Helmstedt University

"Translating Law for Women? The 'Institutes du droit civil pour les dames' in Eighteenth-Century Helmstedt"

'Institutes du droit civil pour les dames' is the title of a unique piece of work printed in 1751 in the small town of Helmstedt. Its author, a little known jurist, Johann Heinrich Kratzenstein (1726–1805), close to the Pietistic circles, composed an abridged French translation in 48 pages of Justinian’s Institutes, one of the most widespread texts in European legal history. It was written as a birthday gift for a noblewoman, Regina Charlotte Topp, wife of an influential law professor of the University of Helmstedt. This short essay examines this rare attempt to translate and adapt Latin juridical texts for a female audience. What legal topics did Kratzenstein choose? What kind of legal knowledge did he consider »suitable« for the »other«, the female readership? What kind of reader did he »construct«, and what motivated him to engage in such a singular project? How was his work received? Could jurisprudence find a place among the new »popular« scientific and philosophical genres, promoted in certain enlightened circles, especially on the bookshelves of the so-called 'Frauenzimmer Bibliotheken'?
To answer these questions about Kratzenstein’s translation, I discuss a topic that has so far been neglected by mainstream legal history, which is traditionally centered on legal scholarship: the vivid early modern debate on women’s education (the so-called querelle des femmes) and its impact on the field of jurisprudence in the eighteenth century.

A workshop at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, organised by Valentina Lepri, Danilo Facca, and Matthias Roick from 14-15 June 2018.

The proceedings of this workshop will appear in the "History of Universities" series asap. I contributed to the workshop and volume a paper on the Teaching of Ethics at the University of Helmstedt in Late Seventeenth Century.

In history, epidemics tend to affect not only individual groups but societies as a whole. When highly contagious diseases, such as the plague, outbursted in early modern societies they naturally became a core theme of discussion also in academic communities. This paper wants to elaborate on some scholars from the Academia Julia in Helmstedt (1576‒1810), the ducal university of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who made attemps to address the issue of the plague inbetween 1657 and 1684, i.e. from the plague outbursts in Brunswick (1657/58) to the outbursts in Wolfenbüttel (1681) and the following threat of plague in Helmstedt. I will follow the discussion through the university faculties at Helmstedt, starting at the philosophical and medical department, and ask how natural philosophers, physicians, jurists, and theologists in Helmstedt tried to answer the question of what is right in times of plague or imminent contagion.
I will follow some of the key publications and present them in the varying contexts of scientific, medical, moral, legal and theological debates taking place at the Academia Julia inbetween 1681 and 1683.

Contributers:
Outi Merisalo (Organiser), Iolanda Ventura, Patrizia Carmassi, Bernd Roling, Susanna Niiranen, Jakub Kujawiński, Fiammetta Sabba, Giovanna Murano, Marianne Pade, Stefania Fortuna, Lorenzo Amato, Benjamin Wallura

I contributed a talk on "Friedrich August Hackemann: A Helmstedt Medievalist".

Contributers and participants:
Outi Merisalo (Organiser), Iolanda Ventura, Marianne Pade, Susanna Niiranen, Bernd Roling, Benjamin Wallura, Peter Sjökvist, Jonas Nordin, Patrizia Camassi, and many more.

I contributed a talk on "Theory and Practice of Libraries in the Seventeenth Century. The Case of the Helmstedt Milieu and Beyond".

https://www.hab.de/das-curriculum-an-einer-fruehneuzeitlichen-universitaet/

The miscellany deals with late seventeenth-century lecture reports ('Monatszettel', 'Rechenschaftsberichte') from the University of Helmstedt. Their analysis provides insights into early modern teaching agendas and curricula.

Some of the Helmstedt lecture reports are available online in transcribed form: http://uni-helmstedt.hab.de/index.php?cPage=4&sPage=rsb