Foppe van Aitzema

Foppe van Aitzema , other naming conventions Foppe van Aizema and Foppius van Aissema (* around 1580 in Dokkum ; † October 28, 1637 in Vienna ), was a lawyer and politician.

Live and act

Aitzema was born around 1580 in Dokkum, a town in what is now the province of Friesland in the Netherlands , as the son of Pastor Schelte van Aitzema and his wife Sjoerdje Lieuves. For his studies he referred to the universities in Franeker , Leiden , Helmstedt and Wittenberg .

After completing his studies in 1607, he became a councilor at the court of Duke Heinrich Julius of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel . He was also the Protestant bishop of the Halberstadt diocese and appointed Aitzema in 1612 against the opposition of the cathedral chapter as chancellor of the diocese. When the duke died on July 20, 1613 and the only 4-year-old duke Heinrich Karl von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel was appointed the new bishop, the cathedral chapter was able to remove him. This also put him in captivity for nine months. After Aitzema renounced all of his belongings and promised never to re-enter the Duchy of Braunschweig and the Diocese of Halberstadt, he was released on bail and disfavored.

Thereupon he found asylum with the States General for which he led negotiations with Frederick IV of Denmark , Tilly and Wallenstein in 1617 as envoy in the Hanseatic cities of Lübeck and Hamburg .

When he went to Vienna on business in 1635, he was suspected of having approached Catholicism. However, in 1636 he was sent back to Vienna on a diplomatic assignment to negotiate a secure position for the States General with Emperor Ferdinand II and thus achieve a neutral position vis-à-vis the warring powers of the Thirty Years' War . However, the government in The Hague was dissatisfied with the success of the negotiations and recalled him in 1637. On the return journey, Aitzema found out about further restrictions against him in Oldenburg and returned to Vienna, where he died on October 28, 1637, having converted to the Catholic faith.

family

Meinardus von Aitzema, an older brother of Foppe, was mayor of Dokkum and admiralty secretary. His son Lieuwe van Aitzema was a well-known diplomat and historian. Foppe married Anna Hauthor from Halberstadt and had three daughters for me.

Works

• Poemata Juvenilia, Paris 1605; New edition Helmstädt 1607
• Dissertation ex Juris Civilis Libri II, Helmstedt 1607.

literature

• Christian Friedrich Wurm : The European background to the Snitger-Jastram'schen confusion in Hamburg 1686: From archival sources. By Christian Friedrich Wurm. Attached: Documentary notices about the guilt and the last fate of Foppius van Aitzema. Addendum to last year's Easter program. From the same, JA Meissner, 1855, p. 12 ( digitized version )
• Julius Opel :  Aitzema, Foppe van . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 168 f.
• Hans Köppen:  Aitzema, Foppe van. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 119 ( digitized version ).
• Uwe Wieben: Foppe van Aitzema and the Peace of Boizenburg 1620 , 66 pages, Boizenburg 2011.

Web links

• Publications by and about Foppe van Aitzema in VD 17 .