The Albrecht of Rothenburg ob der Tauber was a patrician family, many of whose members occupied administrative offices in both the Interior and Exterior Councils that governed the Imperial Free City of Rothenburg ob der Tauber during the second half of the Holy Roman Empire. In addition to performing various judicial, religious and administrative roles in their home city, several Albrechts also wrote University theses that contributed, in the wider context of defining German national identity, to Law and Legal Theory during the years that spanned the Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years War, the war's aftermath, and the German Enlightenment.
The Albrechts of Rothenburg 1493-1806
Protestant Reformation
Georg Albrecht, son of Eucharius Albrecht (born ca. 1461), attended first the University of Leipzig (enrolled ca. 1513) and then Wittenberg University, now the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (enrolled 28 September 1517). One of Georg's tutors at Wittenberg was Thomas Müntzer who met with Martin Luther in Spring 1517 and participated in discussions which are considered influential in Luther posting his Ninety-five Theses on 31 October 1517 thereby sparking the Protestant Reformation, one of the effects of which would be to question obedience to clerical authority and thereby facilitate humanist efforts towards what would become the fields of modern science and philosophy.
The Reformation and a new emperor, Charles V (ruled 1519 – 1556), considerably destabilized the religious and economic balance of the Holy Roman Empire. The German Peasants' War (1524-5) saw Eucharius, Georg's father, appointed by the Rothenburg city council to head a committee for negotiating with the rebels in Spring 1525. The Peasants Revolt was eventually put down by Casimir, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth in a campaign which included a decisive victory at Rothenburg itself, after which, it was said, the city's market squares ran red with the blood of the beheaded rebels. As a consequence, the Rothenburg city elders adopted a low profile, avoiding attracting imperial attention while at the same time remaining on good terms with the staunchly Catholic emperor. Despite this, in 1544, Rothenburg ob der Tauber adopted Lutheranism as its official religion. The Peace of Augsburg (1555) brought a relative calm between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire that would last into the second decade of the following century. .
Kilian Albrecht (ca.1500-1574), grandson of Eucharius Albrecht, was Sheriff and then Bailiff of Gebsattel from April 1555. He was elected to the Interior council of Rothenburg in 1565, the first Albrecht family member to hold an administrative role. In 1596 his son, Leonhard (ca.1550-1613), married Maria Magdalena Forst, daughter of Michael Forst, the wealthy Vogt of Comburg. The close relationship between Leonhard Albrecht and Michael Forst resulted in the granting of an Albrecht coat of arms in 1605, as noted in Johann Siebmacher's Groβes Wappenbuch.'Albrecht, Leonhard received a grant of arms by Franz Rasso Gotthard, Dr. jur. utr. imperial secretary and comes palat. at Comburg on 9 August 1605.' The entry goes on to give a detailed description. For more information see: Albrecht, Nicholas (2018) The Albrechts of Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1493-1806, Auckland: AM Publishing p. 14-17The Albrecht Coat of Arms is also registered in the College of Arms
(London) MS. Foreign Arms I. Pages 101-104. For a type script in English see: https://albrechtsofrothenburg.com/the-albrecht-coat-of-arms/ Leonhard was also a member of Rothenburg's Exterior Council. In 1603, Leonhard and Maria Magdalena produced a son, Georg Albrecht (1603-1666). Leonhard Albrecht died on 19 January 1613.
Thirty Years War
The Thirty Years War broke out in 1618 after the incumbent Holy Roman Emperor, the Catholic Ferdinand II, decided to curb the growing Protestant influence within his borders. Georg Albrecht (1603 – 1666) had lost his father, Leonhard, at age 9, but his mother Maria Magdalena's remarriage to Bernhard Betzold, another member of Rothenburg's Interior Council, ensured the boy continued to be well connected and educated. Georg went first to the University at Altdorf and then onto the University of Strasbourg where he studied under the polymath Matthias Bernegger (1582–1640). Georg Albrecht's political-legal thesis, De Judiciorum Cura Politica, was submitted at Strasbourg in 1624. In it can be felt all the tension of the Zeitgeist prevalent just six years after the outbreak of the Thirty Years War,At this time, Catholic forces held the upper hand. Peter H. Wilson explains that the Emperor was considered sovereign and 'held the initiative in most imperial institutions' including those that involved law-making (Wilson, Peter H. (2010). The Thirty Years War: A Sourcebook. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan. p. 1. . in that it exhibits a strong influence from the French jurist and political philosopher, Jean Bodin (1529–1596) with his preference for strong and centralised state government, yet is tempered by the strong humanitarian tendencies of the staunchly protestant Bernegger.
After moving in influential Lutheran circlesGeorg Albrecht maintained a 'Book of Friends' in which he listed his contacts. The full list can be found in Schnurrer, Ludwig. Einige neue Rothenburger Stammbücher (Johann Georg Albrecht, 1712-93; G. Albrecht, 1603-66, 1759/60; mit Abb.), in: Die Linde 611(979) p. 42-46. An excerpt relevant only to Georg Albrecht can be found in Albrecht, Nicholas. (2018). The Albrechts of Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1493-1806. Auckland: AM Publishing p.24-5. in Strasbourg and Tübingen, Georg Albrecht returned to war-torn Rothenburg ob der Tauber. By the end of the war, the Protestant-aligned city had been besieged in 1631 and attacked in 1634 by Catholic forces, and then attacked again in 1645 by French Protestants, and finally occupied by Swedish forces who stayed until 1650, two years after the hostilities had officially ended. Georg became a member of Rothenburg's Exterior Council (1628), the Interior Council (1632), a tax official (1633), the school and church council (1634), and holder of the Würzburg fiefs (1635, 1644, and 1657 onward), the last appointment of which led to a change in the Albrecht family coat of arms. Georg Albrecht also held the mayoralty of Rothenburg three times (1658, 1660, 1663).
