Matthias Berlich was The Three Loeck Sisters Nth great uncle, being the uncle of their Nth great grandfather Burchard Berlich. Matthias was also the great uncle of Susanna Berlich who married Georg Adam Struve.
Matthias was born in 1586. He married Christina, the daughter of the Leipzig publisher and bookseller Henning Grosse. They had a son Friedrich (1591–1651) who continued the Berlich tradition of writing books on the law (see below).
Matthias studied law in Jena, later under Hermann Vultejus in Marburg, and received his doctorate from there in 1610. In 1611 he became a resident of Leipzig and over time he became a famous lawyer and consultant. He was instrumental in writing a commentary on The Electoral Constitutions which was a piece of legislation that was unique in the history of German legislation, being laid down by the Saxon Constitution of 1572. It is not a codification in the traditional sense, but an anthology of legal cases decided upon by the legislature, i.e. a kind of German “case law”. This shows the tremendous dominance of forensic jurisprudence in Saxony.
Matthias wrote the first complete commentary on the Electoral Saxon Constitutions and along with Benedict Carpzov, set a standard against which it can be regarded as the determining legal doctrine in northern and central Germany. Especially in the combination of theory and practice, Saxon jurisprudence largely obscured Italian influences, thereby initiating an independent German jurisprudence. This was especially true for German criminal and litigation law. CASE-LAW (decision-making) in Saxony.
Matthias gave both public / private lectures in the law. His knowledge and erudition in the legal literature were well known according to contemporary reports. He had his greatest impact through his book the Conclusiones practicabiles – Pars prima Conclusionum practicabilium, Secundum Ordinem Constitutionum Divi Augusti, Electoris Saxoniae, discussarum, omnibus, in Academiis, Camera Imperialis, aliisq. Judiciis. practicabiles etc. (5 volumes, Leipzig 1615-1619, and later reprinted at least 11 times, the last being in 1739). The illustrations were provided by Matthias’ in law Henning Grosse.
Below, Decisiones Aureae Casus Admodum Pulchros, Controversos Et Utiles Continentes Usu Practico, & quotidiana experientia observatae, & conscriptae … [1625]
When Mathias Berlich died in 1638 a funeral book was published under the title: Leichpredigt Uber Das Sprüchlein S. Pauli Phil. 1. v. 23. Ich habe Lust abzuscheiden und bey Christo zu seyn … Matthiae Berlich [1639] with a contribution by Abraham Teller (Right).
Christina (Grosse) Berlich died in 1654 and a funeral book was published to mark the occasion — Trauer-Schrifften Als Die … Frau Christina Gebohrne Grosin Des Weyland Edelen … Hrn. Matthias Berlichs. The title states that Christina died on 13th November and was buried on 16th.
When Matthias’s brother in law Gottfried Grosse died in 1637, Matthias and his son Friedrich Berlich made verse contributions to the funeral book: Leichenpredigt Von dem Tod der Gerechten : Uber das Sprüchlein Esa. am 56. … Bey Christlicher Leichbestattung Des … Herrn Gottfried Grossen Des Raths und vornehmen Buchhändlers allhie Welcher Anno 1637. den 19. Augusti seliglich in Christo verschieden: und den 21. Dito mit Christlichen Ceremonien in sein Ruhebettlein beygesetzet worden … The book also included a verse contribution by Adam Teller.
Matthias and Christina (Grosse) Berlich had a son, also named Matthias, who in 1648 married Magdalena Laube and a wedding book was published: Denen beyden Lob- und Liebwürdigen Hochzeitern … They do not appear to have had children.
Matthias (Jnr.) died in 1654 and two years later his widow went on to marry Peter Kirtsenmacher. For that occasion, at least two wedding books were published; one with the title: Hochzeitliches Ehren-Gedicht Als Dem … Hn. M. Petro Kistenmacher … Diacono der Kirchen zu Torgau Die … Fr. Magdalena Gebohrne Laubin … and the other with the title: Collegii Homiletici Maioris Epithalamion In Nuptias … Dn. M. Petri Kistenmachers … [Wedding poem to Peter Kistenmacher, pastor in Torgau, and Magdalena Laubin, widow of Berlich, ∞ May 25, 1658]
In 1676 Magdalena (Laub) (Berlich) Kistenmacher died and an eighty-eight-page funeral book was published: Frommer Christen Bereitwilligkeit zum Sterben und Glückseligkeit im Sterben so dem Preiß-würdigen Exempel Der … Magdalenen gebohrner Laubin Des … Petri Kistenmachers …
Given that Matthias Berlich had married Henning Grosse’s daughter, it might behove us to add here some of Grosse’s illustrations from Theatri Machinarum … Theill. 4 Darinnen allerhand schöne Machinae, als Schraube http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/n-80b-4f-helmst-2s/start.htm
ANNA CHRISTINA BERLICH (1612 – 1669)
Anna Christina was the daughter of Matthias and Christina (Grosse) Berlich and thus was Susannah (Berlich) Struve’s cousin. On 17th January, 1632 she married Johannes Michaelis / Johann Michael. Johannes Michaelis was born on 1st October 1606 in Soest.
