Michel Hospein

Michel Hospein , including Michael Hospin , Michel Hospinus or Michael Hospeinius , (baptized on May 13, 1565 in Strasbourg ; † February 17, 1618 in Weikersheim ) was a German humanist, poet and cartographer who lived in the Free Imperial City of Strasbourg and in Hohenlohischen Weikersheim has worked. Versatile, he created two theater plays in Latin and a whole series of maps. In addition, he worked for a while in the administration of the County of Hohenloheholds a high position. His drawn and painted maps of Hohenlohe areas identify him as one of the most important cartographers in southern Germany.

biography

Strasbourg time

His father Bonifatius Hospein, who came from Meßkirch in Upper Swabia and was a master tailor, acquired the citizenship of the city of Strasbourg on March 24, 1564. Some time before, he had married Magdalena Kieffer from Würzburg in Strasbourg Cathedral . Michel, her firstborn, was baptized on May 13, 1565 in the Münster.

Title page of the tragedy Equus Troianus of 1590

Michel Hospein grew up in Strasbourg and attended the Protestant grammar school there, which had been founded in 1538 by Jakob Sturm (1489–1553) and had had the status of an academy since 1567.

There he received a thorough humanistic education, imparted by such teachers as the rhetorician Melchior Junius (1545–1604), who was rector of the academy at the time. Michel is said to have been an avid student and particularly interested in Latin and music. His first literary work was probably an Alsatian chronicle, the manuscript of which is kept in the public library in Colmar . He then wrote the play Equus Troianus (Trojan Horse) based on texts by Virgil , which saw many performances in the academy's theater. Michel Hospein received his master's degree around 1590 with great praise.

In 1590 the tragedy Equus Troianus (with a foreword by Melchior Junius) was printed and published by Anton Bertram in Strasbourg. - Michel Hospein then wrote another tragedy - again based on Virgilian texts - Dido , which also appeared in Strasbourg in 1591 - this time with Bernhard Jobin . The critics rate Equus Troianus more strongly than Dido .

In 1592, Michel Hospein's life took a whole new direction. At the time the Academy in Strasbourg received an inquiry from Hohenlohe as to whether it could propose a preceptor (private tutor) for the lessons of Count Wolfgang's three youngest sons . Melchior Junius recommended his protégé Michel Hospein, who then went to Hohenlohe to introduce himself there (unannounced).

Hohenlohe period

On September 14, 1592, Michel Hospein presented himself to the count's office in Weikersheim and was hired a few days later as a preceptor.

In the next few years, Michael Hospein worked exclusively as a pedagogue. (On the basis of a map wrongly attributed to him, it has been claimed that he had already carried out cartographic work on a trial basis in Hohenlohe in 1589 and was then permanently hired as a cartographer there in 1592, which turned out to be wrong.) There is little of his time as a teacher known.

On August 4, 1600 Michel Hospein married Barbara Hammer, who came from Künzelsau ; at that time he was still working as a teacher. When his son Michael was baptized in September 1601, he had meanwhile been appointed registrar.

As a registrar, Michel Hospein was also an archivist. It was a responsible job, an absolute position of trust that he now exercised. Among other things, he had to protect the rights of the county, take part in negotiations with foreigners as a recorder, be present in investigations in offices and municipalities and keep the minutes of the council days at which he had a seat and vote.

In 1606, Michel Hospein was involved in field surveys: together with surveyors (military officers) he recorded all boundary lines (boundary stones) in the Weikersheim office and recorded the results in a log. In the same year his talent for drawing was shown for the first time when he depicted the funeral procession for Count Wolfgang's deceased brother, Count Philipp, on an eight-meter-long roll of paper. The picture can still be found today in the Neuenstein Castle Museum .

In 1607 - only now and not 1589 - Michel Hospein created his first cartographic work. The reason was the redefinition of the hunting boundaries in Hohenlohe, for which a protocol was written, to which twelve maps, drawn in brown ink (sepia), were attached, which were not signed but were undoubtedly by his hand. The individual card name denominated General Grentz preparation mod the Ampt Neuenstein , hunting for Langenberg , Common Jagensgrentz between Brandenburg and Hohenlohe , hunting for Weikersheim , hunting for Herbsthausen , Rimbachsche Grentzbereitung , Vorbach carpenters Grentzbereitung , Münsterer Grentzbereitung , Schrozberger hunting , Leofelsische Jagensgrentz description , Common Jagensgrentz between Hohenlohe and Craylsheim and Jagensgrentz between Hohenlohe and Brandenburg . Then he created a large colored map of the course of the hunting border between Kocher and Jagst , which seems to have been lost.

