Wilhelm Eisengrein

Title page of the first printed city history of Speyer, Wilhelm Eisengrein, 1564

Title page of the Catalogus testium veritatis , 1565

Title page of the Centenaries , Volume 2, 1568

Wilhelm Eisengrein , also Eysengrein , Eisengrin and Eisengrein von Richtenfels (* 1543 in Speyer , † 1584 in Rome ) was a Catholic German lawyer, historian and controversial theologian .

Origin and family

He was born in Speyer in 1543 (according to other sources not until 1544) as the son of Jakob Eisengrein (1506–1568), a lawyer at the Imperial Court of Justice there , and his wife Elisabeth Fürderer von Richtenfels. His brother Johann Jakob († 1597) acted as Reichshofrat and Imperial Chancellor of Prague ; his cousin, the clergyman Martin Eisengrein (1535–1578), was one of the leading figures of the Counter Reformation in Bavaria. Balthasar Eysengrein (1547–1611), another cousin, worked as a law professor at the University of Tübingen .

Live and act

Wilhelm Eisengrein and his brother often added the maternal nobility title of Fürderer von Richtenfels or only von Richtenfels to their family name . He studied law at the University of Ingolstadt, where he received his doctorate in both rights . Then Eisengrein worked as a legal advisor and began to write historical and theological works. In 1564 he published the first printed history of the city of Speyer, which, as he himself wrote, was based on the handwritten chronicle of the cathedral vicar Wolfgang Baur († 1516).

With the support of the Bavarian Duke Albrecht V , Wilhelm Eisengrein opposed the writings of the Lutheran theologian Matthias Flacius (1520–1575). His book Catalogus testium veritatis (1556 and 1562) he answered in 1565 with his Catalogus testium veritatis locupletissimus, omnium orthodoxae Matris Ecclesiae Doctorum , against the even better known Magdeburg Centuria , he published his two books Centenarium XVI de Christi ecclesia (2 of several planned volumes, 1566 and 1568). In 1576, Eisengrein also published the work Harmonia Ecclesiae Historica in this context .

From 1568 Wilhelm Eisengrein stayed mainly in Rome. There his cousin Martin Eisengrein had recommended him in a letter to Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto (1514–1585). Here, too, he was active as a writer, in particular as a chronicler of the pontificates of Pius V and Gregory XIII.

Eisengrein died in Rome in 1584 and was buried in the German cemetery Campo Santo Teutonico . The year of death 1570, often taken from older sources, is incorrect; also the statement that he was a clergyman or canon of Speyer, which is also never mentioned in the title pages of his books.

literature

• Lenelotte Möller:  Eysengrein (Eisengrein) from Richtenfels, Wilhelm. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 34, Bautz, Nordhausen 2013, ISBN 978-3-88309-766-4 , Sp. 316-318.
• Karl Werner :  Eisengrin, Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 765.
• Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume 3, Munich, 2006, p. 8 ( books.google.de Digitalscan).
• Franz Xaver Remling : History of the bishops of Speyer. Volume 1. Kirchheim Verlag, Mainz 1852, p. 9 u. 10.

Web links

• Wilhelm Eisengrein in the Portal Thesaurus

Individual evidence

1. ^ Eisengrein, Jakob in the German biography
2. ^ Archives for kin research and all related areas. Volume 14, 1937, p. 173; ( books.google.de detail scan).
3. ↑ Eisengrein of Point Rock, Johann Jacob in the German Biography
4. ↑ On the genealogy of the Eisengrein family cf. Friedrich Merzbacher :  Eisengrein, Balthasar. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 412 ( digitized version ).
5. ↑ Antiquarian bookshop website for Eisengrein's Speyerer Chronik ( Memento of the original from December 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Digital view of the book
7. ^ Upper Bavarian Archive. Volume 96, p. 543, Verlag des Historischen Verein von Oberbayern, 1972 ( books.google.de detail scan).
8. ↑ Meeting reports of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Vienna 1960, p. 63; ( books.google.de detail scan).
9. ^ Franz Falk : Contributions to the pre-Reformation adoration of saints and relics. Herder Verlag, Freiburg, 1908, p. 150 ( books.google.de excerpt scan).
10. ^ Anton de Waal : Roma sacra, the eternal city in its Christian monuments and memories of old and new times. 1905, p. 570 ( books.google.de detail scan).