Ulrich Zasius

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Huldrichus Zasius

Ulrich Zasius (* 1461 in Constance ; † November 24, 1535 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German lawyer and humanist .

Born Ulrich Zäsy, he later adopted the Latinized name Huldrichus or Udalricus Zasius. Zasius is one of the most important legal scholars at the turn of the Middle Ages to the modern age and maintained correspondence with many well-known humanists of his time, especially with Erasmus of Rotterdam , whom he first met personally in 1518.

Life

He was born as Ulrich Zäsy in Konstanz in 1461. After attending the cathedral school in Konstanz, Ulrich Zasius came to the University of Tübingen in 1481 . After two years of study in Tübingen, where he was enrolled at the artist faculty and graduated with the degree of baccalaureus , he entered the service of the Bishop of Constance as a clerk and notary in 1483. In 1489 he became town clerk in Baden (Switzerland) in Aargau . In 1494 he was appointed to the city clerk's office in Freiburg im Breisgau. He remained lifelong friendly with his successor, Kaspar Frey . He then stayed in Freiburg until his death. As town clerk, Zasius reorganized the town's files and bookkeeping and, in this context, created a judgment book for the first time, in which the decisions made by the council were to be entered in the future and which were actually entered up to 1609. However, Zasius soon gave up the city clerk's office and in 1496 took over the management of the Latin school . It was not until 1499, at the age of 40 - he was now married and the father of several children - that he enrolled in the law school. In 1501 he received his doctorate legum and was from 1502 court clerk and legal advisor to the city. In 1502 Zasius was commissioned with the reform of the city law.

In 1505 he became professor of law at the University of Freiburg , and his students at this time included the prominent Catholic theologian Johannes Eck . As such, he developed a lively teaching and research activity. As the author of mostly works written in Ciceronian polished Latin, he was soon widely known. "Let us praise ourselves lucky to have found the teacher whom France admires, who marvels at Italy, who glorifies Spain and whom the Germans love" once wrote an enthusiastic student. Emperor Maximilian appointed him Imperial Councilor in 1508.

In 1521 his son Johann Ulrich Zasius was born.

Humanistic Jurisprudence

Portrait of Zasius at the Peterhof Chapel in Freiburg
Last page of the handwritten draft by Ulrich Zasius for a legal opinion on the legacy of Conrad Tegelins von Wangen in Freiburg im Breisgau 1527. Freiburg City Archives A 1 XIV b Degelin 1525–1531

Ulrich Zasius played an important forerunner role of legal humanism, which represents the departure from the ossified scholastic scientific practice that is also common in jurisprudence . In jurisprudence, this upheaval is described with the catchphrase “ mos Gallicus ” (French custom) as a distinction from “ mos Italicus ” (Italian custom). "Mos Italicus" is the old method of interpreting the often incomplete and inauthentic Roman and canonical legal texts by adapting them to Italian customs, as had been done by glossators and commentators since the 12th century . To this end, extensive considerations were made that were not very conducive to the practical application of the law. The novelty of the method of "mos Gallicus" lies in the fact that the authentic Justinian sources of law are restored through textual criticism in order to ultimately explore classical law with them .

Above all, however, it is also new that the interpretation of these texts is no longer alien to life as l'art pour l'art as in scholasticism, but with historical understanding and based on the new image of mankind of the Renaissance . Zasius was still attached to the "mos Italicus" - for him, too, the digests (i.e. the advanced textbook of compiled Roman law ) were leges sacrae , that is, holy and thus inviolable laws. On February 14, 1517 Zasius wrote to his friend Claudius Cantiuncula:

“Barbarism has overgrown the good old trunk of Roman law like a snake plant and conceals it so much that it needs to be removed along with the deeply sunk roots. But I shy away from tearing them out without damaging the trunk itself, so as not to do more damage. "

But Zasius was one of those who began to free the Roman sources from the tendrils of useless controversy and to make them useful for the practical application of law. In his Lucubrationes , published in 1518, he writes that is still valid today:

