbach, Meuthen passed the high school for mathematics and natural sciences in Mönchengladbach in March 1949.

Meuthen's interest in history was aroused by the pictures that the shoe polish manufacturer Erdal enclosed with its products (for example: "Emperor Friedrich Rotbart punishes the rebellious Milanese"). He was more interested in the explanations of the pictures than in the pictures themselves. Meuthen studied history, German studies and philosophy at the University of Cologne for nine semesters . His main academic teachers were Josef Koch , Richard Alewyn and Gerhard Kallen . At Alewyn, Meuthen worked on Goethe's Faust and tried his hand at his own poems and dramas. Koch and Kallen aroused his interest in Nikolaus von Kues. In Cologne he received his doctorate in March 1954 with a thesis inspired and supervised by Kallen on church reform and historical theology under Gerhoch von Reichersberg . From 1954 to 1957 he was a scholarship holder of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia at the German Historical Institute in Rome .

Meuthen completed an apprenticeship as archivist at the North Rhine-Westphalian main state archive in Düsseldorf and together with Hugo Stehkämper at the Marburg archive school . From 1957 to 1971 he worked in the archives service, from 1961 he was archivist and from 1966 to 1971 archive director of the Aachen City Archives . After his habilitation in 1967 with a prosopographical study on the Aachen provosts until the end of the Staufer period , he was also a private lecturer at RWTH Aachen University until 1971 .

From 1971 to 1976 Meuthen was a full professor of medieval history at the University of Bern . In 1974 he turned down an offer at the University of Munich . As the successor to Theodor Schieffer , Meuthen taught Middle and Modern History in Cologne from 1976 until his retirement in 1994. In August 1977 he was also Schieffer's successor as head of the university archives. After his retirement he held this office until January 31, 2001. As an academic teacher, he supervised four habilitations and 25 dissertations. His most important academic students include Johannes Helmrath , Harm Klueting , Heribert Müller and Urs Martin Zahnd . However, no school developed in the sense of a group of students with a common research area.

In 1993 he was awarded the University Medal. Since 1977 Meuthen has been a corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and a full member of the historical commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , since 2007 also a corresponding member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences . He was a member of the scientific advisory board of the German Historical Institute in Rome for over twenty years . In the successor to Hermann Heimpel , he was supervised by the historical commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences with the edition of the older series of the German Reichstag files (1376-1485). Meuthen was a member of the editorial team of the historical magazine and the magazine for church history for many years .

Meuthen married in 1967 and had three children in the following years. He was widowed since 1996. Meuthen suffered from Parkinson's disease for many years . He died on June 11, 2018 at the age of 89 and was buried in the family grave in Cologne.

plant

Between 1954 and 2003, Meuthen presented around 120 publications. Nikolaus von Kues was almost always the focus of his research. As an archivist in Aachen, he devoted himself to the medieval city history of Aachen. As a professor in Basel, he researched the Council of Basel (1431–1449). In addition to his Cusanus research, Meuthen worked as a professor in Cologne on the history of the university. On the occasion of the 600th anniversary in 1988, the university published a large, three-volume Cologne university history for which Meuthen was largely responsible. Meuthen wrote the first volume on the history of the old Cologne University (1388 to 1798). The presentation meets the highest scientific standards and is also considered exemplary in international comparison. Meuthen has been open to new questions all his research life. In 2000 he published a comparative essay on the proportion of women in German and Italian literature in the late Middle Ages. He was able to show that educated and literary women were not only found in the nobility, but also in the bourgeoisie and the clergy.

The preoccupation with Nikolaus von Kues went back to a suggestion by Josef Koch. Thanks to a three-year scholarship from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Meuthen was able to devote himself to research into the late Italian years of Cusanus from 1954 onwards. In doing so, he came across a wealth of previously completely unknown source material in 38 Italian archives and libraries. The resulting study The Last Years of Nikolaus von Kues mainly consisted of sources edited for the first time. In 1964, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Nikolaus' death, Meuthen published the depiction of Nikolaus von Kues 1401–1464. Sketch of a biography . He saw his work only "as a preliminary decision". This representation wanted "primarily to fathom people, to understand their work only in view of himself, not to develop it in its fullness". He praised Cusanus as "the first legal historian in the strict sense". He gave great importance to the missionary activity in Constantinople in 1437. Thanks to his commitment to the church union on the legation trip, Nikolaus von Kues moved, according to Meuthen's assessment, “into the front row of European politicians” and became an actor in “big world events”; “No German bishop of his century” had given the episcopate “such a pastoral seriousness” as he did. The seventh edition of the work was published in 1992, a Japanese translation came out in 1973 and an English translation in 2010. In the anniversary year 1964, Meuthen also published the presentation The Trier Schism of 1430 at the Basel Council. On the life story of Nikolaus von Kues , a fundamental study of the early life of Cusanus. The focus was on the Basel council proceedings against the Trier elect Ulrich von Manderscheid , whose party Nikolaus had taken. In 1977 Meuthen published De maioritate auctoritatis sacrorum conciliorum supra auctoritatem papae ("On the priority of the authority of the holy councils over the authority of the Pope"), a treatise on church policy by Cusanus from the spring of 1433, which he himself had discovered. In the 1980s, Meuthen worked in detail on the widely ramified sources on the journey of Cusanus as a papal legate through the empire between December 1451 and April 1452. The sources for this trip allow numerous insights into church conditions and diplomacy.

