SAXONY
504
SAXONY
found these parishes. In 1905 the governmental
Department of Magdeburg contained 76,28S Catlio-
lics, that is, 6.25 per cent of the population. The
Reformation of the sixteenth century had its origin
in the present governmental Department of ^lerse-
burg, which includes parts of the old dioceses of
Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Mcrseburg, Xaumburg-
Zeitz, and Brandenburg; in this region all Catholic
life was destroyed. It was not until after the Peace
of Westphalia that small Catholic communities arose,
from the entrance into the district of miners, mer-
chants, pedlars, etc.; these communities grew espe-
cially in the nineteenth century on account of the
development of manufactures. The first Catholic
church service to be held again in this district was
established in 1710 at Halle on the Saale by Fran-
ciscans of the Monastery of St. Andreas at Halber-
stadt; the first parish was also erected at Halle in
1810; the other parishes were founded by the St.
Boniface A.ssociation.
In 1905 the governmental Department of Merse- biu-g contained 47,3S2 Catholics, that is, 4 per cent of the population. The governmental Department of Erfurt is an almost entirely Protestant district in which, during the nineteenth century, scattered Catholics settled near districts which had preserved their faith amid the storms of the Reformation era; these districts are the Eichsfeld and a part of the population of Erfurt and its vicinity. Erfurt was founded in 742 by St. Boniface as the"^ See of Thurin- gia. The first and only bishop, St. Adelar, suffered martyrdom in 755 with St. Boniface, and the terri- tory of the diocese was united with the Archdiocese of Mainz. From the beginning, however, the arch- bi.shops of Mainz had episcopal assistants at Erfurt, who, from early in the fourteenth century, were in reality coadjutor bishops and gradually retained almost the .same position as a diocesan bishop. After the suppre-ssion of the Archdiocese of Mainz (1.S02), the Diocese of Erfurt was assigned to the Diocese of Ratisbon, then in 1S07 to Corbie, and in 1821 to Paderborn. Up to the present day there is still in existence at Erfurt an ecclesiastical board with cer- tain episcopal powers which is called the "Ecclesias- tical Court". Celebrated Catholic churches of Er- furt are: the cathedral that was begun about the middle of the twelfth century upon the spot where had stood a church built by St. Boniface; and the Church of St. Severus, erected in the fourteenth cen- tury. In 1905 the governmental Department of Erfurt contained 107,190 Catholics, that i.s, 21.53 per cent of the population; the number of Catholics steaclily declines, in 1817 it amounted to 29 per cent. Outside of Erfurt and its immediate vicinity, where the Catholics form 12 per cent of the population, the Catholics in the main live together in communities in the Upper Eichsfeld in the three counties of Hei- ligenstadt (91 per cent Catholic), Worbis (77 per cent Catholic), and Mulhausen-Land (43 per cent Cath- olic). The soil of the Upper Eichsfeld is not pro- ductive; it does not offer, therefore, any of the conditions for industrial development, and many of its inhabitants are forced to emigrate. In the De- partment of Erfurt the collegiate founflation of Nord- hausen has also remained Catholic from the early limes; in 1811 it was made into a pari.sh. Aa regards schools, the religious orders, and the other questions concerning the rojations between Church and State, the laws of the Kingdom of Prussia are in force.
