Johannes Pfefferkorn
Johannes Pfefferkorn (* 1469, † October 22, 1521 in Cologne ) was a German Jew who converted to Christianity. He advocated the burning of the Talmud and has become known primarily for his confrontation with John Reuchlin.
Life
The birthplace of Johannes ( Jewish first name Joseph ) Pfefferkorn is uncertain. It is Moravia, but also Nuremberg suspected. By his own account, he was in Prague from an uncle named Meir Pfefferkorn instruction in the teachings of the Talmud. To Pfefferkorn 1491 lived in Prague, around 1504 in Dachau. He was probably money lenders and representatives of the Jewish community in Dachau.
According to a deed of Henry of good stone from October 24, 1509 Pfefferkorn stole from a fellow-citizen, went to jail and was pardoned for a payment of 100 Hungarian florins. That conclusion is contrary to that the town of Dachau to John Pfefferkorn in the deed dated January 21, 1510 exhibited a good character reference. In this document denies the city of Dachau on the one hand, Johannes Pfefferkorn had been condemned as a thief, on the other hand, he was a butcher.
After a troubled life Pfefferkorn came to Cologne, where he converted under the influence of the Dominicans in 1504 along with his family from the Jewish faith to Christianity. In 1513 he is named as a hospital master of St. Ursula / St. Revilien and salt diameter of the city.
He published, as a kind of tool of the Cologne Dominicans in their struggle against Jewry, libels against the Jews, including the Jews mirror, "Like the blind Jews her Easter keeping ," " Judenbeicht " (all 1508) and " anti-Semite " ( 1509 ). At the instigation of the Dominicans, he received in 1509 by Emperor Maximilian I. a mandate to confiscate all Jewish writings. In Frankfurt am Main, Mainz, Bingen and in other cities in the Rhineland it came to perform the contract under considerable disquiet in the Christian population. The Archbishop of Mainz, Uriel von Gemmingen, and the Council of the City of Frankfurt protested against Pfefferkorns approach.
The emperor ordered the Diet of Worms in 1510 the refund of the seized books and sat at the same time a commission of inquiry with Uriel von Gemmingen as chairman. The appointed in the Commission Johannes Reuchlin turned in a report against Pfefferkorns approach and advocated to study Jewish life and literature willing to learn. In the discharged with writings and counter- writings dispute between the parties Reuchlin was supported by his humanist friends, especially of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Pfefferkorn had the backing of the Cologne Dominicans and find support at the inquisitor Jakob van Hoogstraten and the University of Paris.
In his 1511 published Handtspiegel Pfefferkorn tried to refute Reuchlin positive opinion on the Talmud, and he reached into his writing Reuchlin also personally. In the same year Reuchlin defended its position in the ophthalmoscope. The dispute took on sharpness and found no end, despite the imperial silence bid from June 1513 and the papal vote in favor of the view expressed by Reuchlin position in March 1514. In the "dark men letters " of the armed overflowed after 1515 finally out and away from the goals initially.
Works
- Keep Furtrag how the blind Jews yr Easter. 1509 digitized
- I am ain Buchlinn, the Jews veinde is my name. 1509 digitized
- Explicatio quomodo ceci Judei suum pascha servent et maxime quo Vitu paschalem CENAM manducent. Exprimitur preterea Judaeos eat here ticos et deserted tores veteris et oppugnatores novi testamenti. 1509 digitized
- In Laudem et honorem dei gratia Romanorum Illustrissimi Maximiliani imperatoris. Neuss, Cologne 1518th ( Digitized edition of the University and State Library Dusseldorf )