During his Cusanus research, Meuthen came across a manuscript of the Summa dictorum that was kept in the State Archives in Würzburg , which researchers were already familiar with, but whose central importance for the transmission of the text had not yet been recognized. The Summa dictorum is the reply with which Nikolaus wanted to refute the statements of the Basel Council Legate Nicolaus de Tudeschis in 1442 at the Frankfurt Reichstag . As spokesman for the papal embassy, ​​he tried to invalidate the dismissal of Pope Eugen IV . With the exception of the Summa dictorum , all of the treatises by Cusanus that were written between 1438 and 1447 were “handed down in one, at most two and only once in numerous manuscripts”. Meuthen gained new insights into the history of how the Summa dictorum came about and how it was handed down, and corrected the false impression of the handwritten tradition that the printing of this document in the German Reichstag files had given. The Italian humanism expert Agostino Sottili praised Meuthen's discovery as a brilliant find.

From the 1950s onwards, Meuthen worked with Hermann Hallauer on the edition of Nikolaus von Kues' testimonies. The two Cusanus researchers first met in March 1954 in Honnef . With Hallauer he founded the edition Acta Cusana in 1976 with the publication of the first volume (1401-1452) . Sources on the life story of Nikolaus von Kues . Meuthen and Hallauer gave up the previous selection principle and instead wanted “a complete collection presented in chronological order”. In doing so, they thought of the entire written tradition, "which provides information [...] about the life 'story' of Cusanus in the literal sense, yes, it is in a certain way." The two researchers have thousands of documents, letters, Chronicles and much more edited. In chronological order, the Acta Cusana bring together all the sources on the life story of Nicholas of Kues. The first volume, which covers the period from 1401 to 1452, was published in 1976, 1983, 1996 and 2000 in four or with index in five partial deliveries with 2452 documents on over 1800 pages. The steadily swelling source tradition in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era poses numerous new challenges for late medieval research, not only from an editorial point of view. Meuthen discussed this change in the source situation and its future editorial management using numerous examples in 1999. Due to age and illness, Meuthen and Hallauer could no longer complete the project. Johannes Helmrath was entrusted with the continuation of the company. The Acta Cusana are among the most important editions of late medieval sources. Through his research, Meuthen was able to close numerous gaps in Edmond Vansteenberghe's (1920) Cusanus biography, which had been authoritative until then . Thanks to his discoveries, the number of biographical documents available for Cusanus research could be increased to about 5000 according to a first count from 1964. In 2009, Hallauer and Meuthen were the first to receive the newly established Cusanus Prize from the Institute for Cusanus Research at the University of Trier and the Dr. Birgit Helander Foundation.

The Cusanus research also led Meuthen to the councils of the 15th century. At the Council of Basel he presented numerous and fundamental studies. He discovered three volumes of Rotamanualien in Basel and a volume of minutes of the Council from the property of John of Segovia in Copenhagen. Thanks to the approach presented in 1985, the Council of Basel is not only viewed from theological and ecclesiological points of view in the history of the Council , but is also understood in a very comprehensive sense as a polyvalent historical phenomenon with a meaning that extends far beyond church history. Meuthen also placed his Cusanus research in a larger temporal context. In 1980 he presented a standard work about the 15th century, which had been largely neglected in research, as part of the book series Oldenbourg Grundriss der Geschichte . According to Claudia Märtl, the volume was a novelty among German handbooks because of its “epochal design, its interdisciplinary perspective and its European horizon”. In the presentation he warned against treating the 15th century as a mere marginal epoch. Rather, it must be "ensured precisely in its complexity as the center of manifold developments, that is, as a 'mediating' time in the broadest sense". Meuthen revised his overview for two further editions (1984 and 1996). The fourth edition appeared in 2006, the fifth in 2012; they were updated by Claudia Märtl.