Around 1609, Michel Hospein created a map in a dispute with the Teutonic Order , in which it was about part of the district of Hollenbach .

As a result, he then probably only created inspection cards that were used in litigation in court in territorial disputes and that were either made on behalf of the court or the opponent. - He made an initial inspection card for a dispute over grazing rights between the neighboring communities of Sichertshausen and Ermershausen near Niederstetten .

After the death of Count Wolfgang in August 1610, Michel Hospein's professional situation worsened. The count's three sons divided the county among themselves (Weikersheim, Neuenstein and Langenburg), and Hospein was used as their common servant who was paid by a newly created common chamber. At first he was busy with structuring the administration, which had to be adapted to the new balance of power, but soon he turned back to cartographic work.

In autumn 1610 he painted a map of the area around Tauberrettersheim , where Hohenlohe had been arguing with the Bishop of Würzburg since 1595, on behalf of the Reich Chamber Court . This map is now in the town archive of Bad Homburg .

In autumn 1611 a map was created about the hunt near Schrozberg , which he is said to have copied from a map by the painter and cartographer Wilhelm Besserer from 1589.

In October 1614, Michel Hospein painted the last map for a trial led by his sovereign, which involved looking after , riding and other grazing exercises in the Münster area near Creglingen .

For a dispute between Württemberg and Mainz over forest and authorities in the Herbolzheim forest, Michel Hospein created a map 81 × 54 cm in 1615. (The colorful work was only discovered in 1996 in the files of the Reich Chamber of Commerce.) Hospein is also said to have created three colored maps showing the area between Heubach and Bartholomä for another dispute between Württemberg and the Reichsstadt Schwäbisch Gmünd between 1614 and 1615, which was negotiated before the Reich Chamber Court demonstrate; There was a dispute about the cattle drive of the Möhnhof on the Albuch near Bartholomä.

The last two maps by Michel Hospein were made in the area of ​​the Hochstift Würzburg, a few kilometers north of Mergentheim , where in late autumn 1616 he created "eye-views" of the Schweinberger district and the district of Marbach bei Lauda .

In the past year and a half, Michel Hospein is said to have been paralyzed and his mental and physical powers have decreased more and more. There is no sign of this in his last works.

reception

Michel Hospein was not untalented as a poet. This is proven by his tragedy Equus Troianus , which appeared in Strasbourg in 1590 and received largely positive reviews from the critics. The piece was freely created in Latin from Virgil's second book of the Aeneid . The tragedy, written in Senaren , has five acts, each ending with a choral song. Michel Hospein did not slavishly stick to the Virgilian text and also invented new actions. In the fifth act , for example, he has Creusa , who simply disappears from Virgil without further information, in a large scene by Ulysses and Sinon. And so the death of Creusa forms an impressive end to the original tragedy. - The derogatory assessment by Skopnik (1935), 50ff., On the other hand, is based on a one-sided concept of theater and does not do the play justice. - His second tragedy Dido , also after Virgil and published in Strasbourg in 1591, is, however, rated as weaker. While he was able to let his imagination and creative power run free in his first tragedy, the power of tradition prevented him here. The piece is accordingly a not very original adaptation of the Virgil material.

Michel Hospein never trained as a cartographer. Equipped with a natural talent for drawing and very educated, he taught himself the skills in this subject, including the work of Wilhelm Besserer (1539-1601), who worked for Hohenlohe in 1589.

At the beginning he created a series of sepia drawings, which the cartographer and geographer Ruthardt Oehme (1901–1987) commented on a sheet of paper as follows: The map attached to the “Jagensgrentz Protocol” from 1607 also identifies Hospin as a master the pen drawing. The terrain forms are skillfully worked out with gently curved and crossed lines. - After that, in the course of time, watercolor cards were also created, such as an inspection card ( Aügenschein deß Herboltzheimer Forstwaldts ) in 1615 with a strikingly lively and completely fresh coloring. This map is without question the most colorful product in the files of higher court trials that took place around 1600 over the land on the lower Jagst.

