Simon Pistoris the Younger

Simon Pistoris the Elder J.

Simon Pistoris the Younger , from 1521 also called Pistoris von Seuselitz or von Seusslitz (born  October 28, 1489 in Leipzig , † December 3, 1562 in Seusslitz ) was a German lawyer and chancellor of the Duke of Saxony .

Life

As the son of Simon Pistoris the Elder , who worked as a doctor and professor of medicine, he grew up in a wealthy family in the trade fair city of Leipzig, where he got to know and appreciate Martin Luther . After almost three years of study at the University of Pavia , he obtained his doctorate in both rights (secular and spiritual law) on his return to Leipzig in 1514 and was appointed full professor at the law faculty of the University of Leipzig in the same year . In 1519 he finally received the ordinariate of this faculty and at the same time was appointed canon at the episcopal churches in Merseburg and Naumburg as well as an assessor at the Oberhofgericht in Leipzig.

After Simon Pistoris had been entrusted with important state affairs by Duke Georg the Bearded since 1519 and promoted to the Privy Council , the latter appointed him Chancellor in 1523. Together with Duke Georg, on the one hand, he condemned the peasant uprising , but in 1530 at the Reichstag in Augsburg he vehemently advocated the confession ( Confessio Augustana ) to the Lutheran church and Saxony was later able to become predominantly Protestant.

After Duke George's death he served under his successor and brother Duke Henry the Pious no longer as chancellor, but instead increased again its commitment as a legal researcher at the Faculty of Law. It was not until Duke Moritz von Sachsen finally reappointed him as his chancellor from 1541 to 1549. During this time Pistoris appeared, particularly as envoy at the colloquium in Regensburg in 1541, as a member of the Regency Council from 1542 to 1544 and in 1546 when Ferdinand I signed a contract in Prague .

From Duke Moritz he finally acquired Seusslitz Castle in 1546, along with the lands and associated villages. He took on the function of heir, feudal lord and court lord for these areas. Here he spent his retirement from 1549, but continued to work on scientific studies and reports . Seusslitz remained in the family until 1720.

On April 20, 1521, Pistoris was elevated to the imperial nobility by Emperor Charles V in Worms and on August 4, 1555 by the Roman-German King and later Emperor Ferdinand I in Augsburg to the hereditary imperial knighthood.

In 1539 Simon Pistoris lent the Count of Stolberg the stately sum of 2000 guilders, which he was to get back at the Michaelismarkt in Leipzig in 1542 with 7% interest. The mayor Michael Meyenburg from Nordhausen vouched for the repayment of the main sum by the Counts of Stolberg .

family

Simon Pistoris had 23 children from his marriages with 1st Clara Pantzschmann, 2nd Barbara von Alpeneck and 3rd Dorothea von Ziegler and Klipphausen , including the well-known legal scholar Modestinus Pistoris von Seuselitz from his first marriage and Hartmann Pistoris von Seuselitz from his third marriage. A tombstone with the family coat of arms and inscription is on the wall of the old cemetery behind the Seusslitz church. There is also an original portrait medal in gold from 1533 in the State Mint Collection in Munich . His extensive library remained in the family's possession and was later expanded considerably by his great-grandson Johann Ernst Pistoris , senior court judge and diplomat from the Electoral Saxony .

literature

• Walter Pauly: "The first constitutional law teachers in the empire". Henning Goeden (approx. 1450–1521) and Simon Pistoris (1489–1562) in the controversy over the election of the German king in 1519 , in: Rolf Lieberwirth (ed.): Rechtsgeschichte in Halle. Commemorative writing for Gertrud Schubart-Fikentscher (1896–1985) , Cologne a. a. 1998, pp. 17-33.
• Conrad Alfred Rüger: Life and fate of the Saxon legal scholar and Chancellor Simon von Pistoris on Seuselitz (1489–1562) , Waiblingen 1977.
• Johann August Ritter von Eisenhart :  Pistoris von Seuselitz, Simon . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 26, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 186-194.
• Simon Pistoris in the Library of Congress : [1] , [2] .