who was at that time a court preacher in Dresden, he returned to Leipzig in the spring of 1689, and began to give Bible lectures of an exegetical and practical kind, at the same time resuming the Collegium Philobiblicum of earlier days. He soon became popular as a lecturer; but the peculiarities of his teaching almost immediately aroused a violent opposition on the part of the university authorities; and before the end of the year he was interdicted from lecturing on the ground of his alleged pietism. Thus it was that Francke’s name first came to be publicly associated with that of Spener, and with pietism. Prohibited from lecturing in Leipzig, Francke in 1690 found work at Erfurt as “deacon” of one of the city churches. Here his evangelistic fervour attracted multitudes to his preaching, including Roman Catholics, but at the same time excited the anger of his opponents; and the result of their opposition was that after a ministry of fifteen months he was commanded by the civil authorities (27th of September 1691) to leave Erfurt within forty-eight hours. The same year witnessed the expulsion of Spener from Dresden.
In December, through Spener’s influence, Francke accepted an invitation to fill the chair of Greek and oriental languages in the new university of Halle, which was at that time being organized by the elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg; and at the same time, the chair having no salary attached to it, he was appointed pastor of Glaucha in the immediate neighbourhood of the town. He afterwards became professor of theology. Here, for the next thirty-six years, until his death on the 8th of June 1727, he continued to discharge the twofold office of pastor and professor with rare energy and success. At the very outset of his labours he had been profoundly impressed with a sense of his responsibility towards the numerous outcast children who were growing up around him in ignorance and crime. After a number of tentative plans, he resolved in 1695 to institute what is often called a “ragged school,” supported by public charity. A single room was at first sufficient, but within a year it was found necessary to purchase a house, to which another was added in 1697. In 1698 there were 100 orphans under his charge to be clothed and fed, besides 500 children who were taught as day scholars. The schools grew in importance and are still known as the Francke’sche Stiftungen. The education given was strictly religious. Hebrew was included, while the Greek and Latin classics were neglected; the Homilies of Macarius took the place of Thucydides. The same principle was consistently applied in his university teaching. Even as professor of Greek he had given great prominence in his lectures to the study of the Scriptures; but he found a much more congenial sphere when, in 1698, he was appointed to the chair of theology. Yet his first courses of lectures in that department were readings and expositions of the Old and New Testament; and to this, as also to hermeneutics, he always attached special importance, believing that for theology a sound exegesis was the one indispensable requisite. “Theologus nascitur in scripturis,” he used to say; but during his occupancy of the theological chair he lectured at various times upon other branches of theology also. Amongst his colleagues were Paul Anton (1661–1730), Joachim J. Breithaupt (1658–1732) and Joachim Lange (1670–1744),—men like-minded with himself. Through their influence upon the students, Halle became a centre from which pietism (q.v.) became very widely diffused over Germany.
His principal contributions to theological literature were: Manuductio ad lectionem Scripturae Sacrae (1693); Praelectiones hermeneuticae (1717); Commentatio de scopo librorum Veteris et Novi Testamenti (1724); and Lectiones paraeneticae (1726–1736). The Manuductio was translated into English in 1813, under the title A Guide to the Reading and Study of the Holy Scriptures. An account of his orphanage, entitled Segensvolle Fussstapfen, &c. (1709), which subsequently passed through several editions, has also been partially translated, under the title The Footsteps of Divine Providence: or, The bountiful Hand of Heaven defraying the Expenses of Faith. See H. E. F. Guericke’s A. H. Francke (1827), which has been translated into English (The Life of A. H. Francke, 1837); Gustave Kramer’s Beiträge zur Geschichte A. H. Francke’s (1861), and Neue Beiträge (1875); A. Stein, A. H. Francke (3rd ed., 1894); article in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (ed. 1899); Knuth, Die Francke’schen Stiftungen (2nd ed., 1903).
FRANCKEN. Eleven painters of this family cultivated their art in Antwerp during the 16th and 17th centuries. Several
of these were related to each other, whilst many bore the same
Christian name in succession. Hence unavoidable confusion in
the subsequent classification of paintings not widely differing
in style or execution. When Franz Francken the first found a
rival in Franz Francken the second, he described himself as the
“elder,” in contradistinction to his son, who signed himself
the “younger.” But when Franz the second was threatened
with competition from Franz the third, he took the name of
“the elder,” whilst Franz the third adopted that of Franz “the
younger.”
It is possible, though not by any means easy, to sift the works of these artists. The eldest of the Franckens, Nicholas of Herenthals, died at Antwerp in 1596, with nothing but the reputation of having been a painter. None of his works remain. He bequeathed his art to three children. Jerom Francken, the eldest son, after leaving his father’s house, studied under Franz Floris, whom he afterwards served as an assistant, and wandered, about 1560, to Paris. In 1566 he was one of the masters employed to decorate the palace of Fontainebleau, and in 1574 he obtained the appointment of court painter from Henry III., who had just returned from Poland and visited Titian at Venice. In 1603, when Van Mander wrote his biography of Flemish artists, Jerom Francken was still in Paris living in the then aristocratic Faubourg St Germain. Among his earliest works we should distinguish a “Nativity” in the Dresden museum, executed in co-operation with Franz Floris. Another of his important pieces is the “Abdication of Charles V.” in the Amsterdam museum. Equally interesting is a “Portrait of a Falconer,” dated 1558, in the Brunswick gallery. In style these pieces all recall Franz Floris. Franz, the second son of Nicholas of Herenthals, is to be kept in memory as Franz Francken the first. He was born about 1544, matriculated at Antwerp in 1567, and died there in 1616. He, too, studied under Floris, and never settled abroad, or lost the hard and gaudy style which he inherited from his master. Several of his pictures are in the museum of Antwerp; one dated 1597 in the Dresden museum represents “Christ on the Road to Golgotha,” and is signed by him as D. õ (Den ouden) F. Franck. Ambrose, the third son of Nicholas of Herenthals, has bequeathed to us more specimens of his skill than Jerom or Franz the first. He first started as a partner with Jerom at Fontainebleau, then he returned to Antwerp, where he passed for his gild in 1573, and he lived at Antwerp till 1618. His best works are the “Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” and the “Martyrdom of St Crispin,” both large and ambitious compositions in the Antwerp museum. In both these pieces a fair amount of power is displayed, but marred by want of atmosphere and shadow or by hardness of line and gaudiness of tone. There is not a trace in the three painters named of the influence of the revival which took place under the lead of Rubens. Franz Francken the first trained three sons to his profession, the eldest of whom, though he practised as a master of gild at Antwerp from 1600 to 1610, left no visible trace of his labours behind. Jerom the second took service with his uncle Ambrose. He was born in 1578, passed for his gild in 1607, and in 1620 produced that curious picture of “Horatius Cocles defending the Sublician Bridge” which still hangs in the Antwerp museum. The third son of Franz Francken the first is Franz Francken the second, who signed himself in pictures till 1616 “the younger,” from 1630 till his death “the elder” F. Francken. These pictures are usually of a small size, and are found in considerable numbers in continental collections. Franz Francken the second was born in 1581. In 1605 he entered the gild, of which he subsequently became the president, and in 1642 he died. His earliest composition is the “Crucifixion” in the Belvedere at Vienna, dated 1606. His latest compositions as “the younger” F. Francken are the “Adoration of the Virgin” (1616) in the gallery of Amsterdam, and the “Woman taken in Adultery” (1628) in Dresden. From 1616 to 1630 many of his pieces are signed F. Francken; then come the “Seven Works of Charity” (1630) at Munich, signed “the elder F. F.,” the “Prodigal Son”
