Friedrich Carl Von Savigny in the Years 1779 to 1810
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Friedrich Carl von Savigny in the years 1779 to 1810 The young Savigny Summary Friedrich Carl von Savigny, born in Frankfurt am Main on 21 February 1779, was orphaned at the age of 12 years following the death of his parents and raised by a friend of his father’s, Reichskammergerichtsrat Neurath (1739-1816), in Wetzlar. From 1795 studied Savigny at the university in Marburg intending to follow his father’s footstep by becoming a lawyer. In 1799, to round off his legal studies, he embarked on a cultural trip to Saxony, which took him to Leipzig via Jena and then to Prague. In Jena he had contact with the early Romantic circle, becoming friends with Clemens Brentano and August Stephan Winkelmann, later with Caroline von Günderrode and Achim von Arnim. In Leipzig, at the turn of 1799/1800, he decided to become a professor and embark on a university career. After his return, he received his doctorate in Marburg, where he also lectured. In 1803 he published his first major monograph “Das Recht des Besitzes” and was promoted to Extraordinarius (associate professor). After the 1803/04 winter semester, he ended his teaching in Marburg. In April 1804 he married Kunigunde Brentano, Clemens Brentano’s sister. After the marriage, Savigny departed on his grand library tour to Paris, on which Jakob Grimm was to accompany him later. During this tour, he spent a longer period at Heidelberg University, which in the wake of its reform in 1803 was hoping to recruit Savigny as Ordinarius (full professor). Savigny turned the offer down so that he could continue his planned library tours, but kept a later acceptance open. Savigny played a helping role in reforming the university and arranged for a number of scholars to move to Heidelberg. The Heidelberg law faculty went on to flourish and, at the same time, Heidelberg Romanticism blossomed, due to the friendship between its protagonists Brentano, Arnim, Görres, Grimm, Creuzer and others and Savigny. Then came the library tour to southern Germany, which also took Savigny to Vienna and, during this homeward journey, saw a first encounter with Goethe. After his return, Savigny’s efforts to be appointed to a chair in Heidelberg proved to be fruitless. In 1808 he accepted a call to Landshut which was overshadowed right from the start, however, by his striving for a call to the University of Berlin, which was in the process of being founded. Wilhelm von Humboldt won Savigny for Berlin in 1809, with the offer being accepted by Savigny in 1810. In early July, Savigny and his family arrived in Berlin, accompanied by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim. In the 1810/11 winter semester Savigny began holding lectures in Berlin. I. Birth, descent, young years in Frankfurt am Main, Hanau & Wetzlar. Law studies in Marburg. “...a large part of my earlier life passed through my heart with more pain than pleasure” writes Savigny from Marburg on 15 September 1800, a few weeks before he was due to receive his doctorate, to Stephan August Winkelmann (1780-1806), candidatus medicinae in Jena, whom he had met and became fast friends with in Jena a few months earlier. Death was a continuous companion of Savigny’s childhood. His father, Christian Karl Ludwig von Savigny (1726-1791), lived in Zweibrücken and lost his father at the age of 14 years. He studied in Marburg, Halle and Jena and then moved to live with his uncle von Cranz in Hanau. After his uncle’s death in 1751, he inherited Trages Manor with two neighboring estates and a small fortune. Like his father before him, he served as a legal-diplomatic adviser at princely courts, at first living in Offenbach am Main, where he married his ward Philippine Henriette Groos (1743-1792), who had been living in his house following the death of her father and his friend, a Zweibrücken privy councilor Groos. The household also included a spinster sister of Savigny’s father. From 1770 the Savigny family lived in the house “Zur weißen Katze” [At the White Cat], at Allerheiligengasse 52 in Frankfurt am Main. Here Friedrich Carl von Savigny was born on 21 February 1779. Of the twelve siblings, only Friedrich Carl and his elder brother, Ernst Ludwig, were to survive childhood in Frankfurt am Main. Both brothers were educated together by private tutors. Besides Latin, the strict father was adamant that they mastered French. As in the days of their father and grandfather, a command of the French language was a sine qua non for serving aristocratic rulers, also as jurists with a dual role as diplomats. The paternal insistence of the choice of profession also influenced the choice of private tutors. Greek was not taught chez Savigny. In 