Georg and his wife Susanna (wedded in 1627) had eight children together. Georg Albrecht died in the early hours of 6 February 1666. He was survived by three of his daughters and two sons.
Aftermath of the Thirty Years War
Georg Albrecht's two surviving sons were Andreas Conrad (b. 1635) and Johann Georg (1629–1703). Johann Georg was a poet, musician,A poem written by Johann Georg Albrecht (1629-1703) when just 18 years old and eventually published by Martin Wachenhäuser at Rothenburg ob der Tauber in 1648 can be found at https://albrechtsofrothenburg.com/flips-cards/ along with the original manuscripts (with original German and English translation) of the 'Swan Song' composed especially for his funeral. and legal scholar, who held the title of Legal Counsel for Rothenburg for 49 years (1654 – 1703). He studied first at the University of Strasbourg (1648) and thereafter at the University of Altdorf where, in 1654, he completed his doctoral thesis under the guidance of Prof. Nicola Rittershus and Dr. Wilhelm Ludwels. The thesis, submitted for inclusion in a Codex Mandati at the University of Altdorf, discusses a single aspect of Law, that of the cessio or on-selling of a legal action to a third party for the purposes of recovering a debt.The relevant laws in the codex mandati covered by Johann Georg Albrecht's (1629-1703) work can be found at: https://albrechtsofrothenburg.com/dr-johann-georg-albrecht-1629-1703/ It is a technical thesis that highlights the way unscrupulous contemporary legal parties were ‘mangling’ the laws of the ancient Roman emperors Anastasius and Justinian that had originally been enacted to protect the debtor. The subject matter of the thesis is relevant to its context in the period immediately following the end of the Thirty Years War, as the hostilities had seriously destabilized the economic infrastructure of the Holy Roman Empire and cash-flow had all but dried up.
The (by then) Dr. Johann Georg Albrecht's 49-year tenure as Legal Counsel to the Imperial Free City of Rothenburg ob der Tauber was virtually contemporaneous with that of the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I (reigned 1658–1705). It was a period of relative internal calm for Europe, during which the Ottoman Turk incursions into Europe were finally halted in a decisive battle outside Vienna in 1683. While Leopold brought stability to the Empire as a whole, Dr. Johann Georg Albrecht was sorting out the damaged and neglected City Archives in war ravaged Rothenburg.
Dr. Johann Georg Albrecht had married Anna Magdalena Walther in 1655. Together they had seven children, only three of whom survived their parents: Johann Georg Albrecht (1657–1720), Johann Jeremias Albrecht (1658–1708), and Johann Adam Albrecht (1661–1716). Johann Jeremias became the Hospital Master for the Rothenburg Council, Johann Adam became the Rothenburg parish priest of Schmerbach, and Johann Georg followed in his father's footsteps by studying and practising Law.
German Enlightenment Johann Georg Albrecht (1657–1720) studied first at the University of Altdorf and then sought his license to practise Law at the Royal Saxon University of Jena where, amongst other masters, he was taught by Georg Adam Struve (1619-1692), Chair of Law at the university, City Councillor to the City of Braunschweig, and Privy Councillor to the Dukes of Saxony-Weimar. The extant copy of Johann Georg's Dissertatio Civilis et Canonica de Succesione Conjugum, Collegiorum et Fisci or Civil and Canonical Dissertation on the Succession of Spouses, Colleges, and the State Treasury, submitted at Jena in 1677, appears to have transmitted in a truncated (and, possibly, slightly corrupted) state. Distortions aside, this discussion considers the various scenarios under which spouses and relatives may inherit from one another as well as when it is lawful for professional colleges or even the State Treasury to step in and take a slice. The dissertation discusses the problems faced by female beneficiaries and also highlights how inheritance law differed between Germanic states within the Holy Roman Empire at the time.An English translation of Johann Georg Albrecht's (1657-1720) dissertation, Dissertatio Civilis et Canonica de Successione Conjugum, Collegiorum et Fasci, which was submitted at Jena in December 1677, can be found at: https://albrechtsofrothenburg.com/johann-geog-albrecht-1657-1720/ Johann Georg Albrecht's dissertation is representative of the wider groundswell of the German Enlightenment as German lawmakers sought to make sense of antiquated Roman Law in the dawning Age of Reason. Albrecht's supervisor, Georg Adam Struve, was considered amongst the most influential figures in the particularly German movement known as the usus modernus pandectarum or Modern Application of the Pandectae, which was geared to modernising the application of the Roman Law System that had been based on the original Roman Digest. It was Struve's work, the Iurisprudentia Romano-germanica Forensis that was to become the standard reference text for students, teachers, judges, and advocates of German Law and enjoy 31 reprints between 1670 and 1771.