Ulrich Friedrich Kopp

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Ulrich Friedrich Kopp (born March 18, 1762 in Kassel , † March 26, 1834 in Marburg ) was a German legal scholar and palaeographer .

Life

Kopp came from a Hessian family of lawyers. His grandfather was the Marburg office director Johann Adam Kopp (1698–1748), his father the court director Carl Philipp Kopp (1728–1777). Ulrich Friedrich Kopp also studied law at the University of Marburg and then entered the Hesse-Kassel civil service, initially as an assessor for the government in Kassel. In 1788 he was appointed judicial councilor and appointed to the Oberwegekommission. In 1793 he was appointed secret councilor and in 1797 secret trainee lawyer and state secretary.

Because of his poor health, Kopp tried to be dismissed from civil service in 1799. Before that, in 1802 he was appointed director of the court archives, and in 1803 he was appointed secret cabinet councilor. In January 1804, Kopp finally resigned from civil service and since then has concentrated entirely on his scientific work. In the same year the law faculty of the University of Göttingen awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his services.

When Kurhessen (the former Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel ) was occupied by Napoleon in 1806 , Kopp went into exile in Baden . He gave courses in diplomacy at the University of Heidelberg , which appointed him honorary professor in 1808. At this time, Kopp was intensively involved in Roman literature and also learned Greek. The results of his studies and lectures flowed into his scientific publications.

Kopp spent his twilight years as a private scholar in Mannheim. He died on March 26, 1834 in Marburg while visiting his friend and student Karl Friedrich Hermann .

Services

Kopp's scientific interests emanated from diplomacy. His first book dealt with the history of the salt works in Bad Sooden-Allendorf (1788). He published a rich collection of historical legal texts from 1799–1801: Fragments explaining German history and rights . This work is of fundamental importance because the documents published in it were later partially lost.

Kopp recognized the importance of palaeography as the basis for the historical-critical preoccupation with documents. His refined knowledge of Latin and his preoccupation with ancient legal texts enabled him to publish the first part of his Palaeographia critica in 1817 . In the first volume he dealt with Greek and Latin stenography , in the second the Tironic notes . Kopp was the first to recognize the derivation of this writing from the scriptura literalis . As a supplement to this work, he published a collection of historical images and text examples from 1819 to 1821. Kopp also wrote numerous special studies on inscribed and other documents.

With the Palaegraphia critica , Kopp had created a standard work. In addition to the largely positive reception of the work, there were also researchers who critically questioned his views and sometimes came to different conclusions. The meanwhile aged Kopp responded to this criticism with a polemic that also runs through the third and fourth volumes of his Palaegraphia critica (1827).

Kopp's last extensive work was an annotated edition of the Encyclopedia of Martianus Capella , which was completed after his death by Karl Friedrich Hermann and appeared in 1836.

Fonts (selection)

  • Contribution to the history of the salt works in the Soden near Allendorf an der Werra . Marburg 1788
  • Fragments to explain the German history and rights . Two volumes, Kassel 1799–1801
  • Palaeographia critica . Four volumes, Mannheim 1817–1829
  • Pictures and writings of the past . Two volumes, Mannheim 1819–1821
  • Viris doctis literarumque cultoribus . Mannheim 1823
  • Remarks on some Punic stone inscriptions from Carthage . Heidelberg 1824
  • Explicatio Inscriptionis obscurae in amuleto insculptae . Heidelberg 1832
  • On the pronunciation of Latin. Letters to all high schools . Mannheim 1834
  • Martiani Minei Felicis Capellae, Afri Carthaginiensis, de nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii et de septem artibus liberalibus libri novem . Frankfurt am Main 1836
  • Theodor Sickel (Hrsg.): Tablets from the estate of U. Fr. von Kopp . Vienna 1870

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Ulrich Friedrich Kopp  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Kopp, Ulrich Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German legal scholar and palaeographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1834
Place of death Marburg