John Selden
John Selden ( born December 16, 1584 Salvington, Sussex, † November 30, 1654 in Whitefriars ) was an English polymath. He wrote quite scientific and philosophical works, explored the Jewish legal history and dealt with antique and oriental artifacts. Of his contemporaries, among others, John Milton, he was considered one of the greatest and most versatile scholars.
Life
Selden was the son of a farmer, went to Chichester to school and studied from 1600 in Oxford ( Hart Hall ). 1603 he moved to London to study law, where the Inner Temple he was in 1604 and in 1612 admitted to the bar ( called to the bar ). He worked mainly as a notary and in an advisory profession and was infrequent in court. He was in London earlier, sponsored by the politician and book collector Robert Bruce Cotton, founder of the Cotton Library, for which he copied documents from the Tower.
In 1618 his story of tithing (History of the tithe ), which brought him political difficulties - he was summoned before the Privy Council and he was forbidden to participate in debates about his work. This led to Selden's political commitment. At first he stayed in the background here and to consult, as in the formulation of a petition to the House of Commons of 18 December 1621 as a consequence he was briefly imprisoned in the Tower. From 1623 he was in the House of Commons in 1626 and in the second Parliament of Charles I. His legal career has continued, although she hesitated in between, because he refused lecturer at Lyon 's Inn to become. He played a significant role in deposing the Duke of Buckingham. In the Third Parliament of Charles I he was involved in the formulation of the Petition of Rights. When he turned with other parliamentarians in 1629 against illegal tax surveys of the king, he was for eight months in the Tower, and afterwards in the Marshalsea prison. He then withdrew to Bedfordshire back as governor ( steward ) of the Earl of Kent. In 1640 he was back in Parliament (Long Parliament) for the University of Oxford, where he again to the king, for example, for the preservation of the Protestant religion and against the exclusion of the bishops from the House of Lords campaigned in opposition. He received supervision ( Keeper of the Records and Rolls ) on the archives of the Tower and was in the Parliamentary Commission for the Admiralty.
Since the death of the Earl of Kent in 1639 he lived in the same house as his widow Elizabeth Talbot ( 1582-1651 ) and married this may secretly. He is buried in London Temple Church.
Selden published legal history and historical works and also had ( since his De diis Syriis of 1617) a reputation as an orientalist. He was regarded as a leading scholar of Hebrew and Arabic studies in England. He was also known for Titles of Honor ( 1614) on historical questions of etiquette. He played an important role in discussions of natural law and international law in the 17th century. In his studies of the natural law, he relied in particular on the Bible and Talmud. Unlike Hugo Grotius ( Mare Liberum, 1609), who advocated the opening of the seas against Spanish and Portuguese claim, he represented - influenced by the onset of English naval supremacy - the positions of which dissociated themselves again. His book Mare clausum originated in 1618, but was not published until 1635th
In his honor, the Selden Society named.
List of Works
( incomplete)
- England 's Epinomis, 1610
- Jani Anglorum; Facies Altera, 1610
- The Duello, or Single Combat, 1610
- Titles of Honor, 1614
- Analecton Anglo Brita Nicon, 1615
- De diis Syriis, 1617 ( about the mythology of the Orient )
- History of Tithes, 1618
- De successionibus in bona defuncti secundum leges Ebraeorum, 1631
- De successione in pontificatum Ebraeorum, 1631.
- Mare clausum, 1635
- De jure naturali et gentium juxta disciplinam Ebraeorum, 1640 ( about the natural law)
- Privileges of the baronage of England whenthey sit in Parliament and Discourse Concerning the Rights and Privileges of the Subject, 1642.
- Dissertatio de anno civili et calendario Reipublicae Judaicae, 1644
- Uxor Ebraica, 1646
- De synedriis et prefecturis juridicis veterum Ebraeorum