To mark the occasion of the Michaelis-Berlich marriage, several wedding books were published including: Votivae Voces Nuptiis auspicatißimis, Dn. Johannis Michaelis … Et Virginis Primariae Annae Christinae … Viri, Dn. Matthiae Berlichii … (left) [Wedding poems on Johann Michaelis, Doctor of Medicine and Philosophy, and Anna Christina Berlich] and Paull Flemmings Ode auff des Hochgelarten Herrn Johann Michelsens der Artzney Doctorn Und der vieltugendreichen Jungfrawen Annen Christinen Berlich … (right).
Hailing from a wealthy patrician family, Michaelis gained his first education from private tutors and at the Lutheran Soest Archigymnasium. After studying at the University of Rostock and the University of Leiden, he worked in 1630 at the University of Wittenberg with Daniel Sennert on medical studies. That same year he moved to the University of Leipzig, where in 1630 he obtained his Masters and in 1631 a doctorate of medicine.
Soon he was associate professor at the medical school and full professor in 1633. Michaelis also participated in the administration of Leipzig University. He was decemvir University, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Rector of the Alma Mater across a number of years. Michaelis is remembered mostly for his introduction of chemistry as an academic subject at the medical school, and he even developed various formulations for different drugs, and was widely respected as a physician.
In 1641 he was appointed as a personal physician of Duke Friedrich Wilhelm II of Sachsen-Altenburg and in 1662 as physician to the Saxon Elector Johann Georg II.. He died on 29 November 1667 at Leipzig.
Johannes Michaelis and Anna Christina had one daughter Johanna Christina Michaelis who married Eberhard Schlaff (below).
Johanna Sophia Schlaff
Eberhard and Johanna Christina (Michaelis) Schlaff, had a daughter Johanna Sophia Schlaff (b. 1669) who married on 19th October 1686 Johann Friedrich Ortlob.
He was the son of the theologian Carl Ortlob. He received his early education at the school in Oels, at the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium and at the Elisabet-Gymnasium in Breslau. Ortlob began studying medicine for a year at the University of Frankfurt under Bernhard Friedrich Albinus and continued for three years at the University of Leipzig under Johannes Bohn, where in September 1684 he received the doctorate. After traveling to Holland, England and France, he returned to Leipzig in 1686 and married in the same year Johanna Sophia Schlaff, with whom he had four sons and four daughters.
At the University of Leipzig, he gave lectures on anatomy and physiology and was appointed in 1699 Electoral Saxon personal physician and on June 3, 1700 a member of the Leopoldina. On a business trip in November 1700 in Dresden, he fell so ill that he died on the morning of December 12 in Leipzig and was buried there on 16 December. His brother was the pedagogue Johann Christoph Ortlob and his uncle of the Wroclaw city physic Friedrich Ortlob.
FRIEDRICH BERLICH (1624 – 1655)
Friedrich was the son of Matthias and Christina (Grosse) Berlich, who continued the family tradition of writing books on the law with a philosophical bent.
He married Maria Sophia Zabel who was the daughter of Johann Zabel (1585 – 1638), the mayor of Leipzig. After Friedrich died, Maria Sophia married Heinrich Mühlpfort (1639 – 1681) in Leipzig on 17th May 1669. There are nine funeral sermons in Friedrich’s honour.
Below, some of Friedrich’s many contributions to legal thought:
Below Friedrich’s funeral book published in 1656 (Sterbender Christen Angst und Anfechtung, Gebet und Anruffung, Trost und Auffrichtung) stating that he was a doctor of philosophy and that he had died at the age of 32. It’s interesting to note that the priest who carried out the funeral service for Friedrich – Johann Hulsemann (1602 – 1661) — was connected by marriage to the Happe family in that his eponymously named grandson, i.e., Johann Hulsemann, married Magdalena Sophia Meinhardt whose mother was Magdalena Sophia Happe who was the sister of the Loeck sister’s Nth grandmother Anna Dorothea Happe.
Friedrich and Maria Sophia (Zabel) Berlich had one daughter, Christina Sophia, who was born on 2nd September 1654 in Leipzig. She married Albrecht Walther on 26th February 1682. No children have been traced.
Heinrich Mühlpfort married Maria Sophia (Zabel) Berlich, the widow of our cousin Friedrich Berlich.
