Theobald Hock

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Signature of Theobald Hocks

Theobald Hock (also Hoeck or Hoeckh) (born August 23, 1573 in Limbach ; † after 1624 ) was a political agent and German poet .

Life

From 1586 to 1589, Hock attended the “Schola illustris” of the now reformed Hornbach monastery, which was set up according to Sturm's principles . The solid humanistic education was made possible by a grant from his sovereign, Johann I von der Pfalz-Zweibrücken . In 1589 his sovereign released him from the obligations associated with the grant. The years between 1589 and 1600 are in the dark.

From 1594 Hock's cousin Hans Hock worked in the imperial chancellery of Rudolf II in Prague . Theobald Hock, who was assigned to Christian von Anhalt's army, could have made his way through Amberg , where Christian von Anhalt took his seat as governor of the Elector Palatinate, into the vicinity of the Prague imperial court.

On April 23, 1600 Theobald Hock entered the service of Peter Wok von Rosenberg at his court in Krumau , from 1602 in Wittingau . There he was initially involved in the expansion of the palace library and the documentation of writings and soon rose to be responsible for the German-language political correspondence of Peter Wok. He became a key figure in the connection between the Bohemian-Austrian opposition and the anti-Habsburg operations of Palatinate politics under Christian von Anhalt's leadership.

In 1602 Peter Wok had his secretary and his brother Anastasius, who was studying medicine in Heidelberg, elevated to the nobility by the emperor. From then on, both are imperial nobles "von Zweibrücken". In order to acquire land in the Kingdom of Bohemia , however, it was necessary to be accepted into the Bohemian knighthood. The cousin Hans, who worked at the imperial court of appeal, took an old document from the files, erased the namesake from it and made the members of the Hock family nobles who had always served the German emperors faithfully since Frederick II . In 1605, Emperor Rudolf II recognized the document submitted by Peter Wok von Rosenberg in his capacity as King of Bohemia and in 1607 granted the Hocks the desired diploma.

In his will of February 27, 1610, Peter Wok transferred the Sonnberg estate with parish and collature and all associated villages and parts of the village to Theobald Hock; Hans Hock was used as Theobald's successor. On March 10th, however, he sold the Sonnberg estate at a symbolic price to Theobald and Hans Hock as their joint property.

Theobald Hock married in July 1611, mediated by his master, Agnes Kolchreiter von Černoduben. Peter Wok paid for the immense cost of the wedding celebration. After his death, Theobald, Anastasius and cousin Hans Hock took up residence on the Sonnberg estate, which they had acquired so cheaply.

Due to his intolerant Protestant zeal as a landlord, Theobald Hock soon had several complaints on his neck. When he brought his defense letter to the court in Prague on July 10, 1617, he learned that the Catholic relatives of Peter Wok von Rosenberg accused him of forging wills. The charges against him were ultimately high treason against Emperor Rudolf, fraudulent admission into the Bohemian knighthood and forgery of Rosenberg's testament. Theobald Hock was arrested and put in the White Tower in Prague, as was his cousin Hans.

On March 13, 1618, the trial against Theobald and Hans Hock began. After ten days of trial, the verdict was passed against Theobald Hock: He was found guilty of forging wills as well as by stealing the Bohemian nobility and was sentenced to death. Cousin Hans escaped conviction as a key witness. Investigations into high treason continued against Theobald Hock, regardless of his conviction. Apparently they wanted to expose the threads that were spun by the Protestant Union to Bohemia through the former secretary Hock. Therefore, according to his own statement, he was tortured for two days in May 1618. It would probably have fared badly for a long time if the Bohemian estates had not started the revolt against the Habsburg rule with the second lintel in Prague .

The turn of the balance of power brought Theobald Hock freedom (September 1, 1619). Shortly before, Hock wrote several, e.g. T. printed defensions, whereby he also referred to his anti-Jesuit Commonitorium sive Admonitio de Roberti Bellarmini Scriptis atque Libris . After his release, Hock took over command of Bohemian troops under Christian von Anhalt. The last surviving message from 1624 referred to him as secretary and commissarius of Count Peter Ernst II von Mansfeld , on whose behalf he negotiated contributions with the Alsatian cities.

plant

Theobald Hock left only one literary work, the collection of poems Schöne Blumenfeld, printed in 1601 under the anagram Otheblad Oeckh . Literary studies generally treats Hock as a "precursor" or "mediator" between humanism and the baroque. This view of epochal developments obscures the view of Hock's actual achievement: In the context of poets who mainly write in neo-Latin, he attempts to write poems in German. His collection of poems is at the beginning of New High German art poetry. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, he has a variety of verses and stanzas in his poems . His role models are less to be found in Latin poetry than in the emerging art song by the Prague poet composers Jakob Regnart (1540–1599) and Christoph von Schallenberg (1561–1597). Hock's verses often still bump in the manner of the Mastersingers , but then his clean iamb, his artistic variation of the verse forms and his rhyming technique appear all the more admirable . The vocabulary of his texts covers a wide range from coarse, often erotically allusive expressions to technical expressions from court life.

The subject matter of Hock's texts is varied. Even in the tradition of the Mastersingers, he mocks the peasants, laments the cunning and falsehood of women and criticizes the conditions of the time, in particular the privileging of the unsuitable noble court officials, whom he contrasts with the capable bourgeoisie (and thus himself). Hock's criticism of conditions at court is surprisingly frank to someone who lives in the courtly world. From Protestant Christianity and its ethics, he draws the praise of diligence and perseverance as well as the proclamation of tolerance in suffering and the orientation of life towards death.

