Heinrich Cunitz

Heinrich Cunitz (* 1580 in the district of Liegnitz , Silesia; † August 5, 1629 in Liegnitz ) was an important doctor in Silesia.

family

The Cunitz family is a typical family of scholars from Silesia , Pomerania and the Baltic States , consisting mainly of Lutheran clergy, philological doctors, lawyers and grammar school or Latin teachers. The oldest known ancestor of Heinrich Cunitz is Alexander Cuni (Cunicio), professor of liberal arts and medicine, who on April 30, 1543 received a letter of arms from Ferdinand I , at that time the German king . In 1556 the family can be found in Liegnitz . Two generations later, the majority of them lived in Freienwalde in Pomerania , from where another branch settled in the Baltic States: Prof. David Cunitius, 1642 poetry teacher at the high school in Reval , Caspar Heinrich Cunitius, Protestant pastor on the island of Oesel , and David Cunitius, who worked as an assessor at the Livonian court council and was raised to the Swedish nobility on February 10, 1687.

Life

Heinrich was born in the spring of 1580 as the son of Hans Cunitz in the Liegnitz district. His mother was a daughter of the Liegnitz citizen Georg Köckritz, called Schmied. Heinrich Cunitz probably received his first school instruction from his father, or he was taught by a private teacher. He later attended a secondary school in Breslau , from where on April 11, 1597 he switched to the then very prestigious Goldberg Latin School. Three months later she was enrolled at the University of Frankfurt (Oder) . There he studied medicine, mathematics and astronomy. He then went to the University of Rostock , where he enrolled in philosophy in October 1598. In 1599 he obtained his master's degree and was employed as a teacher at the faculty there in the summer of 1599. According to his curriculum vitae, which he wrote himself and published in the doctoral publication, he is said to have visited the astronomer Tycho Brahe in Uranienburg for an additional six months in order to take part in astronomical studies under his guidance, for which, however, there is currently no evidence.

He then finished his medical studies in Frankfurt (Oder) under Prof. Seiler and was appointed general practitioner in the Principality of Liegnitz-Brieg-Wohlau. Heinrich Cunitz married Maria von Scholtz on November 26, 1603, daughter of the princely Liegnitzer-Brieger council Anton von Scholtz on Raischmannsdorf. At that time he was already living and working in the city of Wohlau . In 1607 he obtained a doctorate in medicine from the University of Frankfurt (Oder). In 1614/15 the family moved to Schweidnitz . As a now very wealthy doctor, Dr. Cunitz shares in the village of Hohgiersdorf in the district of Schweidnitz, in Kunzendorf in the district of Liegnitz and a large house on the Ring in Schweidnitz - the so-called house "The golden man". Albrecht von Wallenstein stayed in this house from August 23, 1626 to August 15, 1626 - probably not least because of the fact that he was able to meet with Dr. Cunitz to exchange views on astrological and astronomical questions. On January 20, 1629, on imperial orders, six companies of foot soldiers of the then feared Lichtenstein regiment moved into the city of Schweidnitz in order to persuade the evangelical population to convert . They billeted everywhere, had their worst jokes, plundered the food supplies, destroyed the Protestant libraries and mistreated the residents with musket forks. These tortures lasted all year round. The early death of Heinrich Cunitz is related to this. He was able to flee to Liegnitz with his family. There he died on August 5th and was buried in the cemetery of St. Peter & Paul on August 12th, 1629.

Of his five children we should especially mention:

• The only son Anton Maximilian von Cunitz. Between 1650 and 1655 he played an important role in the legislation on tax collection for the county of Glatz , of which he was the land clerk, and the most important collection of privileges of the Glatz estates goes back to him, which he wrote around 1660 as the basis for the negotiations in Prague and Prague. Vienna had been put together. He was from Emperor Ferdinand III. on June 21, 1656 raised to the Bohemian knighthood.
• His daughter Maria Cunitz , who contemporaries referred to as the "Silesian Pallas " because of her erudition .

