Johannes Loccenius

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Johannes Loccenius

Johannes Loccenius (born March 13, 1598 in Itzehoe ; † July 27, 1677 in Uppsala ) was a German humanist and lawyer.

Live and act

Johannes Loccenius was the son of the businessman Albrecht Locken and his wife Anna, née Sommer. Father and mother died early after giving birth to their son. Loccenius went to school in Hamburg and enrolled on March 26, 1616 at the University of Helmstedt, on July 13, 1617 at the University of Leiden. On July 27th he enrolled there again under the name "Johannes Loxenius". He allegedly also studied in Rostock, where there is no corresponding entry in the register. In Leiden he heard from Johannes van Meurs, among others .

After completing his studies, Loccenius went back to Hamburg and lived there in the vicinity of north German late humanists such as Lucas Holstenius , Henrich Hudemann and Henricus Vagetius , with whom he had been friends for the most part since his youth. What he did during this time is unknown. On February 2, 1622, he married the bourgeois daughter Ursula Tamm. For this reason, it can be assumed that he had a job with a secure income at that time.

On August 3, 1624, Loccenius, evidently accompanied by two young Hamburgers, enrolled again in Leiden and was awarded Dr. jur. PhD. Due to his extensive knowledge of law and classical literature, he accepted a call from Johan Skytte to the chair of history at Uppsala University in 1625 . A few years later he made an extraordinary move to the chair of politics and eloquence ( Skytteanic professorship ) financed by Skytte, and then in 1634 to that of Roman law.

After the death of his wife in 1652, Loccenius married Margareta Kietz on October 19, 1654, who died after 1677. From his two marriages came a total of 15 children.

In 1648 Loccenius was appointed university librarian, which reduced his workload somewhat. From 1651 he worked as an imperial historiographer. In 1666 he took part as one of the assessors in the new "Antikvitetskollegiums" and received payments as an honorary professor for Swedish law for several years. From 1672 he acted as president of the "Antikvitetskollegium" founded by Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie . He couldn't do much in the college.

meaning

Loccenius was very successful in Sweden and soon felt like a citizen of the country. Alongside his future son-in-law Johannes Schefferus, he developed into the most important personality in Swedish humanistic culture of his time. He regularly taught civics, history, eloquence and law and published many scientific papers. He reached the peak of his work in the 1650s.

Loccenius' most important work was in the field of Swedish history. In 1647 he published the “Antiquitatum sveogothicarum libri tres” an extensive account of early Swedish cultural history and the Middle Ages. For the early days, the author used well-known sources from authors such as Tacitus , Adam von Bremen and Snorri Sturluson . In the Middle Ages he only used Swedish legal sources, which had a groundbreaking effect. He extensively and critically described trade, traffic, law, weddings, funerals and other folk customs, using in particular the laws of landscapes. In addition, he presented the state constitution with the difficult electoral royalty.

In 1648, in the “Synopsis juris”, Loccenius interpreted the then valid Swedish private law in accordance with the judicial institutions. In 1650 he wrote in “De jure maritimo et navali” on the law of the sea. In 1651 he wrote the “Lexicon juris sveo-gothici”. It contained explanations of the medieval legal technical terms still used at the time. In 1654 Loccenius wrote the "Rerum svecicarum historia", in which he presented the history of Sweden in Latin and thus made it accessible to international readers for the first time. He worked unusually critical: He spoke out against the Gothic romanticism of Olaus Magnus and Johannes Magnus and presented the story from the introduction of Christianity. In 1662 he published a new edition in which he added the old kings of legends. Loccenius resorted to numerous printed and non-printed sources.

In later years Locceinus translated most of the Swedish landscape, land and town rights into Latin.

In teaching and research, Loccenius placed a focus on Swedish constitutional law, which he analyzed in the “Synopsis juris publici svecani”. He wrote the work around 1640, but did not publish it until 1673. The author advocated a power-sharing in which the people were to participate in power and the king was restricted by the fundamental laws of the country. During the first few years at the university he also gave all the lectures in Latin eloquence. He was considered a gifted speaker who dealt with Livius , Cicero and Tacitus in his courses . In 1627 he wrote his own emblematic epigrams with the "Epigrammata sacra et moralia". In his inaugural speech as a history professor, he explained how heroes of Greek and Roman history could be moral models and that ethics and history are de facto equated.

Loccenius produced extremely successful school editions of the works of Curtius Rufus and Cornelius Nepos . From 1651 he tried to create texts for the Suecia antiqua et hodierna by Erik Dahlberg . He never finished this project.

literature

  • Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, Johannes . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , pp. 152-154.

Web links

Commons : Johannes Loccenius  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 152.
  2. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , pp. 152-153.
  3. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 153.
  4. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 153.
  5. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 154.
  6. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 153.
  7. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 153.
  8. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 153.
  9. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 153.
  10. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 153.
  11. ↑ Sten Lindroth: Loccenius, John . In: Schleswig-Holstein biographical lexicon . Volume 5. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1979. ISBN 3-529-02645-X , p. 154.
personal data
SURNAME Loccenius, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Locken, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German humanist and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1598
PLACE OF BIRTH Itzehoe
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1677
Place of death Uppsala