Meuthen also dealt with Renaissance humanism on a broader basis . The focus was on Nikolaus von Kues as a bridge figure between Germany and Italy. Meuthen pointed out that the German cardinal belonged to a curial circle of friends consisting of Germans and Italians with experience in Germany . During his Cusanus research, Meuthen came across a letter from the future Pope Enea Silvio Piccolomini of March 12, 1455 to the Spanish Cardinal Juan de Carvajal. The letter shows that Carvajal knew of a man who had offered printed Bible pages in Frankfurt. The letter is thus an early source testimony to the oldest Bible print. Although it had been printed in 1480 and edited in Spain in 1947, its relevance for Gutenberg research had not been recognized until Meuthen's publication in 1982. Meuthen's discovery is considered a sensation and was recognized as the most important source discovery of the 20th century for the history of the Gutenberg Bible.

Meuthen explored various aspects of Aachen's medieval history in numerous contributions. In a study published in 1962, Meuthen examined the relationship between Cusanus and Aachen, especially the Marienstift . In 1965, Meuthen published a study of Aachen in historiography up to 1800. In 1972, he presented an edition of the Aachen documents from 1101 to 1250. The document book offers 262 documents in full text reproduction. In a study published in 1975 he examined Friedrich Barbarossa's relationship to the city. After Meuthen's investigation of the stays of the rulers in Aachen, relations with the city were not as close as some of Barbarossa's documents initially suggest. According to Meuthen, Aachen could not develop into an "effective capital" under Barbarossa. After 1174, the Hohenstaufen ruler did not visit Aachen. Meuthen interprets this as an indication of the “beginning dichotomy between idea and reality in this realm”. Meuthen dealt with the supposedly oldest German paper letter from "1302". He was able to show that this feud letter kept in the Aachen City Archives, for reasons of graphics and content, should not be dated to this year but to the end of the century and is considering an oversight "1402" instead of "1302".

Fonts

Font directories

  • Johannes Helmrath, Heribert Müller (Ed.): Studies for the 15th century. Festschrift for Erich Meuthen. Volume 2, Oldenbourg, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-486-56078-6 , pp. 1101-1107.
  • Erich Meuthen: Bibliography of his writings 1954 to 2003 for his 80th birthday on May 31, 2009 (= small writings of the University and City Library Cologne. Volume 28). University and City Library, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-931596-46-0 , pp. 13–31.

Monographs

  • The 15th century (= Oldenbourg floor plan of history . Vol. 9), revised by Claudia Märtl . 5th edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 2012 ( review by H-Soz-u-Kult of the 2006 edition).
  • Nikolaus von Kues 1401–1464. Sketch of a biography. 7th, revised edition. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, ISBN 3-402-03492-1 .
  • Cologne University History. Vol. 1: The old university. Böhlau, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-412-06287-1 .
  • The Trier Schism of 1430 at the Basel Council. On the life story of Nikolaus von Kues. Aschendorff, Münster 1964.

