Thomas Kantzow

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Thomas Kantzow (* around 1505 in Stralsund ; † September 25, 1542 in Stettin ) was a German chronicler and historian .

Life

Kantzow studied in Rostock in 1526 and became secretary of the Pomeranian dukes Barnim IX in 1528 . and Georg I. He soon acquired their goodwill and was able to acquire various benefices . After the division of Pomerania in 1532, Kantzow joined the court of Philip I in Wolgast and developed an aversion to the policies of the Szczecin Duke Barnim IX. In 1538 Kantzow moved to the University of Wittenberg in order to conduct further studies with Philipp Melanchthon . Yet he was very homesick. When he fell ill in 1542, they wanted to bring him to his homeland, where he died in Stettin and was buried in the Marienkirche .

Since Kantzow was in the service of Philip I, he collected historical news about Pomerania . Here he developed the Pomerania of Johannes Bugenhagen on. His chronicle, written in Low German and known as the Fragmenta of Pomeranian History , extends from the beginning of the history of Pomerania to the year 1534 and is the first German chronicle of Pomerania. Around 1538 he reworked this into a High German chronicle that includes eleven books. In Wittenberg he then created a second High German version of the chronicle between 1538 and 1542. He also wrote drafts for a font Vom alten Pomerland , which deals with the Germanic period before the Slavic settlement of Pomerania.

Kantzow was supported in his historical work by Nicolaus von Klemptzen , to whom he also bequeathed his manuscripts. After Kantzow's death, Kemptzen published a new version of the chronicle under the title “Pomerania”. According to the judgment of the historian Roderich Schmidt , contrary to what was previously assumed, this can essentially be traced back to Kantzow himself; it represents "a new version that Kantzow himself gave his work".

literature

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Footnotes

  1. See the entry of Thomas Kantzow's matriculation in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ^ Roderich SchmidtKantzow, Thomas. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 129 ( digitized version ).