Johann Camman

Johann Camman the Elder J. (1584-1649)

Johann Camman the Elder J. , also Cammann (born January 1, 1584 in Braunschweig ; † March 21, 1649 ibid) was a German lawyer, syndic of the city of Braunschweig and a book collector.

life and work

He was the son of the lawyer Johann Camman the Elder, who came from a respected Braunschweig family. Ä. († 1621). After completing his law studies, which he began in 1605, at the universities of Helmstedt , Wittenberg , Jena , Rostock , Gießen , Cologne , Heidelberg and Tübingen , he published a collection of 12 disputations in 1612 entitled “Collegium Politico-Juridicum” . In the same year he became an administrative officer in his hometown. As a result of the inner-city unrest in the years 1613 to 1615, Camman temporarily moved to Lüneburg and returned to Braunschweig in 1615. In 1617 he married the Hamburg merchant's daughter Dorothea vom Sode († 1647). In 1619 he received his doctorate in Giessen. In the service of the city of Braunschweig he became "advocatus fisci" in 1621 , syndic in 1624 and finally senior syndic in 1625, which he remained until his death. His tenure at the head of the city administration was accompanied by ongoing legal disputes between the city and the Guelf rulers and the dangers of the Thirty Years' War .

Scholar and book collector

Camman was very interested in many things. In addition to his administrative work, he dealt with the humanities and natural sciences as well as ancient and modern languages. So he read the Koran and the Old Testament in the original languages. He was in contact with scholars such as the linguist Schottelius , who worked at the Wolfenbütteler Hof .

Over the decades, Camman amassed an extensive collection of books that is now considered the largest closed private library of the 17th century in northern Germany. Between 1628 and 1630 Camman cataloged the volumes in the five main groups Philologica, Historica, Medica, Theologica and Juridica .

Camman died childless in 1649 and was buried in Braunschweig's Martinikirche , where his epitaph has been preserved. His library remained in the family until the middle of the 18th century when it became the property of the city. City descriptions from the 18th and 19th centuries named the collection as a sight. The 9,557 titles preserved today in 3,732 volumes formed the basis of the Braunschweig city library founded in 1861 .

The Cammannstrasse in Braunschweig is named after him.

literature

• Luitgard Camerer , Manfred Garzmann , Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf (eds.): Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon . Joh. Heinr. Meyer Verlag, Braunschweig 1992, ISBN 3-926701-14-5 , p. 55 .
• Jürgen Hodemacher: Braunschweig's streets - their names and their stories, Volume 2 , pp. 58–59, Braunschweig 2001.
• Cord Meckseper (Ed.): Stadt im Wandel, exhibition catalog Volume 1 , pp. 575-579, Edition Cantz, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-922608-37-X .
• Johannes Wiesner: Camman, Johann . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Dieter Lent et al. (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 8th to 18th century . Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937664-46-7 , p. 132 f .