1785, Aunt Maria von Savigny, who had run the Savignys’ household for some twenty years, died. In 1790 Friedrich Carl lost his brother Ernst Ludwig, his last surviving sibling. Only a year later, the much decimated family had to mourn the loss of the father Christian Karl Ludwig. The widow and her now only son moved to Hanau, where scarcely a year she too was to pass away, on 26 July 1792. Friedrich Carl was now twelve years old and a full orphan. Savigny moved to Wetzlar to live with a colleague and friend of his father, Johann Friedrich Albrecht Constantin von Neurath (1739-1816), assessor at the Reichskammergericht there. The latter’s son Constantin von Neurath knew Savigny from his Frankfurt days. We still have a first letter which Savigny wrote to Constantin from Hanau in January 1792: “Dear friend! Haven’t I kept you waiting for so long for a reply, but certainly not from neglect, we have had so very much to do that you will surely excuse my long silence, even from the one year into the next...”. Perhaps cocky, perhaps precocious, either way the letter underscores the fact that Savigny had missed out on a childhood. Savigny went up to Marburg University at the young age of 16. On 19 April 1795 he enrolled together with his boyhood friend Constantin Neurath, born in 1778, as stud. iur.. Both embarked on their law degrees well prepared. Whilst still in Wetzlar, they had received law lessons from the head of the household in person; Justinian’s Institutiones had been covered in detail. Thus, both could start their law studies straight way by attending lectures on the Digest. Savigny attended Digest lectures first from Philipp Friedrich Weis (1766-1808) and again by Johann Heinrich Christian Erxleben (1753-1811). Savigny studied law only at Marburg University, albeit interrupted in the winter semester of 1796/97, which he spent in Göttingen, and in the summer semester of 1797, which he took off for health reasons and staid mainly at Trages Manor, the Savigny family seat near Hanau. Wetzlar was not an easy time for Savigny. The von Neuraths did their best as foster parents, and this helped to create a feeling of trust. In April 1798 Savigny writes to his friend Constantin, “... a few weeks ago I talked to Papa and Mama......”. After Constantin’s mother died, his father remarried. The new marriage did not produce any children. But Savigny never really seemed to have experienced a real home. Constantin describes Savigny in this period as “mistrustful and extremely sensitive”. Physically Savigny came off second best to his friend: “... I abused this physical superiority less...”, but intellectually he was far superior to his friend; in Marburg too, Savigny was immediately the teacher and Neurath his pupil. The relationship between the two became somewhat estranged as Savigny soon established a large group of friends in Marburg, which in the same letter to Winkelmann cited above he describes in positive, almost familial terms: “... Here I am now living surrounded by dear people and look forward to a really cheerful future”. Constantin von Neurath soon triggered a crisis in Savigny when he lamented bitterly about the underlying conflict between the two friends in a letter dated 21 July 1797: “We went up to Marburg. At first you were quite open to me: until you made friends - from which I was excluded. You became ever more distant, indifferent towards me: seemed to even despise me: this incensed me ... When you on occasion happened to be friendly to me, I immediately responded with a truly loving heart: I believed that I had to convince you that I loved you so incomparably more than many of your acquaintances, whose company you preferred to mine. But then your behavior or a feature of your character made me shrink back. When I discussed something with you, you immediately became very sensitive, no matter how trivial the subject matter was. You then spoke only disjointed, biting words, pulled a face and gave no or only incomprehensible answers... Your morals were too ideal for me and you struck me as a pedant, you were never loved (at least as far as I knew), so intellect you might have, but no feelings: my close confidante you could never be...” The letters from Savigny to his childhood and university friend in Marburg, Constantin Neurath, collected by Stoll are hard to fathom for those who are not familiar with this letter of July 1797, which was unfortunately unknown to Stoll as well and hence not included. The letters to Constantin Neurath printed by Stoll show a Savigny at times struggling desperately for his friendship. He excuses himself: “... For my behavior in Frankfurt I do not know what to say, I am so ashamed...”. Even long after Neurath had begun to move in different circles, Savigny cannot let go.