Georg Cracow

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georg Cracow , also Craco, Krakow, Cracov, Cracau, Cracovius (born November 7, 1525 in Stettin , † March 17, 1575 in Leipzig ) was a German lawyer and statesman.

Life

Georg Cracow

Born as the son of the pastor in Stettin Georg Cracow († 1550 in Stettin), he enrolled at the University of Rostock on April 21, 1538 , where he first took up a philosophical study of the liberal arts . In May 1542 he moved to the University of Wittenberg , where he disputed in the same month under Johannes Marcellus for a Baccalaureus at the philosophical faculty. He continued his studies and in October 1546 earned the degree of master's degree . In Wittenberg he made the acquaintance of Johannes Bugenhagen . This conveyed him in a letter to the rector of the University of Greifswald as "a sensible learned person who is well versed in the Latin and Greek languages, in physics, mathematics and theology and who is well worth earning his money at a university". In the summer of 1547 he took up a professorship for mathematics and the Greek language in Greifswald.

There he was the first teacher to teach geometry, among other things. In Greifswald, however, he got into disputes with Siegesmund Schnörkel , which were presented to Duke Philip I of Pomerania-Wolgast in Latin in 1548. Without question, Cracow must have been in connection with Albrecht of Prussia , whom he instructed after his return to Wittenberg in January 1549 about Philipp Melanchthon's and Bugenhagen's position on the Augsburg interim .

During this time he must have met Bugenhagen's widowed daughter Sara and joined the crowd of applicants for her hand. Cracow was able to convince Bugenhagen that, as a promising master's degree, he could ensure the care of the daughter. He married on June 17th, was accepted into the senate of the arts faculty in Wittenberg in September 1549 and read about Latin writers. In addition, he devoted himself to studying law, received his doctorate on August 7, 1554, as a doctor of ecclesiastical and secular law , began to read privately about the institutes , with which he gave his students their first instruction in law.

In the following year 1555 he took over a full professorship for Roman law at the law faculty and was thus a member of the Wittenberg consistory . After his circular disputations from 1556 to 1559, he took over the deanery of the law faculty from the winter semester 1558/59 and the summer semester 1559, was rector of the university in the winter semester 1559 and was used extensively by the Saxon electoral court since 1557 as the electoral councilor in church policy negotiations. In 1557 he attended the Worms Religious Discussion , 1558 the negotiations in Frankfurt Main, 1559 the Augsburg Reichstag , 1561 the Naumburg Conference and 1564 the Worms Reichstag on behalf of the Elector August, whose trust he had won.

This drew him to Dresden in 1565 , where he took the place of Ulrich von Mordeisen as Chancellor and thus became the Elector's favorite as the most trusted member of the Chamber Council, which is also expressed in the confidential naming of August's “Fat Doctor” . Cracow knew how to make himself indispensable at the Dresden court and distinguished himself during the siege of Gotha with tough negotiating skills with the Ernestian Chancellor Christian Brück . Cracow was also involved in eliminating the uncertainty about the scope and validity of Saxon law versus Roman law.

For this purpose, the constitutional legislation was initiated, which was drawn up by the Leipzig and Wittenberg professors and which were published on April 21, 1572 after the final editing by Cracow. This legislation, also known as the “Constitutions” of Elector August, adhered to the traditions of local law on the one hand, and could on the other hand be justified and secured in an exemplary manner by the appropriate use of Roman law.

Cracow, who was branded as a Philippist because of his position in theological questions when Elector August turned to Lutheran Orthodoxy , fell out of favor at the electoral court. Because his elector felt himself misled and betrayed by his confidante, Cracow was arrested on March 13, 1574 on his Schönfeld estate, acquired in 1568, and taken to the Pleißenburg in Leipzig. Despite an attempted release from prison by his friends and enemies in March 1575, he died as a result of the torture he had suffered on March 16. After the interrogation, a guard heard a prayer at four in the morning. After the cell was unlocked on March 17th, he was found dead. The body was brought to Gut Schönfeld by his eldest daughter Maria on March 18 and buried there.

family

Lucas Cranach the Elder J .: Epitaph for Sara Cracow

Cracow had in 1549 with Sara (* April 7, 1525 in Wittenberg), the first child of Johannes Bugenhagen and his wife Walpurga (born Triller (t) also: Trissler, Trittler * May 1, 1500 in Torgau ; † July 28 1569 in Wittenberg), married. In early childhood Sara got to know Braunschweig, Bremen and Denmark through her father's duties. In Wittenberg she attended the newly founded girls' school, grew up in the care of her family to become a young woman and met Gallus Marcellus, whom she married before May 9, 1543. He was born in Guben in 1521 as Gallus Merckel, enrolled at the Wittenberg University on May 14, 1533, and acquired the degree of master's degree there in 1541.

After he had married Sara before May 9, 1543, he was ordained as a deacon at the Wittenberg town church on June 27, 1543. On January 6, 1544 he was accepted into the philosophy faculty of the university. The marriage resulted in three children. The first son died early, so his name is not known. Marcellus also witnessed the birth of his son Martin (registered January 19, 1567 U-WB, Bacc. October 14, 1568). Due to the Schmalkaldic War , the family moved to Zerbst in 1546. Marcellus would certainly have had a career at the university, but he died around October 14, 1547.

