Siegmund Albich

Siegmund Albich

Memorial plaque for Siegmund Albich at the town hall in Uničov

Siegmund Albich , latinized Sigismund (us) Albicus (also Albich von Prag ; Albich von Neustadt ; Albik von Uničov , Czech: Zikmund Albík z Uničova ; * around 1359 in Mährisch Neustadt ; † July 23, 1427 in Buda ) was a North Moravian resp. Czech physician and personal physician to the Bohemian King Wenceslaus IV and Emperor Sigismund as well as Archbishop of Prague .

Origin and career

Siegmund Albich, born in Northern Moravia, came from a middle-class family. He studied at Charles University , graduated from the baccalaureate there in 1382 , earned the title of Magister Artium and was awarded a doctorate in medicine in 1387 and was then personal physician to King Wenceslas IV , by whom he was ennobled in 1400. 1402-1403 he stayed in Italy. In 1407 he enrolled at the University of Padua , where he studied law and received his doctorate in both rights.

Archbishop of Prague

After the death of the Prague Archbishop Zbynko Zajíc von Hasenburg in 1411, Siegmund Albich was elected as his successor at the instigation of King Wenceslas and against the resistance of the Chapter. The papal confirmation followed on January 15, 1412. Nothing is known about the consecration. After taking office in June 1412, he appointed Wenceslaus von Kuřim as vicar general and official . His brief episcopate fell during the stormy times of the papal schism and the disputes over the teachings of Jan Hus . Because of his condemnation and excommunication by John XXIII. there was unrest in Prague in the spring of 1412. The archbishop tried unsuccessfully to persuade the conflicting parties to come to an agreement. At the end of 1412 he finally resigned from office. The Pope accepted the resignation and appointed Albich on February 12, 1413 titular bishop of Caesarea . Albich's successor as archbishop was Konrad von Vechta , again a close adviser and partisan of Wenceslas.

Again in royal service

After his resignation, Siegmund Albich devoted himself again to medicine. At the instigation of King Wenceslas, whose favor remained with him, he became provost of Vyšehrad . In addition, he again served the king as a doctor and as royal Bohemian chancellor. In 1413 he was appointed chairman of the court of arbitration between Hus and Stephan von Palec . Those involved protested the appeal because they believed Albich to be weak and partial. The king then expelled both parties.

After Jan Hus was executed at the Council of Constance in 1415 with the approval of Wenzel's brother Sigismund , the conflict between Catholics and the Hussites who formed resistance in Bohemia intensified . With his efforts to bring Bohemia back on the course of the council with anti-Hussite measures, Wenceslaus not only turned against the Hussite-minded Bohemian nobility and large sections of the population. He also lost the support of Prague University, where he had given the Bohemian nationes dominance over the foreign nationes , especially the Germans, by the Kuttenberg decree of 1409 . After the uprising in 1419, Wenceslaus fled Prague. During the subsequent looting by the Hussites, Albich's Vyšehrad provost was devastated and his property was confiscated. He also fled from Prague and went to Breslau , where he wrote his best-known treatise Regimen sanitatis in 1422 . As Sigismund's personal physician , he soon regained a privileged position.

His place of burial is not known. The tomb that he had erected in St. Mary's Church in Prague's old town was destroyed at the beginning of the Hussite period.

The municipality of his birthplace Uničov honors Siegmund Albich with a street named after him. It is located near the train station and is called Albíkova ulice .

