Johannes Marienwerder

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johannes Marienwerder (* 1343 in Marienwerder , Teutonic Order ; † September 19, 1417 ibid) was a German theologian.

Life

Johannes came from Marienwerder, i.e. directly from the center of the diocese of Pomesania incorporated into the Teutonic Order . At first he did not belong to the order and worked as a secular priest. He went to the University of Prague, where he finally worked as a professor until 1386. The most influential teacher was Heinrich Totting von Oyta , whom he also mentions several times in his writings. He also resorted to the Parisian mystic Richardus de Sancto Victore .

However, his writings are primarily of a pastoral theological nature. This applies not only to the short Prague sermons that have come down to us, but above all to the Expositio symboli apostolorum written in Marienwerder . She takes a clear position against the Wyclifites - an attitude that was certainly problematic at Prague University , which was more and more dominated by Wyclif's thoughts, even if the situation did not finally come to a head until 1409. Overall, one can feel the influence of the Prague reform efforts of the German nation again and again at Prague University. In addition to Heinrich Totting von Oyta , Matthew of Krakow (approx. 1340–1410) should be mentioned as the inspirer, who traveled to Pomesania in 1387 to be able to attend the profession of Johann Marienwerder at the cathedral chapter.

The return of Johannes Marienwerder to Prussia in 1386 seems to be related to the worsening conditions at Prague University as well as to the award of a lucrative canon beneficiary that far exceeded the income of a professor at the time. The inevitable entry into the Teutonic Order was completed in 1387. That it was an enrichment and probably also a prestige gain for the order and diocese can be seen from the fact that John was elected dean of the chapter as early as 1388.

Johann became the deputy of the provost Johannes Rymann from Christburg. They worked closely together; u. a. they worked together as confessor of Dorothea von Montau and also drafted the actual canonization request for them together. But they already knew each other from Prague.

Johannes Marienwerder and Johannes Rymann ultimately owed their position to the Pomesan bishop Johannes (I), called Johannes Mönch (Bishop 1377-1409). He also campaigned decisively for Dorothea's canonization. During his long term of office he reorganized the diocese and did a great job completing the cathedral, which towers over the castle of the cathedral chapter. In addition to the church statutes edited by him, he is known literarily through excerpts from the revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden , which can be connected with the reorganization of the diocese, but also with the settlement of Dorothea. Dorothea von Montau (1347–1394), who suffered badly in body and soul, arrived in Marienwerder in 1390. After the death of her husband, she came from Danzig, where she had been severely disciplined by the priests for her asceticism and raptures. Her confessor Nicolaus von Hohenstein referred Dorothea to Johannes Marienwerder.

In September 1391 Dorothea left Danzig forever to be walled in with the permission of the Pomesan bishop at the recently completed cathedral church in Marienwerder as a recluse in a vault behind the main altar. Johannes Marienwerder and the cathedral provost Johannes Rymann carried out an intensive examination of the penitent. It was the first time that their visions were described. The two canons consulted and decided to record them. Johannes visited Dorothea daily. Your German utterances were recorded by him in key words and then put back together into a flowing text. Then they were latinized and systematized into the entire collection. From this, Johannes Marienwerder created a series of writings that were intended to promote the canonization of the clergy. The history of these records shows the genesis of Dorotheen's literature, without which Dorothea's stay in Marienwerder would have remained an anecdote without consequences.

Not a single direct testimony from Dorothea has survived. She could neither read nor write. What we know, we know from the writings of Johannes Marienwerder or from the protocols of the papal canonization process, in which mainly members and subordinates of the cathedral chapter testified - and mostly referred to the writings or oral statements of the confessors. Even the only vita of the saints not written by Johannes - the biography of the Nuremberg Dominican Nicolaus Humilis - is based on the information provided by Johannes Marienwerder.

Although he was constantly striving for scholastic distinctions and tables, although cross-references between the individual writings repeatedly suggest a totality - he did not bring a comprehensible order into the material. However, it seems that this was not his intention at all. In particular, the Septililium , which is related in style and structure to the Expositio Symboli Apostolorum (declaration of the creed), which was created at the same time, reveals that John thought less of documenting the sentences and visions of his wards than of using these words to create his own (reform) theological ideas to underpin.

The main work of Johannes Marienwerder is the Expositio symboli apostolorum , completed in 1399 , a pamphlet against Johannes Wyclif and his extreme biblical positions. It was later understood as writing against the Hussites ; in southern Germany it was passed down in part under the name of Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl .

Works

Johannes Marienwerder wrote a Latin history of the Pomesan cathedral chapter, which has only survived in fragments.

  • De octo beatitudinibus (unedited); Paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer (Franz Hipler, in: Pastoralblatt für die Diözese Ermland 15, 1883, 142 fu 21, 1889, 62 f.); Ernst Strehlke / Max Toeppen , (eds.), Annales capituli Pomesaniensis, frgm. 1391-1398 ( Scriptores rerum Prussicarum , vol. 5, 1874, pp. 430-434);
  • Expositio symboli Apostolici, 1399 (not a modern edition, a German translation was anonymously printed in Ulm in 1485 under the title Erclerung der 12 Articles des Christenlichen Faith );

About Dorothea von Montau:

  • Vita brevis, 1394 (unprinted)
  • Vita complens, 1395 (Codex Diplomaticus Prussicus, Vol. 5, edited by Johannes Voigt, 1857, pp. 82–84)
  • Vita prima B. Dorotheae, 1395 (in: Acta Sanctorum 13, 1883, pp. 493–499; Hans Westpfahl, in: Der Dorotheenbote 26, 1968, 122–133)
  • Vita b. Dorotheae, 1396 (also called Vita Lindana after the first print by Adrian von Linde, Oliva b. Danzig 1702; edited by Remigius de Buck in: Acta Sanctorum 13, 1883, pp. 499-560)
  • Liber de Festis magistri Johannis Marienwerder, ed. by Anneliese Triller , Cologne 1992 (research and sources on the church and cultural history of East Germany 25)
  • Septilium venerabilis dominae Dorotheae, around 1400 (Franz Hipler, Septililium B. Dorotheae, special dr. From Analecta Bollandiana 2–4, 1883–85, 1885) with new page numbers
  • Vita Latina (= Vita venerabilis Dominae Dorotheae), 1404 (edited by Hans Westpfahl and Anneliese Triller, Vita Dorotheae Montoviensis Magistri Johannis Marienwerder, 1964)
  • The life of Zeligen Frawen Dorothee Clewsenerynne in Thumkirchen czu Marienwerder des Landes czu Prewszen, completed around 1404 (first dr. By Jakob Karweyse , Marienburg 1492, edited by Max Toeppen in the Scriptores rerum Prussicarum, vol. 2, 1863, p. 197 -350)
  • Addresses to the members of the Society of Priests in Marienwerder (Franz Hipler, in: Pastoralbl. Fd Diöz. Ermland 21, 1889, 63–70)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Extensive review of the work with further information on manuscripts and prints by Anneliese Triller in: Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Author Lexicon. 2nd Edition, Vol. 6, 1972, pp. 56-61, esp. Pp. 57-60
personal data
SURNAME Marienwerder, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marienwerder, Iohannes de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian
DATE OF BIRTH 1343
PLACE OF BIRTH Marienwerder
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1417
Place of death Marienwerder