Order of the crazy court councilors

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Certificate of admission for Goethe

The order of the crazy court councilors was founded in 1809 by the Frankfurt doctor Johann Christian Ehrmann and the rector of the grammar school Friedrich Christian Matthiä , when Ehrmann accepted his friend Matthiä into the order with the first certificate issued.

history

On June 13, 1809, a satirical article in the Mainzer Zeitung , which was published by the Philipp von Zabern publishing house until it was banned in 1822, addressed the broader public and was formally addressed to Ehrmann: The anonymously published “Address to the venerable Timander, Grand Master of the Human Order der Madness ”is partly attributed to the pen of Matthiäs. The inspiration and model were not the religious orders , but rather the Discrete Societies that arose in the course of the Enlightenment in the second half of the 18th century, some of which had their models in Freemasonry and the student orders . Ehrmann was not without his own experience in this world of thought. As early as 1778 he made contact with the later Illuminati Adolph Freiherr Knigge , who then lived in Hanau , in whose short-lived order for perfect friends he became a member alongside Luise zu Stolberg, Gottfried Herder , Friedrich Maximilian Klinger and Auguste Pattberg .

Emil Rödiger describes the scope of the religious activities of the crazy court councilors in Ehrmann's General German Biography:

“The diploma, dated April 1st, signed“ Timander ”, was sent from 1809 to 1820 to around 700 mostly intellectually outstanding and important men - including some women - for some random and innocent, not always ridiculous cause , or because of a peculiarity in their life. "

Everyone who was honored in this way received an individual Latin saying with an implied reason, which began with "whether" (because of). There were no duties associated with the award of the order for those so distinguished. When in doubt, they only had to be able to handle the attention paid to them. Around 1820, shortly before Matthiäs death, the order's activities were stopped because of an irreconcilable difference of opinion between the two founders.

Awards

The best-known award was made in 1815 to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , whom Ehrmann knew personally from his time in Strasbourg. The acquaintance between the two was later cultivated in Frankfurt in the house of the privy councilor Johann Jakob von Willemer . In 1814/15 Goethe got to know and appreciate the third wife of Willemers, Marianne von Willemer , cf. Summer at the Gerbermühle and in Heidelberg (1815) . He later set a literary monument to her in the “Book of Suleika” of the “ West-Eastern Divan ”. Goethe noted the honor by Ehrmann and Matthiä on August 2, 1815 in his diary. Goethe's document contained the addition “ob orientalismum occidentalem”, although he himself had dreamed of “ob varietatem scientiarum” in conversation with Sulpiz Boisserée . Marianne von Willemer, as one of the few women among the recipients of the recognition, was given an appropriate “ob crepidam orientalem”.

Further prominent recipients were, according to Paul Beck (1898):

  • The writer Jean Paul , who had already been annoyed by Ehrmann in 1809 by using his name as a pseudonym, with the addition "ob iram et studium"
  • The art historian, patron of Cologne Cathedral and friend of Goethe's Sulpiz Boisserée with the comment "ob architectonice mensuratam in crepusculo turrem Cathedralis Argentinensis"
  • The philologist Friedrich Creuzer with the remark "ob pocula mystica"
  • The actor August Wilhelm Iffland was given “ob Cocardam et quorsum”

The exemplary reproduction of the transcribed text of the certificate for the Frankfurt bookseller Carl Christian Jügel can also be found in Beck's short description.

Other (at that time) prominent knights of the order are mentioned in the article The Knight League with the Order of the Transition to Wetzlar and the Order of the Crazy Court Councilors in the sheets for literary entertainment of 1852. It is this

"Whether Synthesia dynamicam Historiae et whether extirpationem Triplicabilis in principio Identitatis indiscernbilium Leibnizzi."

  • The rector of the Leopoldinum Johann David Köhler in Detmold:

"Whether Chorum te autore et didascalo in lustratione publica gregis literarii cule ita exhibito"

Hector is slain
Our need is over;
Hector is slain
Hector dead, dead, dead!

"Whether si quid cuneandum sit, et ob curriculum vitae metrice elaboratum."

"Whether tentamine Hortensia gloriosa cum emendando solis per tenestras coloratas."

"Whether Jordani Bruni versum integrum ingeniose fractum et barbare redditum."

"Ob anticipationem Tomi tertii."

"Whether Iconoclasmum."

"Whether inventorum nov - antiquorum insignem multitudinem."

"Whether sapientiam paedagogicam jampridem Lutetiae Parisiorum sub rheda quaesitam et cognitam."

"Whether dignitatem Professoriam from amplissimo Senatu rite impetratam."

"Whether Magistrum Drum"

because of the following verses written by him:

Call out, brethren, salvation and blessings.
Our dear master on it!

"Whether experimentum Hudibraseum in Urso reiteratum."

"Whether virtutem hemerae"

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c sheets for literary entertainment. 1852, No. 52, p. 1229.
  2. ↑ a b sheets for literary entertainment. 1852, No. 52, p. 1228.
  3. ^ Emil Rödiger:  Ehrmann, Johann Christian . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, p. 292.
  4. ↑ Beck (1898), p 273, speaks of about 1 00 ceremonies.
  5. ↑ Diary August 1815 on zeno.org
  6. ↑ Conversations from August 3, 1815 on zeno.org
  7. ↑ a b c d Beck (1898), p. 270.
  8. ↑ Beck (1898), pp. 271/272.