Helmut Feld

Helmut Feld (born August 25, 1936 in Dillingen / Saar ; † January 1, 2020 in Mössingen ) was a German theologian and church historian .

Life

Helmut Feld was born in Dillingen / Saar in 1936, his family came from Nalbach . After attending the Dillinger grammar school, he graduated from the state humanistic grammar school in Saarlouis in 1956 .

From 1956 to 1965 he studied philosophy, Catholic theology , classical philology and history, among others in Trier , at the Gregoriana and at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome , where he lived in the Collegium Germanicum until 1960 , and at the University of Tübingen . In academic and personal terms, he was particularly influenced by his Roman teachers Wilhelm Klein and Stanislas Lyonnett from the Jesuit order . From 1965 to 1967 he was a fellow at the Institute for European History in Mainz . At academic degrees, he successively acquired the philological licentiate in Rome, the state examination in Tübingen, the Dr. phil. in Saarbrücken and the Dr. theol. in Tübingen.

From 1967 to 1972 Feld worked as an administrative assistant at the University of Tübingen. He was then a research assistant there from 1972 to 1974 . As part of a research assignment from the German Research Foundation (DFG), he worked as a research assistant at the University of Würzburg from 1974 to 1978 . From 1978 to 1981 Feld was the managing director of the Europa-Zentrum Tübingen - Institute and Academy for European Issues in Baden-Württemberg . At the same time he held a professorial teaching position for historical theology at the University of Saarland from 1975 and between 1982 and 1991 worked on research assignments for the DFG at the University of Tübingen. In 1988 he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Saarbrücken, where he taught until 1996 and was one of the formative personalities of the Institute for Catholic Theology.

From 1991 to 2000, Feld worked on research assignments for the DFG at the Leibniz Institute for European History in Mainz. He had been a member of the International Commission for the Editing of Johannes Calvin's Works since 1987 , and from 1990 he headed its “Comments” section. In 2001 Feld took over the management of the research project " Konrad Summenhart " at the Leibniz Institute for European History. From 2004 to 2006 he headed the project “Research on the Religious History of the Late Middle Ages and the Reformation Era” at the same institute.

Helmut Feld is considered to be an important expert on Francis of Assisi and the history of the Franciscan movement, who has enriched and shaped the Franciscan and Franciscan research through many works over the past decades. Other focal points of research were the history of the Reformation and the preoccupation with the ideas of piety, works and biographies of medieval religious women, including Joan of Arc and Jeanne de Jussie , whose Little Chronicle he edited in 1996. Mainly because of his own biographical character, Feld was interested in the history of the Society of Jesus and the life of Ignatius von Loyola .

Feld lived in Mössingen, Baden-Württemberg, where he died at the age of 83 after a serious illness.

Works (selection)

• Martin Luther and Wendelin Steinbach's lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews. A Study of the History of New Testament Exegesis and Theology. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1971
• (as ed. with Josef Nolte :) Word of God in Time. Festschrift Karl Hermann Schelkle for his 65th birthday presented by colleagues, friends and students. Patmos, Düsseldorf 1973
• Understanding the sacrament. WBG, Darmstadt 1976 (= income from research, volume 50)
• Maria. Secular reflections on ecclesiastical dogmas. Patmos, Düsseldorf 1977
• The beginnings of modern biblical hermeneutics in late medieval theology. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1977
• The letter to the Hebrews. WBG, Darmstadt 1985 (= income from research, volume 228)
• The iconoclasm of the west. Brill, Leiden 1990
• Francis of Assisi, the "second Christ". Zabern, Mainz 1991
• Conjectures on religious image statements in mannerism and baroque. Tintoretto - El Greco - Bernini. Publishing house of the Tübingen Society, Tübingen 1992
• The trapped of San Damiano. 800 years of Clare of Assisi 1193–1993. Publishing house of the Tübingen Society, Tübingen 1993
• Inspired nature. Franciscan animal stories. Publishing house of the Tübingen Society, Tübingen 1993
• Francis of Assisi and his movement. WBG, Darmstadt 1994
  3rd, expanded and bibliographically updated edition under the title: Franziskus von Assisi. The namesake of the Pope. With a foreword by Hubert Wolf . WBG, Darmstadt 2014
• Medieval women. Böhlau, Cologne 2000
• Francis of Assisi. Beck, Munich 2001 (volume from the CH Beck Wissen series , 4th edition 2017)
• Ignatius of Loyola. Founder of the Jesuit order. Böhlau, Cologne 2006
• Franciscan. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2008
• The end of belief in the soul. From the ancient Orient to the late modern. Lit, Berlin 2013
• Joan of Arc. Historical and virtual existence of the Orléans girl. Lit, Münster 2016 ( review by Gerd Krumeich )
• Essays on European religious and cultural history. Critical views on people and epochs, Lit, Berlin / Münster 2017 (collected studies from four decades)

Web links

• Literature by and about Helmut Feld in the catalog of the German National Library
• Publications by Helmut Feld in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii
• Francis and the Consequences. The peculiarities of Franciscan Christianity have formative power to this day. In: Evangelical Aspects , Volume 24, Issue 2, May 2014
  (excerpt from Feld's book Franziskaner with key statements on his understanding of Franciscanism)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helmut Feld. In: Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar . 19th edition 2003, Volume I: A – J. Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-598-23607-7 , p. 749.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Helmut Feld: Ignatius von Loyola. A biography. Böhlau, Cologne 2006, p. XI (foreword).
3. ↑ Thomas Ertl: Review of: Feld, Helmut: Franziskaner. Stuttgart 2008. In: H-Soz-Kult , January 26, 2009, accessed February 2019.
4. ↑ Little Chronicle. Report by a nun about the beginnings of the Reformation in Geneva. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1996, ISBN 978-3-8053-1870-9 .
5. ↑ Imprint of the homepage www.prof-feld.de , online until 2016. ( Memento from March 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ Obituary on the homepage of Saarland University, accessed on July 25, 2020.