Thomas Lansius

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Lansius (also Lanß, Lans, Lantz) (born February 16, 1577 in Perg ; † December 22, 1657 in Tübingen ).

He was a Doctor of Laws at Johannes Christoph Harpprecht at the University of Tübingen doctorate .

In 1606 Duke Friedrich von Württemberg appointed him full professor for politics , history and eloquence at the Tübingen Collegium Illustre (noble college ). In 1611 Duke Johann Friedrich von Württemberg brought him to one of the two law chairs of the college. Lansius worked at the Collegium Illustre until his death (interrupted by the temporary closure during the Thirty Years' War). In 1636 he also took up a legal chair at the University of Tübingen , which he held until his death.

Life

Childhood and youth

Thomas Lanß was the son of the cloth cutter Lienhart Lanß from Perg in Upper Austria

Thomas Lanß was born on February 16, 1577 of the Julian calendar (February 26, 1577 of the Gregorian calendar) as the son of the cloth cutter and later Perger market judge Leonhart (Lienhart) Lanß († 1598) and his wife Anna (née Weiglin, † 1597) in Perg and attended school there. His talent, which was characterized by sharpness of mind, accuracy of memory and correctness of judgment, was recognized already at this time.

When he was just 14 years old, he signed up for military service to fight the Turks advancing in Hungary, and soon returned to his homeland suffering from severe suffering to continue his training. He came to the Protestant landscape school (the forerunner of today's Academic Gymnasium ) in Linz , where he stayed until he was 16, with Georg Calaminus as a teacher.

Study and travel

The unfavorable development of the conditions for Protestantism in Austria induced him to leave his fatherland and to continue his studies abroad.

On the advice of parents and friends, he went on a journey and was one of the listeners to the well-known teachers of the time at various universities, for example in Tübingen, Marburg ( Hesse ) and Paris . He studied the most diverse fields of knowledge, such as Latin and Greek literature and art, cultivation of the oriental languages , natural sciences , especially physiology , also mathematics , moral philosophy , eloquence and political science .

At the age of almost 20 he presented the disputation on the basic substances of natural things , which he dedicated to his father. He then studied philosophy and law at the universities in Tübingen, Marburg and Wittenberg .

In 1600 he was mentioned in connection with an academic legal battle in Marburg. He stayed there until 1601. Further stops on his educational trips were Frankfurt am Main and Paris in 1602 , where he joined Abraham Hölzel von Sternstein (around 1580-1651), a distinguished Austrian, to deal with the court , the high school and the famous trade get to know. Hölzel later became his brother-in-law.

From Paris he wandered through Champagne , Lorraine , Alsace , the Duchies of the Margraviate of Baden , Swabia , Franconia , Hesse, the Duchies of Braunschweig and Lüneburg , Bremen and Oldenburg , Westphalia , Friesland , the allied Belgium , the Duchies of Geldern , Cleve and Berg from 1603 , Cologne and Trier , the Duchy of Luxembourg , Hanover , Flanders and Brabant . Furthermore London and back to Paris. In 1604 it went to Rome, from there again to London, on to southern Germany and to the Rhine. The last of these trips went to Hungary and Bohemia , where he stayed in Prague at the imperial court.

Marriage and professorship at the Collegium Illustre

Wilhelmstift in Tübingen, facade with the exception of the east wing from the time of the Collegium Illustre
Hohentübingen Castle, perhaps one of the houses below the castle belonged to Thomas Lansius, allegedly a tower fell on his house during an attack in 1647

On September 3, 1604, the day of his doctorate with Johannes Harpprecht as a doctor of both rights, he married Susanna, née Schnepff (daughter of the Tübingen theology professor Dietrich Schnepf ). She died in 1621 and Lansius was then married to Anna Maria Kaspar (born January 19, 1605 in Tübingen; † December 4, 1680 in Tübingen, daughter of the former mayor of Tübingen, Rudolf Kaspar) from 1624 until his death. Their daughter Maria Susanna married Wolfgang Adam Lauterbach .

Lansius, as he called himself as a student, was appointed full professor of politics, history and eloquence in 1606 and, from 1611, he was appointed to one of the two law chairs at the Tübingen Collegium Illustre (noble college). He worked there for 51 years, until his death in 1657, and was considered the most successful teacher there. At the University of Tübingen he worked several times as a visitor and commissioner and from 1636 until his death on December 22, 1657 according to the Julian calendar (January 1, 1658 according to the Gregorian) calendar, he also held a legal chair at the University of Tübingen.

