Nikolaus Cisnerus

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Nikolaus Cisnerus

Nikolaus Cisnerus (also: Nicolaus Kistner or Nicolaus Cisner ; * March 24, 1529 in Mosbach , † March 6, 1583 in Heidelberg ) was a Palatinate scholar of the Renaissance period . He was rector of the University of Heidelberg and judge at the Reich Chamber of Commerce in Speyer . He was a humanist , Reformed Christian, lawyer and poet .

Life

Nikolaus Cisnerus was born on March 24, 1529 in Mosbach as the son of the merchant and councilor Jodocus Kistner. He came from a respected bourgeois family from Mosbach, who provided several council and community mayors and council members during the 16th century. He had three brothers and grew up in Mosbach. Nikolaus was sent to Heidelberg at an early age , where he attended the Neckar School, at that time a famous educational institution in the city, until he was 15, and learned to speak and write the Latin language in a way that corresponded to the humanistic educational ideal of his time. In 1544 he was a student in Heidelberg at the Collegium Dionysianum (Artes liberales, ancient languages). The Dionysianum was later renamed Casimirianum in honor of Elector Johann Casimir. During his studies he came into contact with the Reformation .

In 1547 he became a doctor and master of philosophy ( Magister artium ) and taught mathematics and philosophy at the Philosophical Faculty of Heidelberg University . Kistner went to Strasbourg (one of the centers of the Reformation movement) to study, where he met the Lutheran theologian Martin Bucer . Martin Bucer's first wife, Elisabeth Silbereisen, came from Mosbach and belonged to Kistner's relatives. In 1549 Kistner returned from Strasbourg to Heidelberg to teach at the Heidelberg Philosophical Faculty. Two years later he went to study in Wittenberg , where he made friends with Philipp Melanchthon . In 1552 he became professor of ethics in Heidelberg.

From 1553 he stayed to study Roman law in Bourges in France, later in Angers and Poitiers and then in Bologna and Padua in Italy. On the way there, he found a warm welcome in the house of the Swiss reformer Johannes Calvin in Geneva . In his professional training as a lawyer, Kistner was generously sponsored by Elector Friedrich II and his successor, Elector Ottheinrich . This enabled him to obtain a doctorate in Italy, the classic country of Roman law.

At the request of the art-loving and well-educated Elector Ottheinrich, Cisnerus visited many libraries in France and Italy, where he acquired rare manuscripts for the Electoral Library in Heidelberg. In 1559 he obtained his doctorate (Dr. jur.) In Pisa . From 1559 he was law lecturer (from 1561 on the Pandects ) in Heidelberg and electoral advisor and vice judge.

In 1562 he married Anna Hartmanni, daughter of Hartmannus Hartmannis the Elder from a respected family of lawyers and court officials in the Palatinate. The marriage remained childless, so that later the inheritance went to his nephews.

Monument in Mosbach

From 1562 to 1564 Cisnerus was rector of Heidelberg University . At the turn of the year 1566/67, Cisnerus also became an assessor at the Imperial Court of Justice of Speyer , the highest legal authority of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . He was a member of the Reich Chamber of Commerce for 13 years.

In 1580 he was vice judge and councilor in Heidelberg and held an extraordinary professorship in law at the University of Heidelberg. He was an advisor in the drafting of the Palatinate Land Law and the Palatinate Land Law of 1582.

In addition to his numerous legal works, Cisnerus also made a name for himself as a poet. He published almost all of his literary work in the neo-Latin language.

On March 6, 1583, he died in Heidelberg at the age of almost 54 years. Like almost all other grave monuments in the Heiliggeistkirche, his grave monument was destroyed when Heidelberg was destroyed in 1689.

His nephew, the theologian Quirin Reuter († 1613) , who was also born in Mosbach in 1558 , published many of Nicolaus Kistner's widely scattered small writings in 1611. Dr. theol. Quirin Reuter from Mosbach was the son of the citizen Joh. R. and Barbara Kistner.

Another member of the family, Johannes Cisnerus from Mosbach, schoolmaster, pastor and from 1617 hospital preacher in Heidelberg, campaigned against witch trials .

Probably the most dignified monument to Nicolaus Kistner, who is often praised as the "most famous son of the city of Mosbach", was the naming of the grammar school there in 1958 (today: Nicolaus-Kistner-Gymnasium Mosbach ).

Works

  • Cisnerus, Nicolaus (1529–1583): Idyllion De Veris Et Autumni Comparatione. De Eodem Argumento oratio scripta. - Wittenberg: Crato, 1551.
  • Delitiae Poetarum Germanorum
  • Idyllion de comparatione veris et autumni (1571)
  • numerous studies and commentaries on the Roman institutions and pandects
  • Opuscula historica et politico-philologica (Frankfurt / Main 1611), small writings on German constitutional history

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cisnerus, Nicholas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kistner, Nicolaus; Cisner, Nicolaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German humanist and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1529
PLACE OF BIRTH Mosbach
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1583
Place of death Heidelberg