Rudolph Sohm

Gotthold Julius Rudolph Sohm ( born October 29, 1841 in Rostock, † May 16 1917 in Leipzig ) was a German legal historian and canonist.

Life

Sohm studied from 1860 to 1864 law at the universities of Rostock, Berlin and Heidelberg. In Rostock, he received his doctorate in 1864, he dedicated the thesis to his teacher Georg Wilhelm Wetzell. In 1866 he was habilitated at the University of Göttingen for German law and commercial law, in 1870 appointed him to the University of Göttingen to associate professor. He was from 1870 Professor of Canon Law and German Law in Freiburg im Breisgau, where he settled at the Luis Street 5. In 1872 he was appointed as professor of canon law and German law at the University of Strasbourg, 1882, he stood before her as rector.

1887 came Sohm as Professor of Canon Law and German Law at the University of Leipzig. He was involved in the creation of the Civil Code in 1896 and held the opening speech before the Reichstag. With Friedrich Naumann and Caspar René Gregory he founded in 1896 the National Social Association, who represented a social Christianity. In 1917 he became Professor Emeritus.

One of his students was Walter Simons.

Work

He was a strict Lutheran sectarian. In his dissertation he went by Roman law, then worked a leader in the German legal history and also devoted himself to the ecclesiastical law. He trained at the same time but his Romanist studies continued until his major work institutions of Roman law. Sohm theses to the basics of canon law led to the Protestant church law to sustainable controversies ( Sohm - Harnack controversy ).

Today Sohm terms of a double church and the secular understanding of law alone are largely outdated, but his reflections found in the current research still quite attention.

Honors

Sohm was honorary doctorates from various faculties, even theological. In 1916 he received the Order Pour le Mérite.

Writings

• The doctrine of subpignus. Stiller, Rostock 1864 (Dissertation, University of Rostock, 1864; digitized ).
• On the Origin of Lex Ribuaria. Böhlau, Weimar 1866 ( Habilitation thesis, University of Göttingen, 1866; digitized ).
• The process of the Salic Law. Böhlau, Weimar 1867 ( digitized )
• The right of marriage from the German and canon law historically developed. An answer to the question of the relationship of the church wedding to civil marriage. Böhlau, Weimar 1975 ( digitized )
• Institutions of Roman law. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884 ( digitized ).
• Church History in the plan. Böhme, Leipzig 1888 ( digitized version of the 2nd edition 1888).
• Church law. 2 vols. Duncker & Humblot, Munich 1892/1923.
• Nature and origin of Catholicism ( = Proceedings of the Philological- historical class of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences. Vol. 27, No. 10). Teubner, Leipzig, 1909.