literature

  • Matthias Becher : Obituary for Erich Meuthen at the meeting of the class for the humanities on February 13, 2019. In: Yearbook North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences , 2019, pp. 119–122.
  • Johannes Helmrath, Heribert Müller (Ed.): Studies for the 15th century. Festschrift for Erich Meuthen. Oldenbourg, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-486-56078-6 .
  • Johannes Helmrath: Brazen hunter of wisdom. The medievalist and editor Erich Meuthen has died. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 14, 2018, No. 135, p. 11. ( online ).
  • Johannes Helmrath: 'Concordantia Catholica'. Laudation to Erich Meuthen, Hermann Hallauer and the Acta Cusana. In: Cusanus-Jahrbuch 2 (2010), pp. 47–61.
  • Who is who? The German Who's Who. 51st edition. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2013, p. 750.
  • Oliver Junge: Erich Meuthen. At the limits of unity. Crisis Issues: The Discovery of the Fifteenth Century. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 25, 2009, No. 119, p. 32.
  • Thomas R. Kraus , Harald Müller , Klaus Pabst: Prof. Dr. Erich Meuthen (†). In: Journal of the Aachen History Association 119/120 (2017/2018), pp. 455–456.
  • Claudia Märtl: Erich Meuthen (1929–2018). In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries 98 (2018), pp. 463–465 ( online ).
  • Heribert Müller: Erich Meuthen (1929–2018). In: Historische Zeitschrift 309 (2019), pp. 659–667.
  • Eike Wolgast : Erich Meuthen (May 31, 1929– June 11, 2018). In: Yearbook of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences for 2018. Heidelberg 2019, pp. 182–186 ( online ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Johannes Helmrath: 'Concordantia Catholica'. Laudation to Erich Meuthen, Hermann Hallauer and the Acta Cusana. In: Cusanus-Jahrbuch 2, 2010, pp. 47–61, here: p. 50.
  2. ^ Johannes Helmrath: 'Concordantia Catholica'. Laudation to Erich Meuthen, Hermann Hallauer and the Acta Cusana. In: Cusanus-Jahrbuch 2, 2010, pp. 47–61, here: p. 48.
  3. ↑ Heribert Müller: Erich Meuthen. In: Erich Meuthen. Bibliography of his writings 1954–2003. Cologne 2009, pp. 5–12, here: p. 5.
  4. ^ Johannes Helmrath: 'Concordantia Catholica'. Laudation to Erich Meuthen, Hermann Hallauer and the Acta Cusana. In: Cusanus-Jahrbuch 2, 2010, pp. 47–61, here: p. 50.
  5. ↑ Erich Meuthen: Church reform and theology of history with Gerhoh von Reichersberg. o. O. 1954 (Cologne, Philosophical Faculty, dissertation of March 25, 1954).
  6. ↑ Heribert Müller: Erich Meuthen. In: Erich Meuthen. Bibliography of his writings 1954–2003. Cologne 2009, pp. 5–12, here: p. 7; Heribert Müller: Erich Meuthen (1929–2018). In: Historische Zeitschrift 309, 2019, pp. 659–667, here: p. 664 f.
  7. ^ Anna Sauerbrey : Collection of writings on Nikolaus von Kues. Two researcher lives for one big treasure. In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 20, 2011; Heribert Müller: Erich Meuthen (1929–2018). In: Historische Zeitschrift 309, 2019, pp. 659–667, here: p. 667.
  8. ↑ Obituary notice .
  9. ↑ Heribert Müller: Erich Meuthen. In: Erich Meuthen. Bibliography of his writings 1954–2003. Cologne 2009, pp. 5–12, here: p. 6.
  10. ^ Claudia Märtl: Erich Meuthen (1929–2018). In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries 98, 2018, pp. 463–465, here: p. 465 ( online ).
  11. ↑ Erich Meuthen: The proportion of women in literary production in the German 15th century and in the Italian Quattrocento. A comparison. In: Matthias Thumser (ed.): Studies on the history of the Middle Ages. Jürgen Petersohn on his 65th birthday. Stuttgart 2000, pp. 311-334.
  12. ↑ See reviews, among others, by Heinz Hürten in Historisches Jahrbuch 85, 1965, p. 402 f .; Rudolf Grabs in: Theologische Literaturzeitung , 91st year, 1966, No. 10, p. 767 f. ( Digitized version ); Hans Martin Schaller in German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages 20, 1964, p. 619 ( digitized version ).
  13. ↑ Erich Meuthen: Nikolaus von Kues. 1401-1464. Sketch of a biography. Münster / Westphalia 1964, p. 3.
  14. ↑ Erich Meuthen: Nikolaus von Kues 1401–1464. Sketch of a biography. 7th, revised edition. Münster 1992, p. 3.
  15. ↑ Erich Meuthen: Nikolaus von Kues 1401–1464. Sketch of a biography. 7th, revised edition. Münster 1992, p. 21.
  16. ↑ Erich Meuthen: Nikolaus von Kues 1401–1464. Sketch of a biography. 7th, revised edition. Münster 1992, p. 66.
  17. ↑ Erich Meuthen: Nikolaus von Kues 1401–1464. Sketch of a biography. 7th, revised edition. Münster 1992, p. 111.
