Gottfried Bessel

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Abbot Gottfried Bessel
Abbot Gottfried Bessel
Abt-Bessel Chapel in Buchen (Odenwald)

Johann Georg Bessel , with the religious name Gottfried (born September 2, 1672 in Buchen (Odenwald) , † January 22, 1749 in Göttweig ) was a German - Austrian Benedictine and scientist .

Life

Gottfried Bessel, born in Buchen in the Odenwald , in the Archdiocese of Mainz , studied in Aschaffenburg , Bamberg , Würzburg and Salzburg . He entered the Göttweig monastery on June 15, 1692. He was ordained a priest on March 21, 1696 and in May after his doctorate in theology he became a teacher at the Benedictine monastery school in Seligenstadt am Main.

Archbishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn , Elector of Mainz , entrusted Bessel with diplomatic missions to Vienna, Rome and Wolfenbüttel . After the University of La Sapienza in Rome had made him Doctor iuris utriusque in 1703 , Schönborn appointed him Vicar General and Official in Mainz in 1704 . In 1700 he became apostolic protonotary . It was due to his diplomatic skill that on May 1, 1707 Princess Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and in 1709 her grandfather, Duke Anton Ulrich , converted.

Bessel was elected abbot of the Göttweig Benedictine monastery in Lower Austria in 1714 . The benediction did not take place in Göttweig, but in Bamberg Cathedral under the chairmanship of the Elector of Mainz. In 1716 there was an imperial appointment as court theologian. He was probably the most important abbot of the monastery (1714–1749), which he had rebuilt after the fire in 1718 according to plans by Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt .

Gottfried Bessel was also rector of the University of Vienna from 1714–16 and author of the Gottweiger Chronik ( Chronicon Gotwicense ). Because of his groundbreaking research on document theory , he was often compared to Jean Mabillon , also known as the "German Mabillon".

In the course of the Austrian War of Succession he was taken hostage in French custody in 1741 and had to be ransomed for 50,000  fl . On June 29, 1746, in the presence of Emperor Franz Stephan and Maria Theresa, his golden jubilee of profession, priest and doctorate was celebrated.

In his hometown Buchen, whose parish Gottfried Bessel donated a precious chalice and a chapel , the secondary school and a street are named after him.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Deepened contacts with Göttweig Abbey. Fränkische Nachrichten, June 3, 2011, accessed April 12, 2014 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Gottfried Bessel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Bessel, Gottfried
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bessel, Gottfried Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Austrian Benedictine, abbot and historian
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1672
PLACE OF BIRTH Beeches (Odenwald)
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1749
Place of death Göttweig