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Erinnern an die Gründung: Universitätsjubiläen, Universitätsgeschichte und die Entstehung der Jubiläumskultur in der frühen Neuzeit
Author(s) -
Müller Winfried
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
berichte zur wissenschaftsgeschichte
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1522-2365
pISSN - 0170-6233
DOI - 10.1002/bewi.19980210202
Subject(s) - protestantism , monopoly , history , classics , theology , humanities , art , philosophy , market economy , economics
The first part of the report pursues the development of the modern jubilee tradition. The ‘Holy Year’, introduced in 1300 by Pope Bonifaz VIII, and still being celebrated in a 25 years cycle since 1475 can be considered the root of this tradition. The Catholic monopoly of jubilees was then broken by some Protestant universities. Anniversary cycles were first performed by the universities of Tübingen (1578), Heidelberg (1587) and Wittenberg (1602) to commemorate the founding of the university by a secular sovereign. With the competition of confessions in the Reich in the background this adaption of the jubilee‐idea in the university area leads to a new religiously inspired jubilee tradition in the Protestant regional churches, which celebrated the anniversary of the Reformation regularly since 1617. To counteract the Protestant onslaught of jubilees the Roman jubilee‐year, planned for a universal church, changed in the outgoing 17th and 18th century to a historically based jubilee of the dioceses, monasteries and universities in Catholic regions. ‐ The guiding role of the universities in adopting and profaning the jubilee‐year led to an early concern with the institutions' own history. As an early example for the rich production of jubilee books the anniversary speech of Heidelberg's deputy vice chancellor, Georg Sohn, of 1587 is introduced. Hence the close relationship between university jubilees and historical exploration of institutional, personal and academic history counts as a constant in university history, as will be seen in a second part with examples from the 19th and 20th century. Especially the university jubilees of the 1960s and 1970s contributed to a duration, and in parts even to the institutionalization of the historical partial discipline of the history of the universities. Finally, a few possible negative aspects of the close relationship of university jubilees to university historiography are being discussed.