The historian and archivist Karl Schumm (1900–1976) was probably the first to discover the unknown Michel Hospein. Even if he made mistakes due to a lack of facts, his pioneering work M. Michael Hospinus, an unknown cartographer from Hohenlohe (1956), fully lived up to his concern to wrest nameless cartographers from oblivion: Certainly the names and works of the known to important cartographers, but the task now is to identify the nameless men whom the sovereigns used to have their territory measured and mapped. After all, these previously unknown cartographers carried out preliminary work for their famous colleagues that should not be underestimated, and contributed to developing the image of the modern map.

In the final consideration of his work Michael Hospin: Humanist, Teacher, Map Painter, 1565–1618 , the historian and archivist Gerhard Taddey (1937–2013) judged Michel Hospein's cartographic work as follows: But he always tried to achieve scientific accuracy. All maps have a compass rose to determine the cardinal points, most of them have a scale with and without calipers. In doing so, he went beyond the painter Besserer and adapted himself to the requirements of precise cartography. In addition to the land survey begun by H. Schweickher , which remained incomplete due to his death, these maps - and this is where their and Hospin's continued importance lies - represent the oldest views of the Hohenlohe landscape.

literature

• Raimund J. Weber: The new instance - processes before the Reich Chamber of Commerce using the example of the Lords of Berlichingen and their neighbors on the lower Jagst and Neckar. In: Departure into the modern age: Northern Württemberg in the 16th century. Edited by Peter Schiffer. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2012, ISBN 978-3-7995-7654-3 .
• Reinhold F. Glei (introduction, edition and translation): Virgilius Cothurnatus - Virgil in the Schauspielhaus: Three Latin tragedies by Michael Maittaire. Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 3-8233-6238-0 .
• Gerhard Taddey: Michael Hospin: humanist, teacher, map maker, 1565–1618. In: Life pictures from Swabia and Franconia. Edited by Robert Uhland on behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-17-008111-X .
• Franz Grenacher:  Hospein, Michel. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 651 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Ruthardt Oehme: The history of cartography of the German southwest: With 16 color plates and 42 black and white maps. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Konstanz and Stuttgart 1961.
• Karl Schumm: M. Michael Hospinus, an unknown cartographer from Hohenlohe. In: Journal for Württemberg State History. Published by the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg and the Württemberg History and Antiquity Association Stuttgart. W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 1956.

Web links

• Literature by and about Michel Hospein in the bibliographic database WorldCat |
• Berlin State Library The drama Equus Troianus from 1590

Remarks

1. ^ Gerhard Taddey: Michael Hospin: humanist, teacher, card maker, 1565-1618. 1983, p. 76.
2. ^ Karl Schumm: M. Michael Hospinus, an unknown cartographer from Hohenlohe. 1956, p. 29.
3. ↑ Peter Scherer : The western Albuch at the beginning of the 17th century . In: einhorn No. 118, Einhorn-Verlag, Schwäbisch Gmünd August 1973, pp. 384–389 (with b / w illustrations of the three maps in total). - A section of the largest of the three maps can be found as a color print, but without mentioning the artist and dated “1617”, also in: Immo Eberl , Zur Medieval History of Bargau . In: Bargau local authority / Schwäbisch Gmünd city archive (ed.), Bargau. Ein Heimatbuch , Einhorn-Verlag, Schwäbisch Gmünd 2009, ISBN 978-3-936373-54-7 , pp. 49-64, 56.
4. ^ Günter Skopnik (1904–1972): theater scholar, artistic director and actor
5. ^ Reinhold F. Glei: Virgilius Cothurnatus - Virgil in the Schauspielhaus: Three Latin tragedies by Michael Maittaire. 2006, p. 188.
6. ^ Reinhold F. Glei: Virgilius Cothurnatus - Virgil in the Schauspielhaus: Three Latin tragedies by Michael Maittaire. 2006, p. 189.
7. ↑ Ruthardt Oehme: The history of the cartography of the German southwest. 1961, map 12.
8. ↑ Raimund J. Weber: The new instance - processes before the Reich Chamber of Commerce using the example of the Lords of Berlichingen and their neighbors on the lower Jagst and Neckar. 2012, p. 41.
9. ^ Karl Schumm: M. Michael Hospinus, an unknown cartographer from Hohenlohe. 1956, p. 25.
10. ^ Gerhard Taddey: Michael Hospin: humanist, teacher, card maker, 1565-1618. 1983, p. 85.