Law Academy Düsseldorf

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Düsseldorf Law Academy was a public teaching institution in the academic training of lawyers in Düsseldorf in the period from 1715 at the latest until Düsseldorf was annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia . It is thus indirectly the predecessor of the law faculty at the University of Düsseldorf .

history

The Düsseldorfer Rechtsakademie has to be seen as an interval in legal education in Düsseldorf. Even before the establishment of the institution, there were legal lessons - at private schools - and after the academy was dissolved, too. State-organized legal lectures at Heinrich Heine University only started again in 1994.

The beginnings and the founding of the academy are in the dark. After Paul Toennies' first attempts to classify it in time, who tried to date its origin at the beginning of the 18th century, others such as Theodor Joseph Lacomblet and Heino Pfannenschmid have relied on this information. Lau wrote in his town chronicle in 1921 that the beginnings go “back to the first quarter of the 18th century”, and Guntram Fischer erroneously quotes Lau that he saw the academy as a purely private school. The former city archivist Hugo Weidenhaupt described this point of view as "unconfirmed".

Right building (N): former Jesuit grammar school, today town hall , Mühlenstraße. In the middle of the picture the Andreas Church (K)
Building in the immediate vicinity of the academy around 1800

In any case, the establishment is likely to go back to the reign of Jan Wellem , who had previously introduced "noble boys lessons" at his court of the Duchy of Jülich-Berg , which also included legal topics. Fischer suspects that the year 1792, the year in which the two authorities, administration in persona " Privy Council " and Justice (" Hofrath ") were separated again after a decade, "a privileged legal lesson for aspiring lawyers". After all, the state had an interest in having well-trained lawyers. An indication of this thesis could be that at the time of Jan Wellems of the 68 court councilors and fiscal lawyers as well as the 75 secret councilors and secret secretaries, "all non- aristocratic councilors had the doctorate or licentiate ".

Ludolf Heinrich Hake is considered to be the first known professor at the Düsseldorf Law Academy. Professor Johann Bartholomäus Busch (1680–1739) is traded as a possible predecessor, but his teaching activity is no longer verifiable. According to Johann Friedrich Hautz (1797–1862), Busch has held the position of “excellent law teacher” since 1709. Hake's successor was Franziscus Gerhäuser , who read in Düsseldorf from 1717.

Further legal training

There are other names of possible law teachers in law education in Düsseldorf, but according to Fischer these are more likely to be associated with a private school or a (church) grammar school than an independent university. Among them were Conrad Heresbach , Johann Monheim (1509–1564) with his Monheim School (founded by the Jesuit monastery in 1545), Ludolf Steinwich (1561) ( Latinized : Ludolphus Lithocomus) and his son Lambert Steinwich .

The regent Wolfgang Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg , who received the duchies of Jülich and Berg with the partition treaty of Xanten in 1614 , left the Jesuits to the Monheim school in Düsseldorf from 1620 in the course of his Counter-Reformation according to the rules "ratio et institutio studiorum societatis Jesu " continue. According to the curriculum, some of which still exist, the lessons were mainly intended for future priests and secular clergy. Today it is no longer possible to determine whether Roman law or private law or just canon law was read. After six years of purely grammar school studies, two years of “Rhetorica” followed. Thereafter, two years of philosophy studies and a four-year specialist theological course in Latin were planned. The degree was a baccalaureus, so the curriculum of the Jesuit Lyceum was organized much like an academic high school.

From 1673 there was another possibility to study law in Düsseldorf. Duke Karl Theodor had theological courses organized at the Franciscan Convent, taking into account canon law. The Düsseldorf Franciscan Convention represented a counter-movement with the liberal and episcopal movements of the Electoral Cologne Bonn Jurists' Academy under its Vice-Rector and Franciscan Philipp Anton Hedderich , which were supported by Elector Karl Theodor.

In 1773 Pope Clement XIV dissolved the Jesuit order, which resulted in a drop in the level of education at this school.

Foundation of the academy

A number of lawyers stood out in the vicinity of the Düsseldorf court, most of whom held a seat as councilor. For the ducal ruling house and its order, not only the applicability of the judiciary and thus the availability of good lawyers were of high priority, but also their recruitment after a correspondingly good university education seemed opportune. The later Vice Chancellor and Burgundian Councilor Lic. Bernhard zum Pütz, ancestor of Franz Wilhelm Pütz , one of the early professors of the Düsseldorf Law Academy, and Melchior Voets (1628–1685), who wrote two electoral Cologne legal and court orders, stand out is seen. In addition, Voets was entrusted as administrator of the emergency money issued by the sovereign in 1676, proof of the trust and position he must have held.