On the one hand, he received many appointments to professorships, all of which he refused; on the other hand, under his influence, the educational establishment attracted aristocrats across Central Europe. He maintained contacts with many scholars of his time, including one of his main works, the Centuriae Hypomnematum politicorum (Strasbourg 1623), dedicated to him by the Tacitus commentator, Württemberg-Mömpelgard diplomat and Chancellor Christoph von Forstner (1598–1667) . He was regarded as a valued legal advisor to royal courts, for example he was the living archive of the Stuttgart court, and friends, including Johannes Kepler , whom he probably helped with the witch trial instigated against his mother, Katharina Kepler , together with Christoph Besold .

Thomas Lansius' house with library in Tübingen (today's address Neckarhalde 15) was endangered in 1647 during the Thirty Years War in the course of the siege of Hohentübingen Castle by French troops and was badly damaged.

Coin collection of Thomas Lansius

Thomas Lansius left a collection of 24 gold, 1100 silver and 1092 bronze coins. The collection was acquired in 1672 by the court librarian Peter Lambeck for the imperial coin cabinet in Vienna around 1200 (or 1800) guilders and came from Tübingen to Vienna.

The coins were previously incorporated into the Hartung port of luck. Sophia Helena Hartung, widow, acknowledged receipt of the cash payment for the total of 2,216 coins. Most of them were probably Roman coins. From this collection in 1752, by order of Empress Maria Theresa , Valentin Jamerai Duval and Erasmus Fröhlich incorporated the rarer and more valuable ones into the imperial coin collection.

Major works

The “Consultatio de principatu inter provincias Europae” is considered to be the main work of Thomas Lansius. This is a collection of speeches that he prepared for his aristocratic students. The first edition appeared in 1613, with the brother of Duke Friedrich Achilles (Württemberg-Neuenstadt) acting as the editor. The cover picture, engraved in copper, is by Lucas Kilian . A special print on special paper and with a colored cover picture was dedicated to Kaiser Matthias (HRR) and sent to him. Regardless of this, the papal index of forbidden books came up because of critical passages . The work saw six editions in Tübingen alone (1613, 1620, 1626, 1635, 1655 and 1678) and was published twice in Amsterdam in 1636 and 1637 . James Howell (historian) edited the work, translated it into English and published it under the title "The German diet on the Balance of Europe" or "A German diet" for short.

Shortly before his death in 1656, Lansius published a collection of various speeches under the title “Mantissa consultationum et orationum”, which had previously been published individually. This work subsequently served as a textbook for rhetoric at various German knight academies . This also includes a speech entitled "Jubilaeum Lutheranum" which he gave in 1617 on the 100th anniversary of the Reformation in Tübingen.

Other works

  • Dissertatio de lege regia . Tübingen 1602 (Lansius dedicated his dissertation to Georg Erasmus von Tschernembl ).
  • Various speeches for different personalities (e.g. Pro Illustri Collegio )
  • Family sermons
  • Some disputations (e.g. De cura religionis )
  • Bernhard Fabian: Handbook of the historical book inventory in Germany, Austria and Europe.
    • University Library Tübingen: The Department of Statistics at the University of Tübingen is represented by writings from three professors, including two by Thomas Lansius from the 17th century,
    • Ratsbibliothek Schwäbisch Hall: On rhetoric and panegyric there are mainly works from the 17th and 18th centuries. before, among others by Thomas Lansius (Ratsbibliothek Schwäbisch Hall).
  • Thomas Lansius, digitized and accessible online
  • Report on the fate and whereabouts of the Princely Library at Tübingen Castle and the library of the Collegium Illustre in 1634 and 1635. Tübingen on January 7, 1639. Copy 1888 (University Library Tübingen, manuscript department, call number: Mh 830).

