Funeral sermon

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In the narrower historical sense, a funeral sermon is a funeral pamphlet for a deceased, as it was written - especially in the period between the 16th and 18th centuries - in the Protestant area - often in printed form. Around 300,000 such funeral sermons have been handed down in the German-speaking area.

In general, the term can also refer to the sermon that a clergyman gives at a church funeral .

Funeral sermons belong to the genus of personal writings, i.e. the writings that were created on the occasion of birthdays, baptisms, engagements, weddings, inaugurations, anniversaries or the death of a person.

history

Funeral speeches at the funeral of the deceased had given before. The custom of honoring the memory of the bereaved with a printed funeral sermon arose in the 16th century immediately after the Reformation in Central Germany - the core area of ​​Lutheran Protestantism. With his "Sermon on ready to die" Martin Luther delivered a first forerunner of a funeral sermon in 1519 and also described the most important requirements for a funeral sermon from his point of view: the praise of God, the comfort , the edification of the bereaved as well as the instruction of the assembled community. Luther's sermons to Elector Friedrich the Wise of Saxony in 1525 and his brother, Johann the Steadfast 1532 , are considered the first “classic” printed funeral sermons . The custom spread rapidly in the other areas of the Lutheran confession and was - to a lesser extent - also taken up by Zwinglians, Calvinists and even Catholics - but only in exceptional cases for dignitaries.

The early funeral sermons consisted almost exclusively of the actual sermon, in which biographical notes on the deceased only appear sporadically. The emergence of an independent personal information section can only be observed after 1570 . Towards the end of the 16th and in the course of the 17th century, other components were added to the sermon and curriculum vitae, such as mourning poems ( epices ), memorial and conviction sermons , abdication, academic funeral pamphlet, funeral compositions and elaborate pictorial representations. The Lutheran church wanted to show the grief writings that blissful under their custody death is possible with the assurance of God's grace. In the 17th century, this need led to detailed descriptions of the dying scene and the accompanying spiritual ritual being included in the personalia .

Funeral sermons were printed mainly for nobles and the wealthy middle class, the social upper class. This corresponds to the often expensive equipment with a portrait of the deceased as a woodcut , later engraved in copper , also with notes and text of mourning compositions. Received printing invoices show print runs between 100 and 300 copies; the volume could initially grow from 10 to 20 pages in the book formats octave or quart, later in the 17th century especially for the aristocratic to 100, 200 and more pages in folio or even large folio. Messkataloge the book trade show that the funeral sermons in the 17th century as devotional literature belonged to the preferred reading. Occasionally there were even new editions.

The area with the highest number of funeral sermons is bounded in the south by the Main and in the north by a line between Osnabrück and Berlin. Also Silesia , a stronghold of the Baroque literature , and the Upper German imperial cities offer valuable stocks.

Countess Sophie Eleonore zu Stolberg-Stolberg (1669–1745) is said to have collected around 40,000 different funeral sermons. Philipp Jacob Spener , a Protestant theologian (1635–1705), is also known for his collection of funeral sermons.

Around the middle of the 18th century, the writing of funeral sermons then largely came to a standstill.

Funeral sermons as historical sources

The edifying intention of the funeral sermons, which she shares with the hagiography of the Middle Ages , the sermon literature or the funerary monuments of the Baroque period, as well as their character as an occasional publication, stood in the way of their discovery as a historical source for a long time. The interest of modern research in the genus funeral sermon has been aroused in numerous disciplines by the variety of information that goes beyond the purely biographical material.

The research center for personal writings at the Philipps University of Marburg, founded in 1976 and since 1984 a department of the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz, identifies and catalogs funeral sermons. Special interest is given to the often detailed biographies of the deceased contained in these sources . In addition to the research center's work results published in the form of printed catalogs and online databases, there are other directories that have recorded funeral sermons using the names of the deceased and authors. This includes u. a. the complete catalog of the personal documents and funeral sermons collections of the Central Office for German Personal and Family History Leipzig .

The funeral sermons offer a wealth of statistically usable data in spatial differentiation. This z. B. answer questions about infant and child mortality at the time, the average enrollment age of first-year students or the migration of journeyman craftsmen. As a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary source, the funeral sermons can be used by a wide variety of scientific disciplines :

Educational history , biographical , emblematic , epigraphy , genealogy , gender history , heraldry , historical demography , cultural anthropology , iconography , criminal history , cultural history , art history , literary history , medical history , military history , historical musicology , pharmaceutical history , prosopography , social history , urban history , thanatology , theology , university history , Economic history

literature

  • Marburger Personalschrift-Forschungen , ed. up to volume 50 by Rudolf Lenz, from volume 51 ed. by Eva-Maria Dickhaut, Schwarz-Verlag Marburg (Volume 1–9), Jan Thorbecke Verlag Sigmaringen (Volume 10–31), Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart (Volume 32ff.)
  • Werner Friedrich Kümmel: The gentle and blissful death. The transfiguration and reality of dying as reflected in Lutheran funeral sermons from the 16th to 18th centuries. In: Rudolf Lenz (Hrsg.): ´Cherin sermons as a source of historical sciences. Volume 3, Marburg 1984, pp. 199-226.
  • Funeral Sermons as a Source of Historical Science , ed. up to volume 4 by Rudolf Lenz, from volume 5 ed. by Eva-Maria Dickhaut, Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart
  • Fritz Roth: Complete evaluations of funeral sermons and personal documents for genealogical purposes. 10 volumes, Boppard / Rhein 1959–1980
  • Bibliography on funeral sermons literature , database of the research center for personal documents
  • Article series "Life in funeral sermons"
  • Georg Schrott: Funeral Sermons for Bavarian Prelates of the Baroque and Enlightenment Period (Materials on Bavarian State History 22) Munich 2012
  • Anna Aurast: funeral sermons , in: East German archives customer, Stand: October 17, 2017th

Web links

Commons : Funeral sermons  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c funeral sermons - structure, history and source value .
  2. ↑ Heike Düselder: funeral sermon . In: Friedrich Jaeger (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Modern Times, Volume 7: Concert - Masculinity. Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2008, ISBN 978-3-476-01997-4 , Sp. 821-823.
  3. ↑ Jens Kunze: funeral sermons . In: Héctor Wittwer / Daniel Schäfer / Andreas Frewer (eds.): Die und Tod. An interdisciplinary manual. Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02230-1 , pp. 257-261, especially pp. 259 f.
  4. ↑ Rudolf Lenz: De mortuis nil nisi bonum? Funeral sermons as a multidisciplinary source (= Marburger Personalschriften-Forschungen. Volume 10), Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1990, ISBN 3-7995-4300-7 , pp. 17-21.