“It would be useful, indeed a necessity, to shorten those extended comments that explain little, but all the more obscure what any insightful person can easily recognize if he only opens them. Because they are overloaded with a load of controversial issues and often display more ostentatious erudition than true doctrine. "

With the Italian lawyer Andreas Alciatus (1492-1550) and the French lawyer Gulielmus Budaeus (1467-1540), who worked in the same direction , Zasius formed what was then widely known as the legal “triumvirate” of that time (so Erasmus). But many authors of the so-called late Spanish scholasticism , such as Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva , were also committed to the spirit of legal humanism.

One of his best-known students was the Frankfurt lawyer Johann Fichard .

Zasius as the creator of the Freiburg city law

Zasius' practical sense of the law proved itself in a special way in the redesign of the Freiburg city law of 1520, which is essentially his work. It is considered a successful amalgamation of Roman and German law and is praised as a legislative masterpiece of its time. It was the basis of an independent legal and judicial system in the city of Freiburg, which was effective well into the 19th century, and thus also the authoritative source of law for the rulings of the Freiburg Oberhof, the forerunner of the current Freiburg Regional Court. It also served as a model for other city and land rights beyond Freiburg.

Zasius, a proponent of the theory that Jews are slaves of Christians, and who, in Luther's style, recommended “casting out such grim beasts” and “letting that disgusting sputum sink into darkness”, explicitly discriminated against Jews in the New City Law. For example, they were not allowed to testify in legal matters and to have no community with Freiburg citizens. According to the resolution of the city council from 1401, “daz dekein Jude ze Friburg niemmerme sin sol”, this was made more difficult anyway and was punished under city law with two silver marks and, in repeated cases, with the expulsion of the citizen.

reception

Epitaph in the Freiburg Minster
The Zasius fountain around 1900

When Zasius died on November 24, 1535 at the age of 74, the city erected an epitaph for him in the ambulatory of the minster, which is still there today , the inscription of which, in exuberant Latin, made him the most well-known legal scholar of his time and a unique adornment of the university and praises as the creator of the new city law. In 1868, the sculptor Wilhelm Walliser also created a fountain monument for Zasius, which was erected in front of the then Berthold-Gymnasium .

There is a Zasiusstraße named after him in the Freiburg district of Wiehre and in the Constance district of Paradies.

Erasmus von Rotterdam , who fled from Basel to Freiburg during the troubled times of the Basel Reformation and then lived in Freiburg for six years, namely from 1529 to 1535, wrote about him to his friend, the Nuremberg lawyer and humanist Willibald Pirckheimer, on July 15 1529: “I have not yet seen anything in Germany that I admired as much as the character of Ulrich Zasius. This man deserves immortality! "

Works

Enarratio in titulum Institutionum de actionibus , 1548

literature

Web links

Commons : Ulrich Zasius  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph von Hohenberg, see Wolf (above under literature), p. 78
  2. ↑ Ulrich Manthe : History of Roman Law (= Beck'sche series. 2132). Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-44732-5 , p. 120.
  3. ^ Peter Schickl: From protection and autonomy to cremation and expulsion: Jews in Freiburg . In: Heiko Haumann , Hans Schadek (eds.): History of the City of Freiburg , Volume 1. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2001; P. 550
  4. ↑ Peter P. Albert: Eight hundred years Freiburg im Breisgau 1120 - 1920 . Herder & Co publishing house, Freiburg 1920
  5. ↑ Friedrich Kempf: Public fountains and monuments . In: Freiburg im Breisgau. The city and its buildings , HM Poppen & Sohn, Freiburg im Breisgau 1898, p. 489
personal data
SURNAME Zasius, Ulrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zäsi, Ulrich; Zasy, Ulrich; Zäsy, Ulrich; Zasius, Huldrichus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and humanist
DATE OF BIRTH 1461
PLACE OF BIRTH Constancy
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1535
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau