Magnus von Wedderkop (lawyer, 1637)

Magnus von Wedderkop

Magnus von Wedderkop , formerly also Wedderkopp , Wedderkopf (f) or Wedderkopfius (born October 26, 1637 in Husum , † January 16, 1721 in Hamburg ), was a legal scholar, Schleswig-Holstein statesman and politician.

Live and act

Wedderkop came from a noble family based in Brabant and Gelderland . His father, Baron Henning Wedderkopf, had come to Husum in the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War , where he settled down as a merchant. Magnus von Wedderkop had the emperor issue another letter of nobility as a count in 1683. His younger brothers were Thomas Wedderkopf, lawyer in Husum, Gabriel Wedderkop , chief pastor and provost in Kiel, and Henning Wedderkopf, state notary in Schleswig.

Career

He first attended the school in Husum and then the Katharineum in Lübeck . He then studied philosophy and law at the universities of Helmstedt and Jena . In Jena he was influenced by Erhard Weigel in philosophy and mathematics and by Johann Strauch II and Georg Adam Struve in law . From 1661 he worked as an educator for the Lübeck patrician family Brömbsen and accompanied two sons to the University of Heidelberg and then on the then usual Grand Tour to Italy and France.

In 1664 he became a lecturer in constitutional and feudal law at the University of Heidelberg. He got there in 1669 a reputation as the successor to Heinrich Michaelis for Professor of the Codex by Duke Christian Albrecht of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf to the Legal Department of which he founded Christian Albrechts University in Kiel , he obeyed. Wedderkop became syndic of the Lübeck cathedral chapter and councilor of the prince-bishop of Lübeck . In 1676 he was appointed by the Duke as a councilor to the Gottorfer Hof in Schleswig .

In 1683 he married Elisabeth Pincier (1661–1731), the daughter of King Charles XI. Danish court counselor Ludwig (von) Pincier, ennobled by Sweden, great-granddaughter of cathedral dean Ludwig Pincier and sister of Johann Ludwig von Pincier . Her daughter Anne Wedderkop married the British ambassador in Hamburg and Sir Cyril Wyche († 1756) with the Lower Saxony Empire.

In the service of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf

As a politician, he knew how to preserve the independence of the Gottorf duchy, threatened by the Kingdom of Denmark as a powerful neighbor, and to gain imperial favor for this cause in the course of the peace of Nijmegen (1678/79). One of his successes was the Altona settlement in 1689, with which Duke Christian Albrecht got his lands back from Denmark. In 1694, after the death of Duke Christian Albrecht, Wedderkop became President of the Privy Council under Duke Friedrich IV , i.e. Prime Minister of the Duchy of Gottorf. His brother-in-law Johann Ludwig von Pincier became his deputy.

Wedderkop tried politically to maintain the stable and friendly relationship with Denmark gained through the Peace of Traventhal , but with this attitude increasingly came into conflict with his rising opponent Georg Heinrich von Görtz and his pronounced sense of power, to which he ultimately fell victim. After the death of Duke Friedrich IV (1702), he had found a better relationship with the administrator of the duchy, Prince-Bishop Christian August von Lübeck, who led a dissolute life, but at the same time led the affairs of government for the only two-year-old Duke Karl-Friedrich . Wedderkop got a temporary boost from an investigation into the finances of the duchy, initiated by Stockholm, which revealed the waste of the administrator and the plundering of the land by Georg Heinrich von Görtz.

