Gerhard Coccejus

Portrait of Gerhard Coccejus, 1639

Gerhard Coccejus

Gerhard Coccejus actually Gerhard Coch or Gerhard Koch (* July 1, 1601 in Bremen ; † July 27, 1660 in Bremen) was Professor of Law, Councilor in Bremen and Minister of the City in the negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia .

biography

Coccejus was born in 1601 as the son of city secretary Timan Coch (1573–1637) and Elisabeth Bake (1582–1629) in Bremen. He first studied at the pedagogy and the illustrious grammar school in his hometown, and later at the universities of Rostock , Cologne and Frankfurt / Oder .

In 1628 Coccejus received his doctorate in Strasbourg as a Doctor iuris utriusque ('Doctor of Both Rights'), returned to Bremen and became a syndic at the chapter of Stephen . In 1630 he married Kunigunde Holle (1609–1682), daughter of the parent Hermann Holle. In the same year he took up a position as professor of law at the grammar school illustrious. In 1640 he became a councilor .

Between 1644 and 1648 Coccejus was together with the Bremen Syndicus Johann Wachmann the Elder and the Syndicus Liborius Line Bremen and Hanseatic ambassadors in the negotiations on the Peace of Westphalia in Osnabrück and Münster. He shared a house in Osnabrück with the Hamburg ambassadors Johannes Christoph Meurer and Lübeck's David Gloxin . There he campaigned primarily for the imperial immediacy of Bremen. In 1646 he acquired for Bremen through the mediation of Maximilian von und zu Trauttmansdorff and against payment of 100,000 Reichstalers from Emperor Ferdinand III. a certificate about the imperial immediacy of the city - the Linz diploma . However, since this document was not recognized by Sweden , Bremen's independence was always jeopardized in the following years and had to be defended in the First Bremen-Swedish War in 1654 and in the Second Bremen-Swedish War in 1666 . When the Count of Oldenburg was allowed to levy a Weser tariff in the final peace negotiations , he and Wachmann refused to sign the agreement on October 24, 1648.

In the period that followed, Coccejus acted as an intermediary between Geldern and the Duchy of Neuburg . After disputes in the Bremen council , he resigned his office in 1654 and went to Aurich as an advisor to the Prince of East Friesland . A year later he became professor of law in Groningen and died in Bremen in 1660.

Gerhard Coccejus was a brother of the well-known theologian Johannes Coccejus .

Honors

• The Coccejusstraße in Bremen- Schwachhausen was named after the brothers.

literature

• Heinrich Wilhelm Rotermund : Lexicon of all scholars who have lived in Bremen since the Reformation . 2 volumes, Schünemann Verlag , Bremen 1818.
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Volume 1: A-K. 2nd updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Thomas Elsmann: In the shadow of the businessman - Bremen scholars 1600–1900 , Schünemann, Bremen 2012, pp. 32–57.