Franz Kess

Franz Kess (born May 3, 1584 in Zwickau , † before 1650 in Halberstadt ) was a German educator .

Life

Franz Kess was baptized in the Zwickau Katharinenkirche. His father, Michael Kess, was a citizen in Zwickau. After schooling in his hometown, he went to the electoral state school in Grimma in 1599 . After six years he enrolled at the University of Wittenberg , where he completed his studies with the acquisition of an academic master's degree on September 26, 1609. He then went back to the Grimma State School, where he was hired as the third teacher in 1610 on the instructions of Elector Christian II of Saxony .

After his marriage on October 15, 1610 to Sybilla Justina, the daughter of the then rector of the Grimma Martin Hayneccius state school , he was promoted to the post of vice director of the school on May 26, 1620 . On February 3, 1623, Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony decided to make him rector of the institution. After he was solemnly inaugurated on March 13, 1623, he remained in this position for three years. After the death of the rector of the Pforta State School , Justin Bertuch , he moved there.

However, nothing positive has been reported about his rectorate in Schulpforte. According to a report by the then cantor to the senior consistory in Dresden, Rector Kess did not fulfill his official duties. “He was either oversleeping his lessons or arriving half an hour late. At lunchtime he regularly went to the tavern in front of the school gate, and in the evening, even if he was responsible for the inspection, he would come to dinner drunk. The Rector's Famulus, Gottfried Lobeck, a Primaner, could do whatever he wanted because as a friend of the Rector's eldest daughter, he had an influence on the Rector through her and her mother ”. With such conditions at the top of the school, the whole discipline at school looked no better.

The government in Dresden then ordered a thorough investigation, the result of which was a large criminal court. On May 10, 1630, 34 alumni were expelled from the school, but also the Rector Kess, the Tertius, the Tonhärter and the Siechmeister were dismissed without notice. These incidents had seriously damaged the reputation of the Pforta State School, and it was not easy to close the gaps in the teaching staff. Franz Kess returned to Grimma , where his wife, sister and daughter died of the plague in 1632/33. He later became rector in Halberstadt and is said to have died there before 1650.

literature

• Carl Friedrich Heinrich Bittcher: Gatekeeper Album: Directory of all teachers and students of the hönigl. Prussia. Pforta State School from 1543 to 1843; a memorandum for the institution's third secular celebration on May 21, 1843. Leipzig, 1843, p. 544
• Albert Fraustadt: Grimmenser Stammbuch 1900: life news about pupils of the Princely School Grimma from the year of foundation 1550 until today. Meißen, Association of Former Princely Students, 1900, p. 44
• Karl Böttcher: Contributions to the history of the Pforta state school in the years 1630–1672. Naumburg a. S., 1909, pp. 4-5
• Fritz Hexer: The Rectors of the Pforta State School. In: Die Pforte: Journal of the gatekeeper association. 19th year 1942, issue 1, pp. 13-16
• Fritz Heuer: From the history of the state school to the gate. Buske, Darmstadt et al. 1943, pp. 52–55
• Petra Dorfmüller: rectores portenses - life and works of the rectors of the Pforta state school from 1543 to 1935. Sax Verlag, Beucha 2006, ISBN 3-934544-96-7 , p. 72

Web links

• Publications by and about Franz Kess in VD 17 .