Polycarp Leyser IV.

Polykarp Leyser IV (born September 4, 1690 in Wunstorf ; † April 7, 1728 Helmstedt ) was a German Protestant theologian , philosopher , physician , lawyer and historian .

Live and act

Leyser was the son of Polykarp Leyser III. and Margaretha Magdalena Barckhausen (1666–1699), daughter of the theologian Hermann Barckhausen (1629–1695) and Magdalena Gesenius († 1677). After his school days, which he had spent together with his brother Friedrich Wilhelm Leyser († 1766) in Ilfeld , Göttingen and Magdeburg , he began his years of study in 1709, first at the University of Rinteln and a year later at the University of Rostock , where he according to first studied theology according to family tradition. As early as 1712 he was drawn to the University of Helmstedt , where he heard lectures from Johann Andreas Schmidt , but also increasingly devoted himself to philosophy. Only a year later, however, at his father's request, he returned home to continue his education there through private studies. In 1714 he attended the University of Wittenberg to dispute with the theologian and historian Gottlieb Wernsdorf the Elder . Here Leyser founded the societas colligentium and was appointed assessor at the philosophical institute in 1716 after earning a master's degree in philosophy. At the same time as this, he took part in medical lectures and private medical training as a student of medicine. In 1718 Leyser accepted a call to Helmstedt, where he was first appointed associate professor of philosophy and a year later full professor of philosophy, poetry and history. He was particularly interested in the Middle Ages , which he defended against the accusation of barbarism that had been widespread since the age of humanism and the Reformation .

When Polykarp Leyser met a Baron von Danckelmann at a ceremony at the University of Rinteln, to which he was sent, he arranged a joint scientific trip with him. This led the two to Kassel , Frankfurt , Gießen , Mainz and Heidelberg before they finally came to Strasbourg in 1722 . At the local university acquired Leyser on August 6, 1722 the doctor of medicine, and on November 5 of that year, the Doctor of Laws. Here it held him for a few years and during this time he published an impressive series of historical and legal-historical treatises, including the report “de flore academiarum promovendo” on his study trips. After another study trip to Denmark , he returned to his homeland in Wunstorf in 1726, where he was appointed professor of history at the University of Helmstedt. In the same year he married, but he was unable to enjoy a long marriage or further career advancement, as he died in 1728 at the age of only 38 after a brief severe illness.

Polykarp Leyser was a busy, highly intelligent person who had studied four subject areas and obtained three doctoral degrees and whose thirst for knowledge never let him stay in one place for long. Despite his short life, there is an abundance of essays from his pen, some of which were only published posthumously as collections.

Polykarp Leyser was married to the widow Louise Schröter nee Schmid, with whom he had their daughter Philippina Sibylla.

Works (selection)

• Polycarpi Lyseri Dissertatio de ficta medii aevi barbarie inprimis circa poesin Latinam . 1719
• De origine eruditionis non ad Iudaeos sed ad Indos referenda . Kusche, Michael, 1716
• Avspiciis Rectoris Magnificentissimi Sereniss. Principis Regii Friderici Avgvsti Vindicias Generales Scriptorvm Qvi Vulgo Svpposititii Habentvr… Svbmittent Praeses Polycarpvs Lyservs Et Respondens Timothevs Thiele . Thiele, Timotheus, 1715
• Dissertatio qua historiam conciliorum Moguntinensium et imprimis concilii a. 1310 habiti Schmidt, Johann Andreas . 1713
• Apparatus literarius singularia, nova, anecdota, rariora ex omnis generis eruditione depromens studio societatis colligentium, Wittenberg 1717
• Conspectus scriptorum editorum et edentorum a Polycarpus Lysero , Helmstedt, 1719
• Polycarpi Lyseri Dissertatio de ficta medii aevi barbarie inprimis circa poesin Latinam . 1719
• Polycarpi Leyseri… Historia poetarvm et poematvm medii aevi decem, post annvm a nato Christo CCCC secvlorvm, 1721
• Dissertatio juridica de frustranea cadaveris inspectione in homicidio . Leyser, Polycarp; Telgmann, Rudolph Friedrich, 1723
• Historia Comitum Wunstorpiensium ex diplomatibus aliisque monumentis fide dignis, maximam partem ineditus contexta. Helmstedt, Hess 1724; 2nd edition 1726 a valuable testimony to the history of science and the first well-founded genealogy of the Counts of Roden .
• Amoenitatum litterarium reliquae , posthumously Leipzig, 1729
• Opuscula quibus iurisprudentia, historia et ars diplomatica illustratur , collection, publisher Posthum, Nuremberg, 1800

literature

• Johann August Ritter von Eisenhart :  Polykarp Leyser IV. In: General German Biography (ADB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 527 f.
• ze170384. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 17, Leipzig 1738, column 384.
• Polykarp Leyser: History of the Counts of Wunstorf , trans. and edit v. Eberhard Kaus with explanatory note from Reimer Krause, Bielefeld / Gütersloh 2000
• Biography (lat.): Elogium Polycarpi Leyseri polyhistoris Helmstadiensis (cf. Polycarpi Leyseri opuscula, Nuremberg 1800, pp. 3–20), ed. by Eberhard Kaus, Wunstorf, 2002: (html, lat.)
• Eberhard Kaus:  Leyser (Lyser), Polycarp (IV.). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 30, Bautz, Nordhausen 2009, ISBN 978-3-88309-478-6 , Sp. 899-902.
• Dieter Lent: Leyser (also Lyser), Polykarp (IV.) . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Dieter Lent u. a. (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 8th to 18th century . Braunschweig 2006, p. 442f.
• Eberhard Kaus: Judaeus Detmoldiae si non conversus, baptizatus saltem. - Image of converts and anti-Jewish resentment in Polykarp Leyser (IV.), In: Das Eighteenth Century 35/1 (2011), pp. 58–72

Web links

• Literature by and about Polykarp Leyser IV. In the catalog of the German National Library