Lecture by Martin Klöker in Wittenberg on education and literature in noble and scholarly families

From 27 to 29 June 2024, the research conference Universität und Familie – Gelehrtenfamilien, Stipendienwesen, Berufungspolitik und soziale Praktiken an Universitäten im Alten Reich (16.–18. Jahrhundert) (University and Family – Scholarly Families, Grant Systems, Appointment Policy and Social Practices at Universities in the Old Empire (16th–18th Centuries)) took place at the Leucorea Foundation in Wittenberg.

In his lecture Transitions. Ennobled and Noble Scholarly Families in Funeral Sermons and Casual Literature of the Early Modern Period in the Baltic Countries, the project member Martin Klöker used three examples (the Polus, von Lohn and von Wangersen/Wangersheim families) to demonstrate the importance of subsequent generations for the establishment of nobles and ennobled people in the bourgeois-urban or rural-aristocratic milieu. A transitional area can clearly be seen in which scholarly, noble and bourgeois characteristics mix, so that a clear class-based classification is hardly possible. These transitions are equally visible in literature due to its close ties with scholarship.