Leonard Ennen

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Leonard Ennen

Leonard Ennen (also Leonhard Ennen ; born March 5, 1820 in Schleiden in the Eifel ; † June 14, 1880 in Cologne ) was a Cologne archivist , historian , theologian and employee of the General German Biography .

Life

Ennen came from a modest living in poverty to smallholder family in the northern Eifel and was not - as often confused - with that of the Saarland Merzig originating Bonner Stadtarchivarin and state historian Edith Ennen related. Despite his low social background, his parents were able to enable him to study theology in Münster and Bonn from 1841 to 1844 . After attending the seminary in Cologne, he was ordained a priest as a Catholic clergyman .

From 1845 to 1857 Ennen worked as curate vicar (chaplain) in Königswinter . When it became clear to him that a more lucrative full-time pastor's position was becoming unattainable due to the high number of applicants, among other things, he alienated himself from the Catholic Church. In the course of this, his criticism of the ultra-conservative administration of the Archbishops of Cologne, Clemens August Droste zu Vischering (1835–1845) and Johannes von Geissel (1845–1864) , which he had also expressed in the media since the 1840s, was noticeably mixed with frustration at their own situation. It should be emphasized that Ennen should remain associated with the Roman Catholic Church and thus with the Pope and other official church authorities until his death. In his younger years he placed himself in the circle of Hermesians around the Bonn theologian Georg Hermes , who favored a compromise with the Prussian state in terms of church politics . Unlike many other clergy in Bonn and the surrounding area, he did not join the Old Catholic Church in the 1870s .

Ennen died in 1880 during his many years of office as city archivist in Cologne at the age of only 60, presumably of a stroke . Before that he had suffered several long periods of illness. He was buried in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne . The tomb no longer exists.

Working as a historian

Due to his eyewitness to the revolution of 1848, Ennen turned to ecclesiastical political and historical issues early on. In 1854, for example, he initiated the founding of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine , in whose journal Annalen he published extensively. Here he was elected to the board in the role of “Vice-Secretary”. During this time he was able to conduct research in Paris with the support of the Prussian state . A little later he became a Dr. phil. PhD.

After he was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives as a member of the so-called Catholic parliamentary group in 1856 , he used his stay in Berlin to conduct scientific archive studies. Even before he took office as city archivist, Ennen had dealt with the recent history of Cologne and the Rhineland. At the end of his career, there were a large number of newspaper articles and around 350 publications. He kept his promise to present a city history, at least for medieval Cologne. From 1859 a total of five volumes of the “scientific” history of the city of Cologne were published. Other important works were the six volumes of the sources on the history of the city of Cologne, published from 1860 to 1879 in collaboration with the philologist Gottfried Eckertz, and the volume on the cathedral building, which appeared only after his death. Despite their factual and methodological deficiencies, these publications have long embodied the standard. This was particularly true of its five-volume city history, which will only be replaced by a new edition after 150 years.

Act as an archivist

On August 1, 1857, despite some controversial discussions, Ennen was appointed the first full-time director of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne because of his character as a clergyman in Cologne's local politics . Only a few months after taking over the archivist post, Ennen issued the first usage regulations for the city archives and the city library on October 17, 1857, another followed on August 17, 1878.

Ennen's archive order and organization was already heavily challenged during his lifetime, especially by his successors Konstantin Höhlbaum (1880–1890) and Hermann Keussen (1900–1927). Höhlbaum had ruthlessly criticized Ennen in the first half-yearly report on the condition of the city archives on December 12, 1880 as follows: “I cannot at all share the optimistic view of my predecessor about the state of the archival order [...], because it contradicts the facts. [...] An archive that only piles up parchments and papers does not deserve its name and is not worth preserving. "

In essence, criticism of Ennen was based on the fact that he mixed up the documents and files he did not sufficiently distinguish in the holdings and, contrary to the principle of provenance, made thematic assignments (i.e. according to the principle of pertinence ) ( letters , Cologne and the Hanseatic League , Cologne versus Cologne etc.). This “new systematic order”, which he himself referred to with obvious pride, was most likely to meet his own needs as a researching “historian archivist”. However, it destroyed the original order of the Cologne city archives, which is still clearly recognizable today (subject to the situation after the collapse of the house on March 3, 2009) in the inventory of the house. However, the criticism of Ennen is only partially true: apart from the fact that Keussen and Höhlbaum did not consistently adhere to the principle of provenance, modern archivists should only specify binding methodological standards with regard to the organizational structures of archives shortly after his death.

memory

As a publicist , but above all as an archivist and historian , he undoubtedly remained within the meaning of the term dilettante . However, his work must be seen under the conditions of the largely not yet professionalized scientific culture of his time. His life's work, especially as a historian in Cologne and the Rhineland, has long been misunderstood, with political and religious resentment against him still having an impact from the late 19th century. In the Neuehrenfeld district of Cologne, Ennenstraße is still a reminder of the first full-time city archivist.

Works

In addition to numerous works in regional historical journals, he wrote the following monographs:

  • History of the Reformation in the area of ​​the old Archdiocese of Cologne , Cologne 1847;
  • France and the Lower Rhine , 2 vols., Cologne 1856;
  • Time images from the modern history of the city of Cologne, with special reference to Ferdinand Franz Wallraf , Cologne 1857;
  • Sources on the history of the city of Cologne , (Cologne 1860–1879, Vol. 1–6); Reprint, Cologne, Bachem Verlag 1970;
  • History of the City of Cologne , 5 vols., Cologne 1863–1875;
  • The DuMont and Schauberg families in Cologne; for relatives and friends on the 50th anniversary of the M. DuMont-Schauberg'schen Buchhandlung. DuMont-Schauberg, Cologne 1868 digitized
  • Pictures from old Cologne: city views d. 15th to 18th century a. Description d. Conditions from the Middle Ages to after d. French period , reprint, ed. and introduced by Willy Leson, Cologne: Bachem Verlag 1977.

literature

  • Toni Diederich : A plea for Leonard Ennen , in: Geschichte in Köln , Heft 44 (1998), pp. 153–154.
  • Stephan Laux: Leonard Ennen (1820-1880). A Rhenish “historian archivist” of the 19th century between narrative and modern source criticism. At the same time a contribution to the history of the Cologne City Archives , in: Bettina Schmidt-Czaia (Ed.), The Citizens' Treasure House Filled With Life - 150 Years of Tradition Building in the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne Contributions to the symposium on the occasion of the 150th anniversary on October 19, 2007 (= messages from the Cologne City Archives, issue 98), pp. 77–99.

swell

  • The Chronicle of Cologne , Chronik Verlag, Dortmund 1991, ISBN 3-611-00193-7 .
  • Meyers Konversationslexikon , vol. 5, page 665, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna, fourth edition, 1885-1892.

Web links

Commons : Leonard Ennen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Leonhard Ennen  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ^ The Chronicle of Cologne, page 265
  2. ^ Josef Abt, Johann Ralf Beines, Celia Körber-Leupold: Melaten - Cologne graves and history . Greven, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-7743-0305-3 , p. 154
  3. ↑ Meyers Konversationslexikon
personal data
SURNAME Ennen, Leonard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ennen, Leonhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and archivist
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH Schleiden
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1880
Place of death Cologne