Nicolaus Marschalk

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Nicolaus Marschalk , also: Nikolaus Marschalk de Gronenberg , Nicolaus Marescalcus (or Marscalcus ) Thurius (* in the 1460s in Roßla ; † July 12, 1525 in Rostock ) was a German philologist, legal scholar, historian and humanist .

Nicolaus Marschalk on a contemporary wood engraving in the Erfurt city archive

Life

Nicolaus Marschalk attended the universities in Brabantischen Löwen (now Belgium) and Heidelberg . In 1491 he moved to the University of Erfurt . After he had obtained the degree of master's degree in the artist faculty there in 1496 , then also that of a bachelor's degree in the law faculty, he became a town clerk and as such worked as a humanist without direct connection to the university : in 1499 he contacted Wolfgang Schenk , who set up the first print shop in Erfurt , and published two small writings in his print shop - a lexicon on the philosopher Michael Psellos , a contemporary of Constantine, and the late antique grammar of Martianus Mineus Felix Capella with introductory epigrams by himself, by the later Erfurt auxiliary bishop Maternus Pistor (approx. 1470–1534) and by Heinrich Aquilonipol (approx. 1455–1527) - the earliest example of Greek type printing in Erfurt. The latter attacked the traditional, scholastic grammar used in Erfurt, the "Doctrinale" of Alexander Gallus .

In 1501 Marschalk set up his own print shop and continued his philological work by publishing the Orthographia for the spelling of Greek and Latin in the same year - the first Greek textbook written in Germany, which he also followed up in 1501 with the Grammatica Exegetica . In 1502 he supplemented the two writings with an anthology of Latin and Greek poets, the "Enchiridion Poetarum Clarissimorum". He was the first to print notes in Erfurt.

From there he went with students, whom he followed, to the newly founded University of Wittenberg in 1502, where he received his doctorate in law on April 23, 1504 , set up the first printing press in Wittenberg and took over a professorship in Greek language and literature. Marschalk's humanistic endeavors, which he had initially developed in Erfurt, he tried to continue in his lectures in Wittenberg. He met resistance from his scholastic colleagues. Complaints to the Elector Friedrich the Wise did not lead to any success in the dispute either, so that he left Wittenberg in early 1505.

Mediated to the Mecklenburg court, he was first ducal councilor in Schwerin and in this function was on the road in diplomatic missions. In 1510 he took action at the University of Rostock . He held legal lectures there, but at the same time applied the humanistic sciences. As a polyhistor he was engaged in theological and scientific studies and was literary active in the field of law and history. He not only carried out the first excavations, but was also far ahead of his time in evaluating the archaeological findings.

Marschalk also worked as a forger of history by inventing, among other things, a legendary military leader of the Obotrites, Anthyrius, from the 4th century BC in his Annalium Herulorum et Vandalorum (1521), as well as a line of ancestry that originated from this and which links to historically guaranteed sources should and should put the Mecklenburg rulers in contact with Alexander the Great. His forgeries lasted well into the 18th century and the King Anthyrius, who was invented by him, is still jokingly mentioned by Fritz Reuter in his prehistory of Mecklenburg, but they were discovered as early as the end of the 17th century (by Philipp Jacob Spener 1677 and the mayor of Wismar Caspar Voigt 1680).

He not only worked as a printer in Erfurt 1501/1502, but also in Wittenberg from 1502 to 1504 and in Rostock from 1514 to 1522. The books he printed there often had the notation ex aedibus Thuriis or his coat of arms, a mermaid.

Works

  • Interpretamentum leve in Psellum de natura ciborium , 1499
  • Editor of De Grammatica liber by Martianus Mineus Felix Capella, 1500 (with his commentary)
  • Grammatica exegetica , 1501
  • Orthographia , 1501
  • Enchiridion poetarum clarissimorum , 1502
  • Editor of Petrus von Ravenna Lectio de potestate summi pontificis et Romani imperatoris , 1503
  • Chronicon of the Mecklenburg regents (around 1520) (Rostock 1521)
  • Annales Herulorum et Vandalorum , 1521, reprinted with other of his works such as the Mecklenburgische Reimchronik in EJ von Westphalen: Monumenta inedita rerum Germanicarum praecipue Cimbricarum et Megapolensium , 1729–1745
  • De Sacrilegium Judaeorum Sternbergae 1491 commissio germanico idiomate , 1510
  • Historiae Aquatilium , 1517-1520
  • Princely genealogy. 1526, illustrated by Erhard Altdorfer , urn : nbn: de: gbv: 9-g-4883868

literature

Web links

Commons : Nicolaus marshal  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Nicolaus Marschalk  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ H. Gummel: Research History in Germany . De Gruyter, Berlin (1938)
  2. Volker Schimpff: The beginning of archaeological research in Northern Germany: On the work of Nikolaus Marschalk Thurius in Mecklenburg . In: Rostocker Wissenschaftshistorische Manuskripte , 18. Rostock 1990, pp. 70–73
  3. Hofmeister The Song of King Anthyrius. In: Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology , Volume 61, 1896, p. 239