Job vener

Portrait of a scholar Job Veners in a legal opinion. Miniature in the illuminated manuscript of Winand von Steeg (Munich, Bavarian Main State Archives, Secret House Archives, HS 12, fol. 8)

Job Vener (* around 1370 in Strasbourg ; † April 9, 1447 in Speyer ) was a Catholic priest, learned lawyer and author of reforms.

Live and act

Job Vener came from the Schwäbisch Gmünd patrician family Vener and was born as the son of Reinbold Vener the Elder in Strasbourg. The first reliable news about him is from the end of 1378, when he received a benefice from Clemens VII at the Speyer church, which his father had asked for . From 1383–1387 Vener studied in Paris, where he obtained his baccalaureate, attended the University of Heidelberg from autumn 1387–1393 and finally went to the University of Bologna from 1393 to 1397 . There he acted as procurator of the German students in 1394 and 1396, on September 2, 1395 he acquired his license in Roman law and on August 30, 1397 in canon law. During a second stay on the occasion of King Ruprecht's trip to Rome, he received his doctorate there on February 20, 1402 as a doctor of both rights .

Since September 13, 1400 Job Vener acted as protonotary of the elector and Roman-German king Ruprecht von der Pfalz , who repeatedly used him on diplomatic missions. In 1401 Vener is attested as a canon in Strasbourg, from 1403 he worked as a law teacher at the University of Heidelberg and as a councilor for the Electoral Palatinate. In 1405 Job Vener, meanwhile ordained a priest, officiated as episcopal official in Speyer .

At the beginning of 1415 the clergyman traveled with Elector Ludwig III. (Palatinate) to the Council of Constance , where he took an outstanding part in the negotiations. A paper written by him there shows him both as an experienced practitioner and as a serious but conservative reformer, whose criticism neither wanted to go beyond the framework of the existing church. He took part in the 1417 conclave as a representative of the German nation and even received some votes in the papal election. In 1423 Job Vener finally settled in Speyer, and in 1424 he was accepted into the cathedral chapter here. Just like King Ruprecht before, his successor, Elector Ludwig III. von der Pfalz , and Vener's old Bolognese fellow student, the Speyer bishop Raban von Helmstatt , gave his advice. This happened especially in complicated and important legal matters, for which he also traveled a lot, e.g. B. to Cologne, Strasbourg, Savoy, Aragon, Paris, several times to Austria and Italy. His legal expertise and his erudition were shown in numerous reports. Equally interested in theological, legal and political problems, Vener dealt with both secular and spiritual questions, and his assessments were held in high regard by his contemporaries. Already familiar with the teachings of Jan Hus since the Council of Constance , he was consulted in the Palatinate on how to fight the Hussites.

Job Vener was in close contact with the Basel Charterhouse , which shows that he was personally devout. In 1444 he endowed an eternal mass memory in Speyer Cathedral .

His extensive handwritten estate was evaluated by the German medieval historian Hermann Heimpel . In Heimpel's important three-volume monograph on the Vener family, Job Vener is the focus of attention. Peter Moraw classifies him as "one of the most important lawyers in the medieval royal service".

literature

Ansgar Frenken: Vener, job. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 1565-1569. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
Hermann Heimpel : The veins of Gmünd and Strasbourg 1162–1447. Studies and texts on the history of a family as well as the learned civil service in the time of the occidental schism and the councils of Pisa, Constance and Basel (= publications of the Max Planck Institute for History. Volume 52). 3 volumes. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1982, ISBN 3-525-35378-2 .
Jörg Schwarz : Vener, job. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 26, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-428-11207-5 , pp. 753 f. ( Digitized version ).
Birgit Studt : Pope Martin V (1417–1431) and the church reform in Germany (= research on the history of the emperors and popes in the Middle Ages. Vol. 23). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2004, ISBN 3-412-17003-8 (also: Münster (Westphalia), University, habilitation paper, 2000; online ).

Remarks

↑ To the Karthaus Basel
↑ Peter Moraw: Scholarly jurists in the service of the German kings of the late Middle Ages (1273-1493). In: Roman Schnur (ed.): The role of lawyers in the emergence of the modern state. Berlin 1986, pp. 77–147, again in: Peter Moraw: Collected contributions to German and European university history. Structures - people - developments. Leiden 2008, pp. 465-540, here: p. 493.

personal data
SURNAME	Vener, job
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German lawyer and author of reform papers
DATE OF BIRTH	around 1370
PLACE OF BIRTH	Strasbourg
DATE OF DEATH	April 9, 1447
Place of death	Speyer

[1] To the Karthaus Basel

[2] Peter Moraw: Scholarly jurists in the service of the German kings of the late Middle Ages (1273-1493). In: Roman Schnur (ed.): The role of lawyers in the emergence of the modern state. Berlin 1986, pp. 77–147, again in: Peter Moraw: Collected contributions to German and European university history. Structures - people - developments. Leiden 2008, pp. 465-540, here: p. 493.