Catholic Doctrine of the Law of Nations by Johann Adam Ickstatt
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CHAPTER SIX CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE LAW OF NATIONS BY JOHANN ADAM ICKSTATT Most theoreticians of the law of nations in seventeenth and eigh- teenth-century Germany were Protestants, as were all three of the court councilors we have discussed so far. However, there were also Catholic writers who theorized about the law of nations, among which Ompteda names three in his Literatur des gesamten natürlichen und positiven Völkerrechts. They were Johann Sigismund Stapf of the Uni- versity of Freiburg who authored Ius naturae et gentium in 1735,1 Johann Adam Ickstatt of the University of Würzburg who authored Elementa juris gentium in 1740, and Joseph Franz Lothar Schrodt of the University of Prague who authored Systema iuris gentium in 1780.2 Of these three, Ickstatt’s work was the first comprehensive piece fully devoted to the law of nations. Ickstatt was a university professor, but he also functioned as a court councilor and it seems to us worth sus- pecting that his doctrinal approach reflects the political environment of the small bishopric principality he served. 1. The Life of Ickstatt and the Political Context of Würzburg-Bamberg Johann Adam Ickstatt was born on 6 January 1702; he was the son of a hammerman at Vockenhausen, a village near Eppstein in the terri- tory of the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz. After attending the Gymna- sium at Mainz, Johann Ickstatt studied in Paris (1717–19), served the Imperial army in the Netherlands as a soldier (1719–21) and studied in England (1721–24). He probably returned to Mainz in 1724 and entered the University of Marburg. It is noteworthy that he did not choose to attend a university in the archbishopric of Mainz (Mainz or 1 Johann Sigismund Stapf, Ius naturae et gentium in duos divisum tractatus, quo- rum primus continet ius publicum universale, alter Hugonis Grotii ius belli et pacis explicatum, ex Typographejo Electorali Aulico—Academico Mayeriano, Moguntiae [Mainz], 1735. 2 Ompteda, Literatur, 1785, p. 349. 124 chapter six Erfurt), nor one of the nearby Catholic universities at Trier, Cologne or Würzburg. Instead he went to the Protestant university at Marburg and it was at this same university that Christian Wolff began teaching after his expulsion from the Prussian University of Halle in 1723. Ick- statt became an ardent student of Wolff ’s, with whom he maintained a close relationship until the latter’s death in 1754.3 At Marburg, Ickstatt first obtained a master’s degree in philosophy and then began studying law while teaching philosophy and mathematics.4 In 1727, he moved to Mainz, where career opportunities for Catholic students were better and it is here that he obtained his doctorate in 1730. In Mainz, Ickstatt became acquainted with Anton Heinrich Friedrich von Stadion (1691–1768) who later became Chancellor (Großhofmeis- ter) of the Court of Mainz. Stadion had recommended Ickstatt to his uncle Friedrich Carl von Schönborn,5 who was Prince-Bishop of Würzburg and Bamberg at the time. In 1730, Stadion’s recommenda- tion led to von Schönborn appointing Ickstatt to his newly created position of professor ordinarius in public law and the law of nature and of nations.6 Ickstatt’s new supporter, Friedrich Carl von Schönborn (1674–1746) was not a purely local personality. Prior to being elected to the bishop- ric when his uncle Lothar Franz died in 1729, Friedrich Carl was vice- chancellor, the chief administrative officer of theH oly Roman Empire.7 Even in his role in the small bishopric principality of Würzburg and Bamberg, Schönborn sought to strengthen the Empire; he also sought to secure the existence of his own bishopric among the Empire’s other small political entities.8 In order to strengthen this modest territory, he took mercantile measures9 and pursued further independence from the Roman Church.10 His creation of a chair in public law and the law 3 Fritz Kreh, Leben und Werk des Reichsfreiherrn Johann Adam von Ickstatt (1702– 1776). Ein Beitrag zur Staatsrechtslehre der Aufklärungszeit, Schoningh, Paderborn, 1974, pp. 17–18. 4 Since 1726 Johann Ulrich Cramer was studying at Marburg, who and Ickstatt will become later the two most famous Wolffians. 5 One of grandchildren of the only brother of Johann Philipp von Schönborn, who was one of patrons of Leibniz in his twenties (cf. supra p. 84). 6 Kreh, Leben und Werk, 1974, p. 20. 7 He was the third highest-ranking official of the Holy Roman Empire, only after the Emperor himself and the formal absentee chancellorship of the archbishop of Mainz, who was Schönborn’s own uncle. 8 Kreh, Leben und Werk, 1974, p. 23. 9 Kreh, Leben und Werk, 1974, p. 23. 10 Kreh, Leben und Werk, 1974, p. 25..