Sara, who was heavily pregnant at the time, returned to her parents' home in Wittenberg, where she gave birth to daughter Anna in November 1547. Although many applicants for her hand found themselves after her year of mourning, she married Cracow.

The most impressive historical testimonies of the family can be found in the Wittenberg town church, where Sara Bugenhagen is depicted three times. After the death of his father-in-law in 1560, the council of the city of Wittenberg donated an epitaph painting on which the entire family of the reformer in the last year of his life is depicted. The picture is from Lucas Cranach the Younger . On the east side of the church is a memorial stone on which she is depicted. The Latin text on the stone reads in German translation:

On December 17, 1563 the honorable and virtuous Mrs. Sara, daughter of the high doctor Bugenhagen Pommer, wife of Dr. der Right and Prof. Georg Cracow different, and buried here.

The inscription on her epitaph painting, which shows the Cracow family under a crucifixion group, is even more indicative . The Latin inscription on the epitaph reads in German translation:

Sara is buried here, the daughter next to the father, who was called Bugenhagen with fame because he lived. Outside you can see my picture in the church wall, carved out of stones, including the years that I lived down here. - How I ended life and how it always flew to me - a few verses after that indicate it to the reader. For three years I was in marriage to Cracow, the teacher of wisdom, as a faithful husband. I was praised for my cleverness and chaste custom, and my beloved husband pleased body and soul. God granted me that I gave birth to four sons and three daughters to the dear one. But for the seventh time bitter sickness loosened me, and in Christ's lap I completed the earthly course. And the husband, who loved me in never-hyped love, consecrated the monument here, a sign of mourning. Whoever you are on the way here and who thinks I have been in life, say: under the moon there is nothing more permanent.

The epitaph is no longer in its original location, as it was moved from its original location in the course of various renovations in the town church. As can be seen from the epitaph, only the youngest son Johann (* December 14, 1563; † December 16, 1563), after whose birth she died in childbed, can be recognized as a small child in white clothes (representation for dead children). Furthermore, the names of the sons Georg (born November 10, 1561) and Paul (matriculated on October 18, 1559 at the University of WB as the son of the rector, first mentioned in 1551) are known. According to the depiction of the epitaph, a son, whose name has hitherto remained hidden, may have reached the age of around 4 years before he died in 1559. Of the girls we know the oldest Hannula (first mentioned 1555; † 1574), the second oldest Maria (first mentioned October 20, 1557 (BBW p. 574), married Benedict Balthasar in Stettin, widowed as early as 1585) and Katharina (* around 1559 in Wittenberg; † May 17, 1599 in Freiberg, married May 9, 1568 the merchant and later mayor Jacob Griebe , also Grübe; * June 22, 1541 in Leipzig; † July 24, 1601 in Leipzig), the daughters Sara Griebe, as well as the Sons Georgius Griebe, Jacob Griebe and Carolus Griebe are known. His sister Magarethe Griebe was married to Nikolaus Krell .

In 1566 Cracow married Christine, the daughter of the Müntz master Sebastian Funke in Schneeberg. The children Hans (Johannes) Cracow, who lived in Freiberg and with a woman named Catharina NN, are known from their marriage. was married, who can still be proven as a widow there in 1620. His sister Margarete Cracow (* 1572; † September 28, 1600 in Dresden) married the bell and art caster Johannes Hilliger (* February 8, 1567; † April 24, 1640 in Dresden) on October 10, 1592.

Works

  • Elegiae et Epigrammata aliqvot graeca
  • Oratio de dignitate studii juris redictata a Gregoriio Cracovio
  • Oratio de Imperatore Ludovico Bavaro, redicta a Georgio Cracovio Doctore Juris, cum decerneretur Gradus Mathiae Colero, Altenburgensii Doctori Juris, Calendis Decembris Ao. 1558
  • Elegia in obitum clarissimi poetae D. Petri Lotichii secundi, scripta Spirae, d. Nov. 9, 1560 auctore Georgio Cracovio JUD
  • Elegia in obitum clarissimi Poetae Georgii Sabini scripta Lipsiae, d. January 6, 1561.
  • Oratio de Bartolo ICto, praestantissimo, redicta a Georgio Cracovio ICto. JUD clarissimo, cum conferret Gradum Doctoris in utroque jure viro ornatissimo, Philippo Jünger, Oschacensi, VII. Non. June 1562
  • Commentatio in Ciceroni's Quaestiones Tusculanas
  • Epitaphum Bugenhagii
  • Epistola ad Johannem Kittelium Kalendis Januarij 1562

literature

Web links

Commons : Georg Cracow  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to others also on March 16
  2. ↑ Registration of Georg Cracow in the Rostock matriculation portal
  3. ↑ according to the Julian calendar, according to the Gregorian calendar March 27th
  4. ^ Bernhard Koerner: Genealogisches Handbuch Bürgerlicher Familien. CA Starcke, Görlitz, 1907, Vol. 13, p. 241
personal data
SURNAME Cracow, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krakow, Georg; Cracov, Georg; Cracau, Georg; Craco, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and statesman
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1525
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1575
Place of death Leipzig