Justus Henning Böhmer

Justus ( Jobst ) Henning Boehmer ( born January 29, 1674 Hannover, † August 23, 1749 in Halle) was a German legal scholar, church law scholar, Privy Councillor, Councillor and Hofpfalzgraf Government and Chancellor of the Duchy of Magdeburg.

Life

After leaving school in the city school of Hanover, where he had been taught especially in the ancient languages ​​, visited Justus Henning Boehmer from 1693, the University of Jena, where he studied the trade law among others, Nicholas Christopher Lyncker, as well as additional courses in philosophy and theology visited. Under the chairmanship of Professor Wild Bird disputed Boehmer 1695 about his upcoming first dissertation. He then worked as a lawyer in his hometown of Hanover active, making him but did not fill much.

Therefore, in 1697 he accepted the offer, as steward to come to the University Rinteln, where he gave young nobleman first lectures. A few months later, he moved to the then founded in 1694, Martin Luther University of Halle, where he to Christian Thomasius, Johann Franz Buddeus and Samuel Stryk was preparing for his second dissertation, which he Licentiate of Laws successfully completed on August 27, 1699.

It closed again a time of conventional lecturing on until he got as a mentor to the young Count Heinrich Georg von Waldeck contact with the Prussian royal court in Berlin and the local ministry. Here we quickly became aware of his legal talent and appointed him on July 27, 1701 extraordinary professor at Halle, where he eventually on August 11, received the doctorate. Stryk, his old mentor and now Prussian privy councilor and dean of the law school had Boehmer to thank that he was appointed to his adjutant, and on 24 November 1711 a full professor of the Faculty on 9 December 1704. After the death of Stryk Boehmer received then on June 29, 1715 the Chair of the institutions and the Lehnsrechts.

On 17 August of the same year he the Imperial Court at Vienna awarded for " his personal merits in the service of the King of Prussia " the Count Palatine dignity and the title of a court counselor. Four years later, on May 23, 1719 then promoted him to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I ( 1688-1740 ) to the Privy Council, and finally appointed him on May 25, 1731 to the Director of the University and Vice Professor of Law Faculty at Halle, after Justus Henning Boehmer had convinced the king by means of a given by the king himself commissioned report of the importance of this university. This was intended to bind the Prussian king Boehmer also to hall and thus to Prussia, since Vienna in return constantly tried to poach these capable lawyers for their own purposes. So he should take up the vacant position in 1724 as Reichshofrat and successor of Nicholas Christopher Lyncker in Vienna, Boehmer but declined to do so gratefully as a staunch Prussian from. Even more offers from the universities of Bern, Kiel, Helmstedt, Frankfurt / Oder, Tübingen or Celle, Boehmer could not be dissuaded from his fidelity to hall. In his place recommended Justus Henning Boehmer but the curator of the University of Göttingen, Gerlach Adolph Freiherr von Münchhausen (1688-1770), who had once studied with him in 1710 in Halle, his son Georg Ludwig Boehmer, and the Prussian Minister Samuel Cocceji ( 1679-1755) to take his son Johann Samuel Friedrich Boehmer at the University of Frankfurt / Oder ( Viadrina ).

After the death of Government Chancellor Johann Peter von Ludewig Justus Henning Boehmer was eventually entrusted on December 14, 1743 still with the Office of Government Chancellor of the Duchy of Magdeburg and simultaneously conveyed to the professor of the Faculty of Law. But only a few years later, about a year after the death of his son Karl August, he died on August 23, 1749 after a violent stroke. He was buried in the dating from the 16th century Stadtgottesacker to Hall, one of the few Renaissance cemeteries in Germany, in the crypt arch No. 78

Legal services

Justus Henning Boehmer was distinguished not only by its excellent scholarship, but also by his deep religious feeling. So he wrote the lyrics, primarily in younger years, some important hymns in Johann Anastasius Freyling Stockhausen (1670-1739) " Witty song books " were published in 1704.

