Hieronymus Cypraeus

Hieronymus Cypraeus , born as Hieronymus Koppersmidt , also Hieronymus Kupferschmidt (* 1516/17 in Schleswig ; † May 8, 1573 ibid) was a German clergyman and Schleswig canon.

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The name "Cypraeus" was the Greek-Latin spelling of the Low German name "Koppersmidt". In the sources that describe Cypraeus, including those with a Latin reference, both spellings can be found. Only “Cypraeus” is used in the documents concerning his brother.

Hieronymus Cypraeus was a son of Claus Koppersmidt. He worked as Schleswig mayor and canon and died on February 14, 1574. The mother's name is not documented. He had a brother named Paulus Cypraeus (born April 16, 1536), who achieved lexical relevance as a lawyer.

Cypraeus attended an unknown university, which he left as a Magister at an undocumented time. His name can be found for the first time in 1552 when he was the rector of the Schleswig Cathedral School . Around 1552 he married Petronella, the widow of the Schleswig Bishop Tilemann von Hussen , who died in 1551 . From 1555 he belonged to the Schleswig cathedral chapter and initially worked as its thesaurarius (treasurer), from 1556 also as archdeacon. In the cathedral chapter he received an influential position, probably also because of his offices.

Cypreaus was directly involved in conflicts with Duke Adolf von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf . In 1556 he took over the position of Schleswig bishop. Chancellor Adam Tratziger helped and influenced the duke in his attempts to subordinate the cathedral's capital and assets to the prince. The Duke set up a pedagogy at which canons teach at the new higher education institution, but were not supposed to lead it, which had been the case until then. Cypraeus, the lecturer Caeso Enigma and Canon Conrad Hogreve did not want to agree to this plan and therefore had to spend some time in prison in 1565, where they gave up their resistance. In 1567, Cypraeus became the first rector of the facility and taught Greek and Hebrew here.

In 1569 the duke planned to appoint his one-year-old son Friedrich as canon. In addition, as coadjutor, he should also succeed him as bishop. Cypraeus did not agree and was arrested again along with other members of the cathedral chapter, including Enigma and Hogreve. This time, too, the inmates bowed to the will of the duke.

Works

Cypraeus is considered to be the first historian of the duchies to be influenced by Renaissance humanism. He wrote about the history of the bishops of Schleswig and dealt with the political history of Denmark and the Duchy of Schleswig. The work entitled Chronicon episcoporum Slesvicensium remained unfinished and only lasted until the middle of the 14th century when he died. His brother Paul used it as the basis for his main historical work.

If Cypraeus had medieval histories available in printed or handwritten form, he worked with compilations and did not criticize the sources . In quotations and reports he gave documents that he had looked for in the archives of the diocese, the cathedral chapter and other church institutions. So he worked comparatively modern for his time.

In 1560 Cypraeus' epigrams of the Schleswig bishops appeared . The author sorted these in chronological order. In the sense of humanism , these works can be assigned to historiography.

literature

• Dieter Lohmeier: Cypraeus, Hieronymus . In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, pp. 92-93.