77.3 



STRUVE, GEORG ADAM. 



STRUVE, GEORG ADAM. 



7/G 



and those relating to private rights. The town of Brunswick being 

 at that time involved in a dispute regarding its privileges with the 

 duke, requested Struve to undertake the management of their legal 

 business ; and he, having obtained the consent of tlie patrons of the 

 university, was appointed, on the 26th of March 1661, counsel in ordi- 

 nary to the good town of Brunswick for three years, with an annual 

 salary of 300 dollars, becoming bound to advise its magistrates in 

 writing whenever called upon, and, if necessary, to visit the town four 

 times in the year. The duke and town having settled their dispute 

 by a compromise, this connection was dissolved in December 1663. 

 At first Struve lectured upon the ' Institutes,' a duty devolving upon 

 the youngest professor. As his seniors died off, he was called in suc- 

 cession to lecture upon the ' Pandects,' the ' Code,' and ultimately upon 

 feudal law. Entertaining from his own experience a high opinion of 

 the benefit to be derived from disputations, he encouraged his pupils 

 to engage in them frequently among themselves under his guidance ; 

 and iu course of time the idea sugcested itself to him of making the 

 young men maintain in succession disputations on all the leading doc- 

 trines of the branch of law he might be lecturing upon at the time. 

 From a series of theses impugned and defended in this manner arose 

 his ' Syntagma Juris Feudulis,' first published in 1653, and his ' Syn- 

 tagma Juris Civilis,' first published in 1658. 



He received unexpectedly, in the year 1667, the appointment of 

 privy councillor to the dukes of Weimar, and transferred himself with 

 his family to the seat of government iu the month of December. His 

 discharge of the duties of this office gave so much satisfaction, that 

 when the line of Saxe-Altenburg became extinct in 1672, and doubts 

 were entertained whether the line of Gotha or Weimar had the nearest 

 claim to the succession, he was selected as the ablest person to 

 advocate the cause of his master. In the conduct of 'this delicate 

 business, he had the merit or good fortune to give entire satisfaction, 

 both to the party for whose interest he acted, and that to which he 

 was opposed. When the territories of the house of Weimar were 

 divided between the brothers, he remained in the service of the Duke 

 of Weimar. Notwithstanding the load of public business which 

 devolved upon him during this period of his life, he contrived to find 

 some time for the literature of his profession. He published in 1669 

 answers to objections which had been urged against some of the doc- 

 trines maintained in his ' Syntagma Juris Civilis,' a work which had 

 however been completed before he left Jena. He compiled his remarks 

 on the 'Immo' of Gothofredus, which his son Burkhard Gotthelf 

 published at Frankfurt after his death. In 1668 he published 'Jus 

 Sacrum Justinianeum.' 



The Ordinarius of the Judicial College of Jena died in 1674 ; and 

 notwithstanding the active competition of the most distinguished 

 Geruiau jurists for so honourable and lucrative an employment, Struve 

 was selected by the patrons of the university as the best qualified for 

 the office, along with which the professorship of canon law was then 

 uniformly held. On the 28th of July, he made with his family a sort 

 of triumphal entry into Jena ; for the citizens and the members of 

 the university met him in procession at some distance from the town. 

 The important offices to which he had been appointed he continued 

 to fill till his death, although the active discharge of their duties was 

 interrupted for a time by the affairs of the regency of Jena. 



On the death of Duke Bernard, to whose share the duchy of Jena 

 bad fallen at the partition of the Weimar territories, his son Johann 

 Wilhelm, a minor, succeeded. His uncle Johaun Ernest of Weimar 

 was guardian, but it was deemed expedient that a permanent council 

 of regency should sit at Jena. Struve was appointed president of this 

 body about the end of August 1680. In virtue of this appointment, 

 the whole burden and responsibility of the general executive govern- 

 ment of the territory, the discharge of the consistorial business, and the 

 management of the finances, fell upon his shoulders. He was obliged 

 to relinquish to anothsr the discharge of bis professorial duties, 

 reserving however his appellate jurisdiction as ordinarius. So many 

 cares naturally distracted his attention from his own private concerns, 

 which were considerably dilapidated in consequence of his elevation. 

 His pre-eminent position too exposed him to much malevolence ; but 

 he laboured iudefatigably, and gave satisfaction both to the Duke of 

 Weimar, and to the Duke of Eisenach, who at his death succeeded 

 him in the regency. The young Duke of Jena died towards the close 

 of 1690, not long after a partition was agreed to by the lines of Weimar 

 and Eisenach, and the council of regency being dissolved in con- 

 sequence, Struve was restored to his academical functions. 



His life at Jena, both before and after this interruption, though a 

 busy was a uniform one. As privy councillor he attended every con- 

 sultation to which he was summoned by the dukes his masters. As 

 Ordinarius he presided both in the ordinary and appellate tribunals of 

 Jena. He prepared opinions in reply to the cases addressed by 

 numerous applicants either to the Judicial College of Jeua or to him- 

 self individually. In addition to these occupations, he faithfully 

 expounded to his pupils the doctrines of the canonical law as then 

 received in the courts of the Protestant states of Germany. After the 

 di.-solution of the regency, he did not at-ain enter the academical 

 chair, but continued nevertheless, with unabated diligence, to urge on 

 the literary undertakings to which liis profession;*] duties had prompted 

 him, and which, even whilst acting as vice-regent, he had not neglected. 

 He prepared a new edition, with notes explanatory of the points in 



which the Lutheran deviated from the Roman Catholic system of 

 canon law, of Valerius Andrea's treatise on that branch of juris- 

 prudence, which he used as a text book ; but it was not published till 

 1680, when other cares prevented him from continuing his lectures. 

