Ulrike Ludwig (Leipzig, Germany)

State-Sponsored Scholarships at Wittenberg University in the Century of the Reformation and their Effect on Recipients’ Different Career Paths.

This lecture presents source-based results of the state-sponsored scholarship scheme at Wittenberg University. The results extend from the foundation of Wittenberg University, the Leucorea, in 1502, and end with the transition of the Prince-elector from the Ernestine to the Albertine line of Wettin, in 1547. This time period was chosen because it shows the most exciting transformations through the upheavals of the Reformation. After the 1520s, the aim of the scholarships was to increase the number of loyal Protestant priests who served either as school or state workers. This considerably helped to contribute to the establishment of Reformatory ideas. The focus of this lecture is on the recipients of the scholarships themselves. On the basis of specific prosopographical questions, such as the regional and social background of the scholarship recipients, their course of study, degrees and their further career path, both group biographical aspects and some selected short biographies are presented.

 

Tilman Pfuch (Leipzig, Germany)

Luther and the Ernestines in the Reports of the Wittenberg Theological Faculty Between 1560 and 1660

The Protestant theological faculties of the early modern period served as a forum for discussion and counselling on a variety of different hierarchical levels. In Wittenberg, changes to the university statutes in 1536 contributed to them serving as a forum, in which it was stated that the Theological Faculty had to advise the electors and their successors in matrimonial and other spiritual matters. So, the authority of the faculty was fed in part by the occupation of the episcopal rights by the sovereign, and also by the link to the medieval task of examining the teaching of the universities. On the other hand, a transformation took place from the Reformation personality to the appropriately responsible hereditary administrator. This lecture will look at the reception history of reporting in this specified period in Wittenberg.

 

Isabelle Nispel (Berlin, Germany)

The Wittenberg Collegium Augusteum within the University Landscape of the Holy Roman Empire during the 16^th Century

The Collegium Augusteum was built for the Leucorea in the years 1581-82. So, it was the third collegium in Wittenberg – used for teaching as well as the accommodation of teachers and students. The Augusteum is still preserved today in its basic structure and in the majority of its original building fabric from the 16^th century. However, it also shows how university buildings have been adapted through the changing requirements of universities. According to current research, the Augusteum is one of four colleges still existing, which were newly built for German universities in the second half of the 16^th century, along with the Collegium Georgianum in Ingolstadt (1494-96). These include the Collegium Illustre in Tübingen (1588) and the colleges in Helmstedt (1575-76, 1592-97) and Altdorf (1571-75, 1580). All other college buildings of the 15^th and 16^th centuries later became victims of the future through reconstruction and demolition measures.

 

Patrick Schiele (Frankfurt/Main, Germany)

The Wittenberg University Enrolment Lists. Unique Features and Perspectives of Different Interpretations

University enrolment lists are undoubtedly one of the most important early modern quantitative sources for researching the history of universities. Using the example of the Wittenberg University enrolment lists, the peculiarities of this source genre and the challenges of its development are pointed out in this lecture. The database project »Corpus Inscriptorum Vitebergense (CIV)«, which is supported by the LEUCOREA Foundation, aims to collect the personal data from these Wittenberg University enrolment lists and link them with the results of the evaluation of other personal quantitative sources. On the basis of the first results, the various evaluation possibilities and perspectives of the registrations are presented on the basis of the relational personal database of CIV and beyond.

 

Elgin von Gaisberg (Berlin, Germany)

The Rooms and Site Development within the Wittenberg Town Parish Church

Site developments within a building are inextricably linked to the need for spaces and their purposes. In the Wittenberg town parish church, parallel to the construction site, from the 13^th to the 17^th centuries, areas of use and site development were also changing. Rooms and installations such as galleries and stairs were added or changed, sometimes even abandoned. This is proven by subsequent wall breaks and hidden or added door openings, which no longer relate to the existing floors. During the building research, these have been revealed in recent years through textual and image sources and have since been linked with former structural conditions and uses. In addition to the question of different accesses to the church and the site development of former buildings, it is also necessary to show how the ›Town-Steeples‹ were connected with the church and which rooms and purposes of these rooms can be discovered.

 

Insa Christiane Hennen (Halle/Saale-Wittenberg, Germany)

Exterior Spaces – Interior Spaces: How did Wittenberg change between 1486 and 1586?

The construction of the Wittenberg castle, beginning in 1486, and the founding of the Leucorea in 1502, changed the societal and urban landscape of Wittenberg. From the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation, additional impulses arose. This change is the focus of the research project »Ernestinisches Wittenberg« (Ernestine Wittenberg). The paper traces the large development lines up to the 1580s, distinguishing between planned developments following the ›humanist spirit‹ and developments initiated by the Reformation. The consequences of these changes will be presented, which can be seen in the city’s streets, squares and inner courts, as well as in the interior of the parish church, as the central point of the practice of faith and the representation of the bourgeoisie.