Weisse, Genrh. der kurxarMfchen SUiaten (7 vols., Ijoinzii?, 1802-12); ORETHf-HKi^BCi.M-. Ge-rh. de.^ HarhUr.Km Volhrn (^ vols.. 2n') od., I>!ipziK. 180.3-04): BftTTioER-FL^THB. G&tck. del KuntUuiien un4 K/inu/reichn Sachnen f.3 voU., 2n'l nd., Gotha, 1807-7.3); StubnhOfel, Gr.Hch. der n/tchUchen Lande. u. ihrer Hnrncher <2 voli,., Chemnitz, 1808-1909); .Jacobs. Gnich. der in dfT ProHm Sar.hnen vereinigten Gehiele (Gotha, 1884) ; Thbiver, Gfich. der RUrkk'hr der reyieTerulen ffauner von Braunnrhweuj u. Snrhnen in den .S'c/Uoim der knth. Kxrche im IS. Jahrh. (EinHicrloln, 1843); FoBWBBK, Getch. der kath. Hof kxrche zu Dresden nebst
einer kurzen Gesch. der kath. Kxrche in Sachsen (Dresden, 1851);
Machatschek, Gesch. des KOnigrexchs Sachsen (Leipzig, 1861);
Idem, Gesch. der Bxschofe des Hochstiftes Meissen (Dresden, 1884).
Hermann Sacher.
Saxony, Albert of (Albert of Helmstadt), fourteenth-century philosopher; nicknamed Albertus Parvus, Albertutius, and Albertilla by the Italian Scholastics of the Renaissance. In 1351 he passed the first examination {deter minatio) at the Univer- sity of Paris, where he figured as a member of the English Nation. In the same year he was elected procurator of the English Nation; in 1353 rector of the university; in 1361, collector of dues of the English Nation; in 1358 he had been one of the representatives of this Nation in the concordat with the Picard Nation. In 1361 the Enghsh Nation sug- gested him for the suburban parish of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, which depended on the university. In 1368 he still belonged to the faculty of arts at the Univer- sity of Paris, where he compiled his questions on Aris- totle's " De (Dajlo et Mundo". Owing to their common surname of Albert of Saxony, Albert of Helmstadt has often been confused with Albert, son of Bernard the Rich, of Ricmerstorp (Diocese of Halberstadt). The latter 's name occurs for the first time in 1362 among the masters of the English Nation at the University of Paris; in 1363 he was rector of the university; in 1365 Rudolf, Duke of Austria, sent him as ambassador to Pope Urban V. In that same year the University of Vienna was founded and through the influence of Rudolf, Albert of Ricmerstorp was elected first rector. He was conseqviently appointed a canon of Hildes- heim and (21 Oct., 1366) Bishop of Halberstadt.
All the works which we possess under the name of Albert of Saxony belong to Albert of Helmstadt. Some were devoted to logic, others to physics. The study of these books is admirably calculated to in- form us on the views current at the University of Paris in the middle of the fourteenth century. The treatises on logic written by Albert of Saxony are de- voted to the detailed and subtle dialectic which at the end of the thirteenth century Petrus llispaiius had introduced into the teaching of the Parisian Scholas- ticism, but they present luntlior the disorder nor the multitude of empty quibbles which about the same time were introduced into the instruction at the Uni- versity of Oxford and which became predominant there under the influence of William Heytesbury. Albert of Saxony's treatises on physics consist of a "Tractatus proportionum " and questions on Aris- totle's "physics", "De Coelo", and "De generatione et corruptione". These contain, in a clear, precise, and concise form, an explanation of numerous ideas which exercised great influence on the development of modern science, which ideas, however, were not wholly personal to Albert of Helmstadt, many of the most important of them being derived from his mas- ter, Jean Buridan. He abandoned the old Peripa- tetic dynamics which ascribed the movement of pro- jectiles to disturbed air. With Buridan he jjlaced the cause of this movement in an imjietus put into the projectile by the person who threw it; the i)art he assigned to this impetus is very like that which we now attribute to living force. With Buridan he con- sidered that the heavens were not moved by intelli- gences, but. like projectiles, by the impetus which God gave them when He created them. With Buri- dan he saw in the increase of impetus the reason of the acceleration in the fall of a heavy body. He fur- ther taught that the velocity of a falling weight in- creased in proportion either to the space traversefl from the b(!ginning of the fall or to the time elapsed, but he did not decide between these two.
The equilibrium of the earth and .seas is the subject of a favourite theory of Albert's. The entire terres- trial clement is in equilibrium when its centre of
