Johannes Schwertfeger

Johann (es) Schwertfeger (also: Meißner, Misnerus ; * around 1488 in Meißen ; † May 10, 1524 in Wittenberg ) was a German theologian and legal scholar.

Life

Born the son of Mayor Nicolaus Schwertfeger, he moved to the University of Leipzig in the summer semester of 1506 , moved to the University of Wittenberg the following year and moved to the University of Ingolstadt on November 18, 1508 . After studying for five years, focusing primarily on spiritual and secular law, he returned to his hometown and established a legal practice there. In 1519 he gave the Elector Frederick the Wise two valuable manuscripts that the King of Hungary had given the late Bishop of Meissen and that the sword sweepers had brought to the press.

Schwertfeger, who had become a clergyman at the time, thus contributed to the expansion of the university library of the elector, which also caught the attention of Philipp Melanchthon . In addition to his literary interest, he had also devoted himself to studying theology, Greek and Latin in addition to studying law. This was seen as an important prerequisite for reforming legal studies. After Wolfgang Stähelin left as Chancellor at the court of Duke Heinrich the Pious of Saxony , Schwertfeger was proposed by Martin Luther , Melanchthon and Georg Spalatin for his professorship in the Lectura Digesti veteris in January 1521.

However, the matter was delayed for several months because the Elector Schwertfeger only wanted to pay a small salary. It was only in June that Schwertfeger could be employed as a professor of Roman law with an annual salary of 70 guilders. That is why he did his doctorate in the summer semester of 1521 in Wittenberg together with Gregor Brück as a doctor of law and was admitted to the Senate of the Faculty of Law on April 8, 1522. He also took over lectures on canon law from Justus Jonas the Elder , who wanted to pursue a theological degree, for 20 florins .

The professorship was also linked to the task of an electoral council. In the winter semester of 1522/23 he became rector of the Wittenberg University. But he had only a few years left to work because he died very young. Schwertfeger had been a cleric, even at the beginning of 1521. He later married Anna Barbara Krapp, a sister of Hieronymus Krapp and Melanchthon's wife, Katharina Melanchthon née Krapp. Anna Barbara, née Krapp, survived and later married Sebaldus Münsterer . He was one of Luther's close circle of friends who dedicated his “Compendiaria dialectices” to him. He supported his brother-in-law Melanchthon with the publication of the “Passion of Christ and Antichrist”. Luther praised him as a "good man", and Melanchthon judged him that his education in theology and secular sciences was praiseworthy.

literature

• Karl Pallas : Documents concerning the Allerheiligenstift zu Wittenberg, 1522 to 1526, from the estate of N. Müller , I, in: ARG 12 (1915)
• Walter Friedensburg : History of the University of Wittenberg . Max Niemeyer Verlag , Halle (Saale)