A humanist in lawyer's gown: Albrecht von Eyb (1420-1475) as jurist

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Wetzstein
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 433810631

Albrecht von Eyb, a noble-born franconian, may count for the most renowned among the first wave of german humanists. Like many other sons of well-off families of this time, he left Germany to study the laws in Italian universities. Only fifteen years later (1459) he eventually returned home from his studies in Padua, Bologna and Pavia. Today, Albrecht von Eyb is exclusively known for his early achievements in the field of humanism. The original reason for his stay abroad, however, and his professional activity as a lawyer still remain unexplored, notwithstanding his numerous expert opinions conserved in manuscripts. The project aims at filling a research gap that has been bemoaned for a long time. In doing this, it will not only enlarge our knowledge about the biography and the legal work of an early German humanist. It will also try to explore the question if seen from the perspective of his legal writings, Albrecht's interest in humanism can be interpreted as part of a more extensive process of cultural transfer by which the learned nobleman brought learned culture as a whole from Italy to Germany. The project demands a great variety of methods applied as it will take into account the external features as well as the learned contents of Albrecht's legal expert opinions in order to place their author in a historical context that has become known better and better during the last two decades. A thorough prosopographical evaluation of the expert opinions will help to confront the personal networks deduced from Albrecht's legal business with the well-known contacts he maintained among humanists. The classical methods of codicology, paleography and legal history will deploy their potential especially when the results of a corresponding analysis of Albrecht's manuscripts will be compared to manuscripts of Italian and German authors. The project's interdisciplinary approach supports a tight cooperation with partners coming from the disciplines of legal history, Latin philology and history of education. It also forms the basis for an international conference that will bring together experts of the disciplines involved in the project. The project wants to contribute to enlarge the empirical basis of the learned world that characterized Europe during the last century of the Middle-Ages. It will show practical application-fields of academic knowledge in the pluridimensional references of its time.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Italy
• Co-Investigators: Professorin Dr. Susanne Lepsius; Professor Dr. Gernot Michael Müller
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Daniela Rando