  18. ↑ Erich Meuthen: The German legation trip of Nikolaus von Kues 1451/52. In: Hartmut Boockmann , Bernd Moeller and Karl Stackmann (eds.): Life lessons and world designs in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age. Politics - Education - Natural History - Theology. Göttingen 1989, pp. 420-499.
  19. ↑ Erich Meuthen: An unrecognized Cusanus autograph in the Würzburg State Archives. The Summa dictorum "Dampnatis Amedistis" from the Frankfurt Reichstag 1442 (Mainz documents, clerical cabinet, drawer 18 No. 4 Libell V) and the handwritten distribution of the work. In: Würzburg diocesan history sheets. Vol. 42, 1980, pp. 175-186, here: p. 177 ( online ).
  20. ↑ Agostino Sottili in his review of Meuthen's work An unrecognized Cusanus autograph in the Würzburg State Archives. In: Wolfenbütteler Renaissance-Mitteilungen , year 6, 1982, p. 24 f., Here: p. 24.
  21. ^ Johannes Helmrath: 'Concordantia Catholica'. Laudation to Erich Meuthen, Hermann Hallauer and the Acta Cusana. In: Cusanus-Jahrbuch 2, 2010, pp. 47–61, here: p. 50.
  22. ↑ Erich Meuthen: The Acta Cusana. Subject, design and output of an edition. Heidelberg 1994.
  23. ^ Acta Cusana. Sources on the life story of Nikolaus von Kues. Edited by Erich Meuthen and Hermann Hallauer, Volume 1, Delivery 1: 1401–1437 May 17. Hamburg 1976, p. IX.
  24. ^ Acta Cusana. Sources on the life story of Nikolaus von Kues. Edited by Erich Meuthen and Hermann Hallauer, Volume 1, Delivery 1: 1401–1437 May 17. Hamburg 1976, p. VI.
  25. ↑ Erich Meuthen: The source change from the Middle Ages to the modern age and its consequences for the art of publication. In: Lothar Gall , Rudolf Schieffer (Ed.): Source editions and no end? Symposium of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich, 22./23. May 1998. Munich 1999, pp. 17-36.
  26. ↑ Enno Bünz : "Everyday life and the peak of looking" - at the end of the first volume of "Acta Cusana". In: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte. Vol. 55, 2005, pp. 239-250.
  27. ^ Edmond Vansteenberghe: Le Cardinal Nicolas de Cues (1401-1464). L'action - la pensée. Paris 1920.
  28. ↑ University of Trier, Institute for Cusanus Research: Awarding of the Cusanus Prize of the Dr. Birgit Helander Foundation 2009 ( Memento from November 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).
  29. ↑ Hans-Jörg Gilomen ( arr .): The Rotamanualien des Basel Council. List of legal cases dealt with in the manuscripts of the Basel University Library. Tubingen 1998.
  30. ↑ Erich Meuthen: The Basel Council as a research problem in European history. Opladen 1985. Cf. Heribert Müller: The Church Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Schism, conciliarism and councils. Munich 2012, p. 99.
  31. ^ Claudia Märtl: Erich Meuthen (1929–2018). In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries 98, 2018, pp. 463–465, here: p. 465 ( online ).
  32. ↑ Erich Muethen: The 15th century. Revised by Claudia Märtl. 5th edition. Munich 2012, p. 119.
  33. ↑ Erich Meuthen: A “German” circle of friends at the Roman Curia in the middle of the 15th century. From Cesarini to Piccolomini. In: Annuarium historiae conciliorum. Vol. 16, 1984, pp. 348-368.
  34. ↑ Erich Meuthen: A new, early source testimony (to October 1454?) For the oldest Bible print. Enea Silvio Piccolomini on March 12, 1455 from Wiener Neustadt to Cardinal Juan de Carvajal. In: Gutenberg yearbook . Vol. 52, 1982, pp. 108-118.
  35. ^ Leonhard Hoffmann: The Gutenberg Bible. An estimate of the costs and profits of the first printing of the Bible based on contemporary sources. In: Archives for the history of the book industry . Vol. 39, 1993, pp. 255-319, here: p. 255.
  36. ↑ Leonhard Hoffmann: The price of the Gutenberg Bible. To buy the “Biblia de molde grande” in Burgos. In: Gutenberg yearbook. Vol. 77, 2002, pp. 50-56, here: p. 50.
  37. ↑ Erich Meuthen: Nikolaus von Kues in Aachen. In: Journal of the Aachen History Association. Vol. 73, 1962, pp. 5-23.
  38. ^ Erich Meuthen: Aachen in the historiography (until 1800). In: Clemens Bauer , Laetitia Boehm , Max Müller (eds.): Speculum Historiale. History in the mirror of historiography and the interpretation of history. Festschrift Johannes Spörl. Freiburg i. Br. Et al. 1965, pp. 375-392.
  39. ↑ Erich Meuthen: Barbarossa and Aachen. In: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter . Vol. 39, 1975, pp. 28-59, here: p. 59.
  40. ↑ Erich Meuthen: The supposedly oldest German paper letter from "1302". In: Archival Journal . Vol. 74, 1978, pp. 103-104.
personal data
SURNAME Meuthen, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Mönchengladbach
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 2018
Place of death Cologne
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on November 25, 2016 .