In 1706 Wedderkop, who was considered a patron of pietism , became a visitor to Kiel University together with general superintendent Heinrich Muhlius . Together, in 1707, they issued the regulations for the start of studies, which were characterized by a pietistic spirit .

case

Sepulchral chapel in Lübeck Cathedral

With the death of the Duke's widow, Hedwig Sophia of Sweden, in 1708, Wedderkop found himself increasingly in need of protection and, to be on the safe side, withdrew to his palace on Neuer Wall in Hamburg. On December 19, 1709 Wedderkop settled incomprehensible reasons yet to attend a meeting of the Privy Council to Schloss Gottorf lure where the 72-year-old greeted warmly, but was arrested at night after a dinner with the administrator and to the fortress Tonning was brought . Since there were actually no incriminating circumstances against Wedderkop, the process turned out to be difficult, but was nevertheless concluded as a piece of questionable cabinet justice in 1713 with a death sentence against Wedderkop. In 1713, King Frederick IV of Denmark and his allies besieged the Swedish troops under Magnus Stenbock, who were trapped in the Tönning fortress . Magnus von Wedderkop was only released when the fortress was handed over.

He spent the remaining years of his life in Hamburg in the Duke's house trying to sort out his financial affairs, because his palace on Neuer Wall had been confiscated by Görtz. The civil dispute with the heirs of Görtz was continued by Wedderkop's heirs for many years after his death. Wedderkop was buried with his wife in a Baroque designed von Wedderkop chapel in the south aisle of Lübeck Cathedral , which is still preserved today with the simple sarcophagi made of gray marble. The chapel was acquired by Wedderkop, who was also canon in Lübeck, in 1697. The inscription indicates that he was the heir to Gut Steinhorst , Tangstedt and Moisling . The family coat of arms in white marble is placed above the portal, which was completed in 1748.

Fonts

• De fructibus et eorum acquisitione. 1670
• De jurisdictione. 1671
• De praescriptione moratoria. 1675
• Thesis miscellaneae ex jure tam publico quam privato. 1676

Estate catalog

• Bibliotheca Wedderkoppiana sive Catalogus selectissimorum librorum in omni fere studiorum genere præstantium, Theol., Jurid., Med. ... & c. quos ... collegit ... Magnus à Wedderkop, Trium Serenissimorum Ducum Slesvici & Holsatiæ Status ac Sanctioris deinde Consilii Præses ...: Alphabeti ordine ita adornatus, ut in qualiget facultate & classe singula auctorum scripta conjunctim conspiciantur ...; Cujus publica Auctio habebitur Hamburgi The 1. Junii & seqq. Anni 1722. In Templi Cathedralis loco vulgo Reventer dicto. Hamburgi: Gennagelius 1722

literature

• Johannes Baltzer , Friedrich Bruns: The architectural and art monuments of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck. Issued by the building authorities. Volume III: Church of Old Lübeck. Dom. Jakobikirche. Aegidia Church. Published by Bernhard Nöhring: Lübeck 1920, pp. 75/76. Unchanged reprint 2001: ISBN 3-89557-167-9 .
• Magnus von Wedderkop :  Magnus von Wedderkop . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, pp. 387-390.
• Otto Kähler : Magnus von Wedderkop. A Schleswig-Holstein lawyer and statesman . In: Ministry of Justice, Culture and European Affairs of Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel (ed.): Schleswig-Holstein ads , Part A . Justice Ministerial Gazette for Schleswig-Holstein. tape 194 , 1947, ISSN  1860-9643 , pp. 221-224 .
• Kurt Feilcke: Life and Work of Minister Magnus von Wedderkop and the Lübeck Cathedral. In: Zeitschrift für Niederdeutsche Familienkunde 47, 1972. pp. 153–161.
• Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen : The early Pietism in Schleswig-Holstein. Origin, development and structure. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1983 (work on the history of Pietism; Vol. 19) Zugl .: Kiel, Univ., Diss., 1982 ISBN 3-525-55802-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Friedrich Gauhe , Des Holy Roman Empire Genealogisch-Historisches Adels-Lexicon, Volume 2, Leipzig 1747, Sp. 1273 f.
2. ^ A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland, and Scotland, p. 587
3. ^ Based on Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen (lit.), p. 98

Web links

• Publications by and about Magnus von Wedderkop in VD 17 .