literature

  • Karl August Klüpfel : History and description of the University of Tübingen . Tübingen 1849, ND Aalen 1977.
  • Michael Philipp: On the origin and development of political science. Magnus Hesenthaler's Antesignanus politicus and the doctrine of politics in Tübingen in the 17th century (to be published)
  • Florian Eibensteiner, Konrad Eibensteiner: The home book of Perg, Upper Austria. Self-published, Linz 1933, p. 166ff (based on an 87-page treatise in Latin script in an anthology of the University of Tübingen).
  • Franz Lebsanft : Language anecdotes in the Tübingen Consultatio de principatu inter provincias Europae of Thomas Lansius . In: Richard Baum , Klaus Böckle, Franz Josef Hausmann and Franz Lebsanft (eds.): History of linguistics and recent philologies. Festschrift for Hans Helmut Christmann on his 65th birthday. Tübingen 1994, pp. 207-216.
  • Joseph Demeler , professor of theology at Tübingen: The funeral sermon for Thomas Lansius. Tübingen 1658.
  • Christoph Kaldenbach : Panegyricus memoriae ac honori Thom. Lansii. Tübingen 1658.
  • Magnus Hesenthaler : Thomae Lansii cineres seu oratio de vita ejus beatoque excessu , Tübingen 1658.
  • Johann Friedrich Jugler : Contributions to the legal bibliography. Leipzig 1777, pp. 72–82 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  • Rudolf von Roth : The princely liberty on Hohentübingen and their kidnapping in 1635. Fues, Tübingen 1888.
  • Waldemar Zacharasiewicz : Johannes Kepler, James Howell and Thomas Lansius: the competition of European nations as a literary theme in the 17th century. In: Johannes Kepler (1571 to 1971). Commemorative publication of the University of Graz, Graz 1975, pp. 683–725.
  • Sabine Holtz : Education and rule. On the scientification of political ruling classes in the 17th century. In: Writings on Southwest German regional studies. Volume 32, series, published in conjunction with the Institute for Historical Regional Studies and Historical Auxiliary Sciences at the University of Tübingen, habilitation thesis, Leinfelden-Echterdingen 2002.
  • Sabine Holtz: Scholarly education, social ties, successful integration, the careers of the Neu-Tübingen lawyers Thomas Lansius (1577-1657) and Wolfgang Adam Lauterbach (1618-1678). In: Sönke Lorenz, Volker Schäfer and Wilfried Setzler in connection with the Institute for Historical Regional Studies and Historical Auxiliary Sciences at the University of Tübingen (editor), Susanne Borgards (editor): Tubingensia, impulses for city and university history, commemorative publication for Wilfried Setzler on his 65th birthday. Birthday, Ostfildern, Tübingen 2008, p. 293 ff.
  • Reinhard Gruhl: Thomas Lansius. In: Walter de Gruyter , Killy Literature Lexicon , Authors and Works of the German-speaking Cultural Area, Wilhelm Kühlmann , Volume 7, p. 232.
  • Franz Pfeiffer: Thomas Lansius (1577 to 1657) from Perg - European Perspectives in the Early Modern Age. In: Upper Austrian homeland sheets . Issue 3/4, Linz 2016, pp. 177–191, PDF on land-oberoesterreich.gv.at

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gabriele Nieder: Ferdinand Christoph Harpprecht (1650–1714) (= Tübinger juridical treatises 111). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2011, p. 36.
  2. ↑ Eibensteiner / Eibensteiner 1933, p. 166ff.
  3. ^ Teichmann:  Lansius, Thomas . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 700.
  4. ↑ P. Stälin:  Forstner, Christoph von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 191 f.
  5. ^ Max Doblinger : To the maintenance of numismatics in Upper Austria. In: Yearbook of the Upper Austrian Museum Association. 92nd volume, Linz 1947, pp. 260f, online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at.
  6. ^ Karl Weiß:  Duval, Valentin Jamerai . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 499 f.
  7. ↑ Karl Werner:  Fröhlich, Erasmus . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1878, pp. 132-134.
  8. ^ Joseph Bergmann: Report of the meeting of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Philosophical-historical class. 19th volume, Vienna 1856, pp. 72-73 ( archive.org ).
  9. ↑ a b Pfeiffer 2016, p. 184 f.
  10. ↑ Explore by authors, list view: Thomas Lansius. In: Digitale-sammlungen.de. Retrieved January 30, 2020 (Thomas Lansius digitized works).
personal data
SURNAME Lansius, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lanß, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist, historian and legal scholar
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1577
PLACE OF BIRTH Perg
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1657
Place of death Tübingen