Samuel von Pufendorf

Timeline

1. 1632–1661Leiden · NetherlandsBorn into a Lutheran pastor's family and enduring the hardships of the Thirty Years' War, he studied at Jena, Leiden, and other universities. In 1658 he became court historian at Heidelberg; in 1660 he published Elements of Universal Jurisprudence in Leiden, dedicating it to Elector Karl Ludwig of the Palatinate, which led to an invitation to a Heidelberg chair.
2. 1661–1668Heidelberg · Baden-WürttembergIn 1661 he took up the first chair of natural and international law in the German lands, teaching in the faculty of philosophy rather than law. He continually revised his system of natural law during this period and married a colleague's widow in 1665. In 1667, writing under the pseudonym Severinus de Monzambano of Verona, he published The Present State of the German Empire in Geneva, describing the empire as a 'monstrous polity' and attacking the Habsburgs and the ecclesiastical princes, provoking an uproar in imperial scholarship; he left Heidelberg in 1668 after criticizing the stamp tax on official documents and failing to obtain a professorship of law.
3. 1668–1670Lund · SwedenInvited by King Charles XI of Sweden in 1668 to teach at Lund University, he formally took up the post in 1670. During this period he continued to perfect his system of natural law, making the final preparations for Eight Books of Natural and International Law, published in 1672, which became a foundational work of modern university education in natural law.
4. 1670–1694Berlin · BrandenburgFrom 1677 he served as royal historiographer of Sweden, writing the history of the Swedish kingdom; in 1688 he was invited to become court historiographer to the Great Elector of Brandenburg, and died in Berlin in 1694. His theory of natural law and his critique of the imperial constitution profoundly influenced modern European political thought and legal education.