Fonts

• Epithalamion astronomicum et kathikon… Tobiae Engelhardo et Annae… Johann doctor, civis Vratisl. … Filiae… nuptias Vratisl. celebrantib . Breslau January 27, 1597. (Contains a wedding poem by Heinrich Cunitz for Tobias Engelhard and Anna Artzt).
• Disputatio Physica IV. De Coelo: Eius que natura ... Frankfurt (Oder) January 1598.
• Disputatio Physica de natura ... Frankfurt (Oder) February 1598.
• Disputatio de beatitudine civili ... Frankfurt (Oder) April 1598.
• Disputatio physica de causis kath Auto… Frankfurt (Oder) July 1598. (Dedicated to his later father-in-law Anton Scholtz.)
• De Livonia judicium astrologicum ex ecclipsi lunari anni vertentis… 1599. (It is not known whether this article about a lunar eclipse in Livonia was ever printed, cf. August Wilhelm Hupel: Nordische Miscellaneen . Volume 27/28, 1791, p. 221, and Christian Gottlieb Jöcher : General Gelehrtenlexikon . Leipzig 1750, Part 1, p. 2251.)
• Trium Eclipsium:… Iuducua Astrologica… Frankfurt (Oder) 1601.
• Disputatio Logica de Categoriarum Hypotheoriis quam sub praeside M. Jacobo Schickfusio […] conabitur Johannes Arithmaeus Lygius . April 7, 1602. (Here Heinrich Cunitz was only involved as a contributor.)
• Generationi piorum benedigitur è Sion. Proinde M. Andreae Baudisio,… et Ursulae Behmiae […] Striegau (Silesia) January 24, 1616. (Contains the wedding poem In Laurum Conjugalem sponsi by Heinrich Cunitz to his nephew Andreas Baudiss.)
• Laetioris adfectus spectula pro fausto Nuptiarum solennium festo, Viri Nobilis Ac Consultis Dn. Davids Schickfusii Suebusiensis Silesi IUD Sonsi & virginis Ursulae Viri […] Dn. Martini Hantkii Filiae, Sponsae. Oels 1621. (Contains a wedding poem by Heinrich Cunitz.)
• De dysenteria et dolore colico . Frankfurt (Oder) 1607. ("On dysentery and colic-like pain", his medical doctoral dissertation, which he wrote together with Friedrich Moller, Franziskus Omich and Gottfried Schmoll.)
• Kurtzer and Trewer report of two spiritual highly valued new Gifft-Artzneyen, namely: an astral bezoartic Giff extract and the same Gifft Salt . Liegnitz 1625.

Writings supervised by Heinrich Cunitz in his role as teacher at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Rostock:

• Disputatio de divisione logicae per Aristotle… Quam sub praesidio M. Henrici Cunitii . Rostock September 15, 1599. (Written by Petrus Fabricius from Rostock.)
• Disputationum ex Aristotelaea Schola Logicarum Progymnasma… Praeses M. Henricus Cunitius, Silesius . Rostock 1599. (Written by Rötgerus Neinerus from Riga.)

literature

• Sigrid Dienel: The plague of the Silesian doctor Heinrich Cunitz […] Dissertation, Munich 2000. (In it above all his writings and their current location evidence.)
• John Dreyer: Tycho Brahe: A picture scientific. Life u. Working in the 16th century . Karlsruhe 1894.
• Arno Herzig : Reformation Movement and Confessionalization. The Habsburg re-Catholicization policy in the County of Glatz. Hamburg 1996.
• K. Liwowsky: Some news about the family of the Silesian Maria Cunitz . 2nd edition, 2008.
• F. Julius Schmidt: The Lichtensteiner in Schweidnitz 1629 . In: Schlesische Provinzialblätter . Volume 116, 1829, pp. 105-120.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ So far there is no documentary evidence that he - as is often claimed - was born in the city of Liegnitz, cf. Liwowsky, p. 28.
2. ↑ See Dreyer, pp. 119, 122, 247 and 249f.
3. ↑ See Liwowsky, p. 31.
4. ↑ See Liwowsky, pp. 16-18.
5. ↑ See Schmidt, especially pp. 111–113.
6. ↑ Herzig, pp. 126–129, 153–154 and 186.
7. ↑ His family coat of arms can be found in: Konrad Blaźek: The arms of the Silesian nobility. (= J. Siebmacher's large book of arms, volume 17). Neustadt an der Aisch 1977 (Reprograph. Reprint of Siebmacher's Wappenbuch, Volume IV, Section 11, Nuremberg 1885, Volume VI, Section 8, Part 1, Nuremberg 1887, Part 2, Nuremberg 1890 and Part 3, Nuremberg 1894), here part 2, plate 46.

Web links

• Publications by and about Heinrich Cunitz in VD 17 .