In the legal field Boehmer was concentrated in the civil law focus on canon law and was initially trailers and champion of the prevailing territorial system, and thus the imperial immediacy with its theocratic influenced law and political view that every Head of State also has spiritual power. But in later years he represented a tendency to sovereign law based on the natural law as well as Kollegialismus, which eventually modified especially his sons Johann Samuel Friedrich and Georg Ludwig, through further reform steps. In his great works on canon law as the five-volume " jus eccelsiasticum protestantium ", which contains the first systematic presentation of the Protestant church law, he was referring still to the traditional canon law, but reformed it to the effect of the Protestant Church, that the principles of Reformation, were spared from pre-Reformation principles and resistors and rigid orthodoxy and dogmatism of pure, both the pre-Reformation and the Reformation direction. Set in the Age of Enlightenment and influenced by the currents, he was represented at instead of a religiously - believing fundamentalism of law sets an increasingly critical and scientific development

Boehmer's methods and beliefs dominated the entire Protestant canon law of the 18th century and were the basis for further reforms to the present time. He purposely avoided an ordeal and a break with the conservative contemporaries, but he always tried balancing and convincing for a historical evolution, to advertise instead of a boisterous revolution. There are also a number of dissertations, among whom there are significant works, as the title of a thesis collection " XII Dissertationes a juris ecclesiastici antiqui ," a 500 -page legal history of the early church.

Equally present were his successes in the area of civil law. In his main work " Introductio in jus digestorum " a Pandekten Compendium, which held its own until the 20th century, he freed the applicable German law from the influences of the old Roman law and thus prepares the foundations for the General Land Law for the Prussian States. With his " Introductio in jus publicum universal ", he was one of the founders of the natural law generally state law in Germany. He was thus one of the major representatives of the " usus modernus pandectarum ".

A wealth of other important and notable civil and canonical works and more than 1500 reports have emerged from his pen, some of which later by his son Georg Ludwig Boehmer, who had also addressed, among others, with the church right in the Collective Work " Exercitationes ad pandectas " were published posthumously.

His contemporary, Christopher Weidlich remarked in 1748 that Boehmer " incontestably the greatest legal scholars " was. Hans Liermann counted Boehmer " a classic of the evangelical church law, which he has created canonically - legally and historically a solid theoretical foundation." In RWDove says, " Boehmer 's method and materials dominate the entire treatment of the Protestant canon law of the 18th century ". Peter Landau says that Boehmer was ever " because of the rather historic levels of his works perhaps the most significant German legal scholars of the 18th century ".

Family

Justus Henning Boehmer, son of the imperial notary and legal advisors Valentin Boehmer (1634-1704) and the Anna Margaret Schirmer (1640-1714) and brother of the hymn poet Mary Magdalene Boehmer, was married to Eleanor Raisin Stützing (1679-1739), daughter of combing Secretary and Pfänners Johann Gotthilf Stützing and his wife Dorothea Hahn. With her he had five children, four sons and a daughter who died, however, at 14 months. Three of his sons, namely Johann Samuel Friedrich von Boehmer (1704-1772), Karl August von Boehmer (1707-1748) and Georg Ludwig Boehmer (1715-1797), also beat the career of law, while the fourth son Philipp Adolf Boehmer (1716-1789) professor of medicine and anatomy, and personal physician to King Frederick William II of Prussia. Justus Henning Boehmer In 1717 acquired the stately home in the Great Märkerstraße number 5 in Halle, which he bequeathed to his son Philip, Adolf after his death. The heritage protection house was bought in 2008 by the town hall and is currently in the restoration and rehabilitation.

The Boehmer Family belonged in the 18th and 19th centuries, the so-called Pretty families.

Works (selection)

• Jus parochial, Halle, 1701
• Ius parochial ad funda genuina revocatum. Hall, 1701
• Ius Parochial Hall, 1701
• Introductio in jus digestorum, Halle 1704
• Jus ecclesiasticum protestantium, 5 volumes, Halle, 1714
• XII Dissertationesa iuris ecclesiastici antiqui, Halle 1729
• Custom modernized Strykiani continuatio ..., Halle, 1733
• Institutiones iuris Canonici date ecclesiasticum Hall, 1738
• Corpus Juris Canonici, Halle, 1747
• Introductio in jus publicum universal, Hall