| Summary: | The present study builds on the greater attention being paid by scholars, usually legal historians, to dissertations defended at German universities up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Helmstedt University has been chosen because the institution as a whole was regarded in its heyday as a jewel in Protestant Germany's educational crown and the Theological Faculty was the senior of the four. A contributory reason for the choice of university and faculty was the wish to complement the work of Kundert on the dissertations defended in Helmstedt's Legal Faculty. Given the ephemeral nature of the material, the lack reliable information on the dissertations in the University's archives and the absence of policy on the part of the University of preserving a copy of each one printed, it is not surprising that the catalogue contains gaps, some of which may never be filled. The catalogue records chronologically the original text of each dissertation and, where appropriate, the details of any reprints. It is supported by six indices, namely praesides, respondents, respondents' place of origin, subjects, writers and recipients of dedications, letters and congratulatory verses, and printers. The rest of the thesis discusses the role of dissertations in German academic life up to ca. 1800 and the unsolved (and probably unsolvable) question of authorship. There follows an examination of certain dissertations defended under (and probably written by) selected professors which seem to characterise most accurately not only the theological standpoint of the writer but also the intellectual development of the Faculty at a particular time. The latter aim is essayed by setting the dissertations against the political and intellectual background of the Guelph territories.
|
|---|
