Kaspar Sturm (theologian)

Kaspar Sturm , also Caspar Sturm (* around 1545 in Fritzlar ; † 1628 in Gudensberg ), was a Hessian Reformed theologian and university professor .

Life

Pastor

Not much is known about Sturm's youth. He probably attended the Latin school in Fritzlar before studying in Marburg from 1563 , where he was promoted to a master's degree in theology . In April 1572 he succeeded Jost Runcke, who had been expelled from Fritzlar, as a Protestant pastor at the Fraumünster Church near Fritzlar, although it was not officially introduced until 1576. After that he was pastor in Gudensberg from 1589 to 1605.

University professor

Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel converted to Calvinism in 1605 and enforced this change of denomination also in the parts of the state that had come to Hessen-Kassel in 1604 when the inheritance of the now extinct line of Hessen-Marburg was divided, and at the then Hessian University of Marburg . Professors who were not ready to switch from the Lutheran to the Calvinist creed left Marburg voluntarily or were forced by Moritz to give up their chairs . In order to replace the dismissed theology professors, Landgrave u. a. Kaspar Sturm. On March 19, 1607, he was promoted to Dr. theol. doctorate and taught until 1624 at the university and its affiliated pedagogy in Marburg. At times he was also Ephorus (top director) of the Hessian Scholarship Institute . He also made himself popular with his sovereign by writing several occasional poems in honor of the landgrave and his sons Otto (1594–1617) and Moritz (1600–1612).

Consistorial Council

When Landgrave Moritz set up the new consistory for the now reformed regional church of Hesse-Kassel in October 1610 , its directory consisted of two clergymen and two legally trained officials of the landgrave. In order to better utilize the expertise of the theologians and lawyers at the state university, his seat was in Marburg in the former chancellery of Hessen-Marburg. Kaspar Sturm and Johannes Crocius (1590–1659) were the two theologians in the Directory.

Last years

When Marburg fell (temporarily) to the Lutheran Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt in 1624 , Sturm, like eight other professors, was dismissed by Landgrave Ludwig V of Hessen-Darmstadt for religious reasons. Also dismissed: his son, the mathematics professor Christian Sturm (1597–1628), the theologian Georg Cruciger , the theologian Johannes Crocius , the lawyer Antonius Matthaeus (1564–1637), the logic professor Johannes Combach (1585–1651), the rhetorician and Syndic Gregor Schönfeld the Younger (1559–1628), the professor of French and Italian Cathérin Le Doux (Catharinus Dulcis, 1540–1626), and the physician Johannes Molther the Elder. J. (1561-1618). Combach, Crocius and Cruciger received positions at the Collegium Adelphicum Mauritianum in Kassel. Ludwig V kept only four Marburg professors in service: the lawyer Johannes Goddaeus (1555–1632), the physician Nicolaus Braun (1558–1639), the ethicist Rudolf Goclenius the Elder (Rudolf Göckel, 1547–1628), and the Graecist Theodor Vietor (1560-1645).

The consistory of the regional church also had to leave Marburg and was relocated to Kassel. How long Sturm continued to be a member of their board of directors is unclear. In any case, from 1624 he was pastor again in Gudensberg, where he died in 1628.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Johann Jakob Herzog , Gustav Leopold Plitt (Ed.): Realenzyklopädie für Protestantische Theologie und Kirche . Fourth volume, Hinrich, Leipzig, 1879, p. 56 .
2. ↑ The Ephorus had to be a member of the theological faculty.
3. ↑ Christoph von Rommel: History of Hessen: Modern history of Hessen. Volume Two, Book Five, Section One, Section Two. Perthes, Kassel, 1837, p. 502 .
4. ↑ It replaced the chancellery consistory he founded in Kassel in 1599.
5. ↑ Younger brother of the professor of theology and philosophy at the Bremen high school Illustre Ludwig Crocius .
6. ↑ Matthaeus, Antonius. Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
7. ↑ Catharini Dulcis linguarum exoticarum in Academia Marburgensi Professoris Vitae cvrricvli breviarium (Latin autobiography) .
8. ^ Henning P. Jürgens, Thomas Weller (ed.): Religion and mobility: on the relationship between spatial mobility and religious identity formation in early modern Europe . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-10094-3 , p. 396 note 45.
9. ^ D. Justi: Small contributions to the history of the German university system in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . In: Karl Heinrich Ludwig Pölitz (ed.): Year books of history and statecraft. Second volume, Hinrich, Leipzig, 1836, p. 539 .
10. ↑ Henning P. Jürgens, Thomas Weller (Ed.): Religion and mobility: On the relationship between spatial mobility and religious identity formation in early modern Europe . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-10094-3 , p. 396 note 45.
11. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
12. ^ Sven Hilbert: Fritzlar in the age of the Reformation and confessionalization. Hessian Historical Commission, Darmstadt & Historical Commission for Hesse, Marburg, 2006, ISBN 3-88443-303-2 , p. 158, note 755.

Web links

• Partial list of his works
• Portrait  in the German Digital Library
• Caspar Sturm, Marburg Professor of Theology (woodcut by Wilhelm Dilich), in the University Library of Marburg