Johannes Grevius

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Johannes Grevius or Johann Greve, Greven, de Greve or the Greffe (* 1584 in Büderich ; † December 6, 1622 in an unknown manner during a trip to Speyer ) was a German pastor , Remonstrant theologian, writer and fighter against torture and thus against the witch trials ( witch theorists ).

Life

Cover sheet Tribunal Reformatum, Hamburg edition 1624

His father Johannes de Greve came from a respected Kleve family, which provided many mayors and lay judges of the city of Kleve in the 16th century . He was in the service of the duke and became burgrave in Büderich in 1584 . He first attended a school in Wesel and was a student of Joh. Brant. He then attended the high school in Herborn and probably also as a student of Conrad Vorstius the high school in Burgsteinfurt .

A case that occurred in his home town of Büderich in 1603 must have made a lasting impression on him. A well-to-do and wealthy seventy-year-old woman he knew was accused of having participated in the witch's dance at night. In Kleve she was tortured to death and then dragged through the streets. Her body was buried in the so-called Schindanger , a place where cattle were skinned and animal carcasses were buried.

In 1605 he became a pastor in Arnhem , in 1606 he was called to a trial in Heteren and Randwijk , in 1610 as a preacher in Heusden . There he married Josina van Ravensteyn. As a Remonstrant, he did not recognize the dogmatics of the Dordrecht Synod , which is why he was removed from his office. In 1619 he moved to Emmerich . There he was arrested and transferred to The Hague . On June 3, 1620 he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rasphuis in Amsterdam . However, after a year and a half, he was released because of the intercession of loyal friends. Immediately after his imprisonment he published his work Tribunal reformatum in 1621 , in which he condemned torture. He considers them to be foreign to the German legal process and describes them as incompatible with both divine and natural law and Christian charity . He also describes torture as useless, deceptive, and pernicious, since confessions made under torture have no value. In order to support his remarks, he lists a whole series of trials, most of which are witch trials . However, his work only became a success about a hundred years later, after a new edition.

Works

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Veit Veltzke: Johann Weyer and Reiner Sole Other: physicians and humanists in the service of the last Dukes of Jülich-Cleves-Berg in: Wesel and the Lower Rhine countryside, Linked history (n) 280. Mercator Publishing 2018, ISBN 978-3 -946895-03-9
personal data
SURNAME Grevius, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Greve, Johann; Greven, Johann; de Greve, Johann; die Greffe, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German witch theorist
DATE OF BIRTH 1584
PLACE OF BIRTH Büderich , Germany
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1622
Place of death on the way to Speyer