Hock, however, subverts strict Protestant morals with witty formulations, just as mockery and irony permeate many of his poems. The 16th century is the golden age of proverbs . In addition to quotations from the Bible, they are found in abundance at Hock. This vernacular finished product is often artfully interwoven by Hock in his texts. Because with all the preaching and moralizing, Hock also wants to entertain and amuse the reader. In the same poem, seriousness and joke, educational and amusing, are often mixed, and the fun, in turn, is juxtaposed with complaints of impermanence, which many subsequent Baroque poets were unable to write.

Even in the title Schöne Blumenfeld , Hock points to the variety and colorfulness of the texts (and themes), but also alludes to the meadow as a playground for fools (satire as “speculum mundi - mirror image of the world”). At Hock, satire is character satire. It does not aim so much at general vices as at certain character defects of individual people.

expenditure

  • Schoenes Blumenfeldt / Auffigen general very sad state / fornemlich however the Hoff = Practicanten and other menigklichen in his profession and nature to the good and best: By Othebladen Öckhen von Ichamp Eltzapffern Berme = orgic secretaries. In the year / MDCI. (Expl: HAB Wolffenbüttel)
  • Nice field of flowers . Ndr. D. Ed. 1601, ed. Max Koch, Halle / Saale: Max Niemeyer 1899 (reprints of German literature works of the 16th and 17th centuries 157-159)
  • Beautiful field of flowers . Critical text edition, ed. Klaus Hanson. Bonn: Bouvier 1975
  • Beautiful field of flowers . Selected poems, ed. Bernd Philippi and Gerhard Dancer. Saarbrücken: Conte Verlag 2007

Anthologies

  • Pre- and early baroque , ed. Herbert Cysarz Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1964 (German literature in development series. Barock series. Barocklyrik, vol. 1; Ndr. D. Leipzig 1937)
  • German poetry from the beginning to the present in 10 volumes , ed. Walter Killy, Volume 4, Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 2001
  • German baroque poetry . Based on the edition by Edgar Hederer, ed. Karl Pörnbacher. Munich: Carl Hanser, 6th rev. u. exp. 1979 edition
  • Lyric anthology , ed. Carl Roos. Kobenhavn: Gyldendal 1942 (German texts, 2)
  • The age of the baroque. Texts and certificates , ed. Albrecht Schöne. Munich: CH Beck 1963
  • Baroque poetry , ed. Marian Szyrocki, 2 volumes.Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt 1971 (Rowohlt's classics, volumes 38 and 39)

Literature (selection)

  • Václav Bok: On the representation of German-language literature in the library of the Lords of Rosenberg , in: Studies on Humanism in the Bohemian Lands , Cologne a. Vienna 1991, supplementary booklet, 49-55
  • Václav Bok: Comments on the life and work of Theobald Höck von Zweibrücken , in: Life at the court and in the residential cities of the last Rosenbergs, Opera historica 3 (1993), 233-242 (Editio Universitatis Bohemiae Meridionalis)
  • Walter Brauer: Theobald Hock , in: Journal for German Philology 63 (1938), 254-284
  • Herbert Cysarz: German baroque poetry. Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo . Leipzig: H. Haessel 1924
  • Eckehard Czucka: Poetological Metaphor and Poetic Discourse. On Theobald Hocks> Von Art der Deutschen Poeterey < , in: Neophilologus 71 (1987), 1-23
  • Paul Derks:  Hock von Zwaybruck, Theobald. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 295 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Kurt Fleischmann: Theobald Höck and the linguistic early baroque . Reichenberg: Franz Kraus , 1937 (originally Diss. Prague 1936)
  • Arthur Hübscher: To Theobald Hock. Biographical and textual criticism , in: Journal for German Philology 52 (1927), 123-126
  • Max Hermann Jellinek: Theobald Hocks language and home , in: Journal for German Philology 33 (1901), 84-122
  • Max Hermann Jellinek: Contributions to the textual criticism and explanation of the beautiful flower field , in: Journal for German antiquity and German literature 69 (1932), 209-216
  • Erika Kanduth: The Petrarkism in the German poetry of the early Baroque , Diss. Vienna 1953
  • Arnost Kraus: Theobald Hock , Prague 1936 (Treatises of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Department 1935, 3)
  • Wilhelm Kühlmann: On the survival of a missing person: Theobald Hock as "Commissarius" Ernst von Mansfelds on the Upper Rhine (1621/22 ), in: Wolfenbütteler Barock-Nachrichten 8 (1981), no. 1, p. 189
  • Albert Leitzmann : Zu Theobald Hock , in: Contributions to the history of the German language and literature 51 (1927), 195-205
  • Karlheinz Schauder: From Limbach to Prague. The adventurous life of Theobald Hock , in: Saarpfalz-Jahrbuch 2016, (Homburg / Ottweiler 2015), pp. 31–38 (with appendix by Ernst Wohlschläger: The Friends of the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist in Sonnberg / Žumberk , p. 39 / 40)
  • Edward Schröder: Theobald Höck , in: Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 62 (1925), 20
  • Erich Trunz: German literature between late humanism and baroque. Eight studies . Munich: CH Beck 1995
  • Brunhilde Vetters: Studies on the lyrical work Theobald Hocks , Diss. Vienna 1952

List of works and references:

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hock, Theobald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Theobald Hock from Zweibrücken
BRIEF DESCRIPTION political agent and poet
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1573
PLACE OF BIRTH Limbach
DATE OF DEATH after 1624