 The chief ambition of his later life was to bring the canonical law of 

 Protestant Germany into a better and more systematic form. With 

 that view he projected various works ; but on account of their extent, 

 and the interruption he experienced, only fragments of them were 

 completed. A projected ' Jurisprudentia Canonica,' after the model 

 of his own 'Jurisprudentia Romano-Germanica,' remained a mere 

 project. Of a complete ' Commentary on the Five Books of the 

 Decretals,' only that which relates to the fifth book, ' De Delicti*,' 

 was published, at Jena in 1691 : it appears that his son Georg Gott- 

 lieb acted as editor. It was his intention to treat the doctrine of 

 marriage in a much fuller manner in his annotations on the fourth 

 book : valuable materials were collected for the purpose ; and he had 

 resolved to make his son Burkhard Gotthelf digest them under his 

 own superintendence and direction, but the young man preferred 

 accepting the invitation of his brother at Darmstadt, as is noticed 

 in the succeeding article. The materials for a projected treatise 

 ' De Causis et Beneficiis Ecclesiasticis ' were ia like manner left unar- 

 ranged at his death. The materials and plans of the great structure 

 he contemplated alone survived him. He fouod time, aiuid all his 

 labours, to compile a system of the common law of the Empire in the 

 German language, a work which was undertaken at the request of 

 Duke Ernest of Gotha, and published in 1689. It was the first 

 German treatise of the kind, and gave a severe shock to the prejudices 

 of most of his contemporaries. The autumn before his death he 

 undertoook to prepare an edition of the 'Criminalia' of Carpzovius 

 for a Leipzig bookseller, but death prevented him. 



His son remarks that his energy and love of life seemed materially 

 to abate after the shock he received by the death of the young duke. 

 He continued however without intermission the arduous duties of his 

 office, and was seized in court with the illness which carried him off 

 in less than twenty-four hours. It was a maxim which he was fond 

 of repeating, that " the Ordinarius of Jena ought to die standing." 



Georg Adam Struve was twice married. His first wife was the 

 daughter of Christopher Philip Richter, whom he succeeded as Ordi- 

 narius. They were married on the 6th of November 1618, and lived 

 together fourteen years, during which time she brought him eight 

 children, all of whom died before him except two, Friedrich August, 

 who inherited the property of his maternal grandfather, and died two 

 years after his father, and Johann Wilhelm, a practising lawyer of 

 considerable eminence, long resident in Darmstadt, of whom mention 

 is made in the following article. Conscious that his professional 

 duties incapacitated him from paying the necessary attention to the 

 education of his children, Struve, soon after the death of his first 

 wife, began to look about for a second. His choice fell upon Susanna 

 Berlicb, daughter of a distinguished lawyer resident in Dresden. 

 They were married on the last day of October 1663 ; and she survived 

 him six years. She brought him seventeen children, of whom four 

 sons and one daughter survived him. Three of the sons, Georg 

 Gottlieb, Burkhard Gotthelf, and Friedrich Gottlieb, embraced the 

 legal profession, but only the second attained to any eminence. Ernst 

 Gotthold was a practising physician in Brunswick. Two of Struve's 

 daughters married lawyers; so that he descended from one line of 

 jurists, and was progenitor of another. 



His published works are 'Syntagma Juris Feudalis,' Jense, 1653; 

 ibid., 1659 ; Frankfurt, 1703-4. To the later editions are appended 

 ' Observations feudales juxta syntagmatis juris feudalis ordinem 

 digestse ; ' ' Decas Consiliorum et Responsorum Feudalium,' and ' Cen- 

 turia Decisionum, qusenam res feudales, qusenam allodialis.' 'Syntag- 

 mata Jurisprud entire Civilis,' Jense, 1665 (frequently reprinted) ; 

 ' Jurisprudentia Romano-Germanica Forensis,' Jense, 1670: 'Jus Sacrum 

 Justinianeum, sive Progymnasinata ad Titules priores Libri i. Codii is,' 

 Jense, 4to, 1668 ; 'Evolutiones Controversiarum in Syntagmata Juris 

 Civilis comprehensarum,' Jense, 1669 ; ' Triga Dissertationum : de 

 Vindicta privata et retoreione juris iniqui ; de sedificiis privatis ; et de 

 annona,' Jense, 1670 ; ' Dissertationes Criminales XVI. in academia 

 Salana publicse disquisition! prsepositse,' Jensc, 1671 ; 'Decisiones Sab- 

 bathinae, Canonicse et Practice; Selectioues de Conventiouibus et 

 Contractis,' Jense, 4to, 1677; 'Notse et Observations Theoreticse, 

 Canonical et Practicse ad Antonii Matthsci Tractatum de Successioni- 

 bus,' Jense, 4to, 1678 ; ' Valerii Andrese Desselii Eretotnata Juris Cauo- 

 uici, cum aniinadversionibus,' Jense, 8vo, 1680 and 1691 ; 'Dissertatio 

 Juridica de Invocatione Roman's Divini,' Jense, 4to, 1682; 'Jurispru- 

 dentz, oder Verfassung der Landiiblichen Rechte,' Mersburg, 8vo, 

 1689; ' Commentarius ad Librum V. Decretaliutn de Delictis, Cura 

 Georgii Gottlebii Struvii,' Jense, 4to, 1691. 



The writings of Georg Adam Struve indicate a mind which, as far 

 as it could see, saw distinctly and correctly. He belonged, notwith- 

 standing his studies in philosophy and history, rather to the race 

 of jurists which preceded him, than to the more accomplished 

 raca which succeeded him. His historical erudition is very deficient 

 in critical discrimination ; and he labours painfully to torture the 

 doctrines of law into the formulae of scholastic logic. It was as a 

 practical lawyer that he distinguished liimself; a character for which 

 perhaps even the limited range of his mental vision peculiarly qualified 