 

Jan-Christian Cordes (Hamburg, Germany)

»Des lutterschen Handels halven« (For the Sake of the Lutheran Trade). The Reformation in the Hanseatic cities of Lüneburg, Hamburg and Lübeck as a Challenge for State Authorities

In 1525, actions were supposed to be taken in Lübeck against the Martian sect on two regional Hanseatic days of the Wendish towns, but this was no longer a unanimous decision. In some of the participating cities, the Reformation movement had already grown so strongly that the municipal authorities could no longer simply take action against them. Finally, as a result of a long-term change, that Catholic city councils who opposed the Reformation became Protestant authorities. The process of the introduction of the Reformation in Northern Germany and the possibilities for action of the municipal councils are presented in this paper, using the examples of Hansestadt Lüneburg, Hamburg and Lübeck, and alongside a comparison with the Wittenberg conditions.

 

Uwe Schirmer (Jena, Germany)

The Saxon Cities in the Early Days of the Reformation (1520-1525)

The Electoral of Saxony is the motherland of the Reformation. As a result of the restrained policies of the Elector, Reformatory ideas spread broadly since 1520. Seen from the perspective of the authorities, the lower nobility and the city councillors were the ones responsible for this process, because, as authorities of justice and patronage, they made it possible for Protestantism to be preached in »their« churches. Around 1520, about 75 sovereign cities belonged to the electorate. The town councils were eligible for state government and practiced in the upper court. Altenburg, Coburg, Gotha, Grimma, Eisenach, Jena, Orlamunde, Plauen, Saalfeld, Torgau, Weimar, Wittenberg or Zwickau can be mentioned as influential cities. Erfurt, Mühlhausen and Nordhausen were not subject to the electorate, but there were inter-dependencies between them and the Saxon cities. In this lecture, the spread of the Protestant doctrine in the ›Ernestine-electoral town-dwelling‹ is taken synoptically into view. At the centre of the analysis are institutions, the social and political carriers of the movement, religious-social multipliers as well as infrastructural specifics.

 

Thomas Lang (Halle/Saale-Wittenberg, Germany)

Between Main Court Camp, Hunting Lodge and Spiritual Centre. The ›Residenzenlandschaft‹ (Residence Landscape) and its Role in the Early Reformation Period

An important step on the way from pre-modern rule to modern statehood is the training of central administrative, domination and representation centres for the so-called residences. The example of the Elector Frederick III. of Saxony (1463-1525) is intended to show that the journey from the central residency in a country whose dominant points were linked to dynastic coincidence, political circumstances, and personal preferences was by no means stringent. The Elector Frederick visited, as an industrious imperial politician, numerous imperial diets and princely meetings, he travelled abroad as a pilgrim as well as in the royal service while he took cultural stimulus. Even in his own territory, from Coburg to Weimar, and Wittenberg to Beeskow, he remained active. In addition to the changing main court camp, he often used part of his farm in smaller castles to hold secondary court camps, providing individual resorts with different functions. The relatively independent economic and legal administration and a considerable messenger system gave the prince a great mobility and splendid representation. However, this system of residence and domination did not always meet the rapid developments in the early period of the Reformation.

 

Anke Neugebauer (Halle-Wittenberg, Germany)

Ancestry Research and Ancestral Archaeology among the Ernestine Line of Wettins

Ancestral research and ancestral archaeology form a phenomenon that intensified around 1500 within the aristocracy of the empire. The causes lie in the increased interest in the past of the family’s own ruling house and their associated dynastic legitimation. So, the Ernestine line of the House of Wettin commissioned chronicles, tribal books and genealogical galleries, operated ancestral archaeology and paid tribute to their ancestors with epitaphs or tombstones. For example, the sandstone coffin for the bones of the Ottoman Queen Editha (d. 946) stands in the Magdeburg Cathedral, commissioned by Archbishop Ernst of Saxony in 1510; the memorials for Emperor Otto III. (died 1002) donated by Elector Frederick the Wise in 1513 in the cathedral of Augsburg and in the cathedral of Aachen, as well as the 1537 change of Ascanian princes from the Wittenberg Franciscan monastery to the castle church by Elector Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous.

 

Mario Titze (Halle/Saale, Germany)

The Restoration of the Castle Church and the Castle

For the restoration of castle church and castle, the military use of the castle from 1819 and the reorganization of the castle church in 1885/92 had fundamentally altered the former Wettin residency. The reconstruction and renovation of both buildings, as a result of a 2011 architectural competition, led to further changes, which were connected with a large number of interventions in the structure of the building. They made it possible to make remarkable historical discoveries, but also caused painful losses. With the closure of the courtyard as well as the meticulous restoration of the castle church and the cornerstone stones, the main features of German Historicism and the European architecture of the castle of 1500 were regained.