While the noble boys' education in 1697 through a reform under Lic. Johann de Roy made more medicine and from 1708 Collegium medicum with the authority to hold exams, Jan Wellem left the institutions of the Jesuits and the Franciscans with their Catholic theological faculties. Only with the license to practice medicine for "Professor" Bartholomäus Busch, which Jan Wellem had signed on May 1, 1712, in which he was promoted from the Board of Auditors to the Palatinate Court of Appeals, one could suspect that he had previously taught at his old place of work.

State supervision

The supervision of the state schools and thus also of the law academy was initially incumbent on the Jülich-Bergischer Hofrat, between 1668 and 1802 by the Privy Council and then by the "High Electoral State Directorate", i.e. always directly to the Düsseldorf court. Neither the city magistrate nor a church office had a say. Rector Monheim had already given a corresponding rejection of a request by the schoolmaster of the Düsseldorf collegiate church St. Lambertus in 1545:

“Cum ipse non doceas, nec mihi, nec ceteris collegis ullum contuleris scholarship. Praeterea ad scholae aedificationem, nemo ex tot vestro collegio ne vitream quidem fenestram unquam largitus sit. Agnoscimus sane nos non alios nostros scholae Dominos, quam eos, qui nos ad hanc functionem vocarunt et a quibus stipendia accepimus. "

“You neither teach it yourself, nor do you give me or the other teachers the slightest salary. The monastery does not even contribute as much to the school building as a window pane costs. We don't know any other gentlemen at the school than those who have called us to our office and from whom we receive our salaries. "

- Fischer after: Government School Councilor Karl Wilhelm Kortüm: News about the high school in Düsseldorf in the 16th century, Düsseldorf 1819; Stahl Collection No. 193, Düsseldorf City Archives

Chairs

Lecture announcements by Professors Wolff, Schiller, Reckum and Windscheid in the “Gülich and Bergische Wochenlichen Nachrichten” 1769/70

Initially, Roman law was probably on the curriculum. In addition, Gerheuser had institutions and pandects , which he had read “two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon” according to his own announcement. Giving lectures on these areas of law was the prerogative of the so-called “Primaries”, of which there were (only) nine in the period from 1717 to the winter semester 1812/13, all of them were full professors and as a kind of “sovereign patent” instead of 6  fl. fl 10 was annealed. fee.

Franz-Leopold Reckum began with lectures on common, statuary and criminal law and Eugenius Reygers read on natural law and public law. Furthermore, there was international law from Reyger's successor Hermann Josef Stercken and feudal law from Heinrich Anton Wolff .

It was not until 1770 that there were detailed, public timetables. Regardless of this, the professors still announced their lectures and lessons independently. Until 1804, these announcements were free of charge in the Bergisch-Jülichen Wochenblatt because they were regarded as official matters. From the summer semester of 1770 Johannes Wilhelm Schiller gave his first lectures on legal history . For the year 1770, 59 hours of lectures per week can be identified.

Classrooms

During the longer period of its existence, the Düsseldorf Law Academy - just like the other universities of the time - had no rooms of its own for teaching; the rooms were rented by the professors for teaching purposes. The only public space available from the beginning for lectures before 1804 was the so-called “aula academica” by Johann Wilhelm Neuss (1780–1857) in the Jesuit grammar school in Mühlenstrasse, today part of the town hall . The early professors such as Hake and Gerhäuser will have used their apartments for lectures.

From 1804, the school management provided two auditoriums in the former Franciscan monastery at Citadellstrasse 2. An available ( public order ) of the General School Deputation of 1809 requisitioned on the part of the city made available spaces again. From then on, lessons took place in the same rooms as before 1804. The construction of a Napoleonic University based on plans by Adolph von Vagedes was ruined by the events of the war in 1812 .

See also

swell

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Toennies: The Faculty Studies in Düsseldorf from the middle of the XVI. until the beginning of the XIX. Century. 1884.
  2. ^ Friedrich Lau: History of the city of Düsseldorf. From the beginning until 1815. A. Bagel, Düsseldorf 1921, 1st department. (Facsimile reprint: published by the cultural office of the state capital Düsseldorf, 1980)
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Fischer: Düsseldorf and his law academy. Triltsch publishing house.
  4. ^ Johann Friedrich Hautz: History of the University of Heidelberg. Volume 2, (PDF; 30.7 MB), printed and published by J. Schneider, Mannheim 1864.
  5. ^ Clemens von Looz-Corswarem: The account book of the city of Düsseldorf from the year 1540/41. A contribution to the history of the city in the middle of the 16th century. (PDF; 995 kB), Düsseldorf 2001.
  6. ↑ Ulrich Brzosa: The history of the Catholic Church in Düsseldorf: from the beginnings to secularization. Volume 24.
  7. ^ Theodor Pyl:  Steinwich, Lambert . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, pp. 25-27.
  8. ↑ Alphabetical listing of the real learned Secret Councilors 1692–1742. (PDF; 696 kB), S. CLIV

Remarks

  1. ↑ Handwritten note in the type area Weidenhaupt's personal copy by Guntram Fischer.