Johann Oldendorp

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Johann Oldendorp

Johann Oldendorp (* around 1488 in Hamburg ; † June 3, 1567 in Marburg ) was a German lawyer , reformer and politician .

Life

Johann Oldendorp was born as the son of the businessman Johann Oldendorp and his wife Elisabeth. Krantz was born. His mother's brother was the well-known historian Albert Krantz , from whom he probably received his first lessons. In 1504 he studied at the University of Rostock . This was followed by studies at the old University of Cologne and the University of Bologna . In Bologna he became spokesman for the German student body in 1511 and received his licentiate in 1515 . In 1516 he was appointed professor to Greifswald , where he was the rector's office from 1517. He did not receive his doctorate until 1518. In 1520 he worked as a professor at the Brandenburg University of Frankfurt in Frankfurt / Oder , and in 1521 again as a full professor in Greifswald. In Greifswald, Oldendorp worked with great zeal for the interests of the university, which led to tensions with the city council. Reason for conflicts with his colleague who was still strictly Catholic at the time, later dean Heinrich Bukow jun. , was the Reformation, practical-theological way of thinking Oldendorp, which he also represented publicly. Another reason may have been the fact that Oldendorp combined the celebration of his doctorate in 1518 with that of his own wedding, he married the widow Sophia Lotze. Oldendorp evaded the strictly Catholic, rigid stance of the university management and the city committees and went to Rostock in 1526 .

Reformation thoughts and views already prevailed here, so that Oldendorp was appointed professor and city counsel . In addition to Joachim Slueter , Johann Oldendorp also worked here for the rapid introduction of the Reformation in 1531 and moved in his development from a lawyer to a politician. The separation from his wife forced him to leave Rostock in 1534. He went to Lübeck, where he was syndicus , confidante and advisor to Mayor Jürgen Wullenwever until 1536 during the final phase of the count's feud and until it was deposed and disempowered. In the negotiations about the return of the fled Catholic mayor Nikolaus Brömse , he is said to have asserted that Lübeck could remain Protestant.

After that an unsteady time began for Oldendorp: in 1536 he was again professor at the Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder. From July 1538 he became professor and syndicus at the University of Cologne , where he probably participated in the attempt by Archbishop Hermann V von Wied and Martin Bucers to push through the Reformation. In 1540 he was elected professor of law in Marburg and in 1541 rector. At the beginning of 1543 he went back to Cologne, but was soon dismissed from the local council because of his Protestant faith and called back to Marburg by Landgrave Philip I of Hesse in July 1543 . He had established the first Protestant university here, for which Oldendorp was to work out a fundamental renewal of the constitution. In Philip I of Hesse, Johann Oldendorp found a patron and sponsor who appointed him “councilor from home” and made it possible for him to work here permanently.

Scientific work

Up until his death, Oldendorp published writings on topics ranging from legal philosophy to political and social doctrine to legal history . He commented on laws and specifically assessed legal cases. His treatises were practically oriented and often written in a legal didactic way . The systematic regulatory framework and its epistemological explanations were a clear departure from the “stilted” style of legal literature of the time.

The core of his legal philosophy is the doctrine that all human law is changeable, whereas divine and natural law is constant. With his main work Iuris naturalis gentium et civilis isagoge from 1539, he is considered to be one of the early representatives of “ classical natural law ”. In some cases it is also seen as a forerunner of the law of reason born from natural law , for example by Franz Wieacker , who locates Oldendorps roots in humanism of the Renaissance and the Lutheran Reformation alike. In connection with his epistemological treatises, Oldendorp raises the question of the relationship between law and equity ( aequitas ). Detached from the scholasticism , which was much discussed at the time , Oldendorp examines the origin of law in his main work and comes across the ius naturale as the law of natural reason, which would remain valid regardless of the fall of man , and the ancient Roman ius civile ( customary law derived from the fathers' custom originated), which left the stamp of changeable provisionality.

In his work Wat billich unrecht ys, eyne korte explains, alle stenden denstlick , written in Low German , Oldendorp - based on the Aristotelian doctrine of equity - dealt with the relationship between equity and justice . In doing so, he assigns secular law, the ius strictum , the place of (changeable) justice. He assigns (constant) equity to the divine right, the ius divinum ( Godtlike and natural right bleyven stede, often human-set unnatural regiment synt changeable ). Since equity serves not only “God's word and will”, but the “common good”, this leads to the disclosure of the nature of the laws to be enforced, in which the ideas would have to be reflected, which should therefore be just because not everyone Facts can be regulated in individual cases. To do this, Oldendorp draws natural law and concrete (historical) law together ("justice of positivity").

Works

Tractatus de testibus et universa testimoniorum materia , 1596
  • Wat billich un right ys, eyne korte declaring, all stenden denstlick , Rostock, 1529.
  • Ratmannenspiegel , Rostock, 1530.
  • Iuris naturalis gentium et civilis isagoge , Antwerp, 1539.
  • Loci communes iuris civilis , Lowen, 1545.
  • Tractatus de testibus et universa testimoniorum materia ( la ). Johann Gymnich, Cologne 1596.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ↑ Uwe Wesel : History of the law. From the early forms to the present. CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-406-54716-4 , Rnr. 249 (p. 380).
  3. ^ A b c Franz Wieacker : History of private law in the modern era with special consideration of German developments . 2nd Edition. Göttingen 1967, DNB 458643742 (1996, ISBN 3-525-18108-6 ). P. 283 f.
  4. ↑ Guido Kisch : Erasmus and the jurisprudence of his time. Studies on humanistic legal thought . Basel 1960 pp. 230 ff and 242; as representatives of Protestant natural law thinking it provides the actual rational law thinkers Althusius , Grotius and Pufendorf nor Erik Wolf in: Large jurists of German intellectual history . 1939, 4th edition 1963, p. 138 ff. (After Wieacker).
  5. ↑ Low German original from Freybe in: Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft 14 (1878), p. 100 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Oldendorp, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oldendorp, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and reformer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1488
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 1567
Place of death Marburg