The magistrate is a minister of God. To Luther and Melanchthon, this essential tenet was based on the idea that God governs the world through the magistrate. Johann Oldendorp (1488/90-1577), Nikolaus Vigelius (1529-1600) and Hieronymus Treutler (1565-1607), all professors of law at the University of Marburg started from this principle to identify the rights and duties of the political ruler in relation to his subjects.
The excellent monographs by Witte, Berman, Schmoeckel, von Friedeburg, Strohm and others have explored the impact of the Reformation on the law. This paper builds on these researches to explore the extent of the public authority concerning private subjects in the works of Oldendorp, Vigelius and Treutler. It focuses on the meaning of the adjectives ‘public’ and ‘private’, as they were shaped in a legal framework rooted in Lutheran theology.
Relevant sources include Oldendorp’s De Iure et aequitate forensis disputatio (1541); Vigelius’ Institutionum juris publici libri tres (1568); Treutler’s Selectae disputationes ad jus civile Justinianeum quinquaginta libris pandectarum comprehensum (1592).