Works

Albich's writings are not only of historical interest because of the consilia to his royal patients, but also identify him in the history of medicine as an important physician who focuses on preventive care and is characterized by an interest in geographic and climatic conditions, which was unusual for his time and milieu-related causes of the development of diseases. Three of his works, including as his most important the Regimen hominis seu Vetularius ("Health rules for humans, or the quack"), written for Wenzel , were printed by Markus Brandis (Brandt), Leipzig's first printer, in 1484 in Leipzig and thus count among them the oldest cradle prints of medical literature. About a dozen other writings — Regimina, Consilia, Pestschriften, transcripts and compilations, including a German-language Puch der erezney by maister albico — are preserved in the manuscripts (for example by the Lower Silesian surgeon Pankraz Sommer).

literature

• Gerhard Eis :  Albich, Siegmund. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 148 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Zdeňka Hledíková : Art. Sigismund Albík von Uničov (around 1360–1427). 1412 Archbishop of Prague. 1413-1427 Ep. Tit. Caesareensis . In: Erwin Gatz (ed.), Clemens Brodkorb (collaborator): The bishops of the Holy Roman Empire 1198 to 1448. A biographical lexicon. Volume I, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-08422-5 , p. 594.
• Bernhard Schnell : Albich of Prague. Doctor and archbishop in the age of the Hussites . In: Václav Bok, Hans-Joachim Behr (Hrsg.): German literature of the Middle Ages in and about Böhmen, II. (Negotiations of the conference in Budweis / Ceské Budějovice 2002), Kovac, Hamburg 2004 (= writings on Medieval Studies. Volume 2) , ISBN 3-8300-1041-9 , pp. 237-264.
• Milada Říhová: Dvorní lékař posledních Lucemburků. Albík z Uničova, lékař králů Václava IV. A Zikmunda, profesor pražské univerzity a krátký čas i arcibiskup pražský. Univerzita Karlova v Praze nakladatesltví Karolinum, Prague 1999, ISBN 80-7184-876-X .
• Hans-Joachim Weitz: Albich von Prag: An examination of his writings , Diss. Heidelberg, 1970
• Emil Schultheiß: Contribution to the plague literature of the late Middle Ages. In: Centaurus 7, 1960/61, No. 2, pp. 213-219 ( contribution to the plague literature of the late Middle Ages ( memento of November 9, 2004 in the Internet Archive ))
• Emil Schultheiß: Sigismundus Albicus, Regimen hominis seu vetularius . In: Neue Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Furtherbildung 11 (1961), pp. 846–852
• Emil Schultheiß: A late medieval medical manuscript fragment . In: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 2 (1960), pp. 231-238 ( IN LATE MEDIEVAL MEDICAL MANUAL FRAGMENT ( Memento from May 17, 2003 in the Internet Archive ))
• Emil Schultheiß: About the works of Albicus. A contribution to late medieval medical manuscript studies . In: Janus 4 (1960), pp. 221-234
• Emil Schultheiß: Bath hygiene and geomedicine in the works of Albicus . In: Journal for applied bath and climate medicine 4 (1960), pp. 473-480

Web links

• Literature and other media by and about Siegmund Albich in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Siegmund Albich on the question of the plague (it.)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gundolf Keil : Albich, Sigmund (Sigismund Albicus). In: Werner E. Gerabek u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of medical history. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 29 f.
2. ↑ Year of birth according to Gatz: Bishops. In some sources 1347 is stated (e.g. NDB), in cz-wiki 1358.
3. ^ After Gatz: Bishops and NDB. in cz-wiki: 23 August 1427
4. ↑ after Gatz: Bishops. In cz-wiki, Pressburg is stated, in the NDB "probably in King Siegmund's field camp in Hungary"
5. ^ Rolf Bachem: A Bamberg plague poem and its relationship to Albich von Prag. In: Stifter-Jahrbuch 3, 1953, pp. 169–175.
6. ↑ Gundolf Keil : "blutken - bloedekijn". Notes on the etiology of the hyposphagma genesis in the 'Pommersfeld Silesian Eye Booklet' (1st third of the 15th century). With an overview of the ophthalmological texts of the German Middle Ages. In: Specialized prose research - Crossing borders. Volume 8/9, 2012/2013, pp. 7–175, here: pp. 34–43.

predecessor	Office	successor
Zbynko Zajíc from Hasenburg	Archbishop of Prague 1411–1412	Konrad von Vechta