Resumen de Pro libris lites, pro calamis gladii: Johann Peter Lotichius and the demise of the German university during the Thirty Years’ War
When the newly appointed professor of medicine at the University of Rinteln, Johann Peter Lotichius (1598–1669), delivered an oration entitled Oratio super fatalibus hoc tempore academiarum in Germania periculis (“Oration on the pernicious dangers to the universities of contemporary Germany”) at said university in February 1631, the war, which later came to be known as the Thirty Years’ War, had already been in full swing for more than a decade. Driven by his personal experience of trying to build an academic career amidst military confrontations, he rendered a disconcerting, yet dead serious account of bad students, bad teachers, bad customs, bad times, and how these factors mutually influence each other to produce bad education. With his speech, situated at the crossroads between the humanist criticism of academic life and the conventions of the Miseria-saeculi-theme, Lotichius took a moralising stance towards education that was closely tied to the socio-political struggles of his time. This article will not only disclose the literary and educational motives on which Lotichius’ Oratio thrives, but also highlight some of its idiosyncrasies. In addition, the oration will be unveiled as a textual witness of the intellectual havoc the Thirty Years’ War wrought on the German universities in general and the historically still under-researched University of Rinteln in particular.
