Christian Charles Josias Bunsen
Encyclopedia
Christian Charles Josias, Baron von Bunsen (25 August 1791, Korbach
, Waldeck
– 28 November 1860) was a German
diplomat
and scholar.
, an old town in the little German
principality of Waldeck.
His father was a farmer who was driven by poverty to become a soldier. Having studied at the Korbach Grammar school and Marburg University, Bunsen went in his nineteenth year to Göttingen, where he supported himself by teaching and later by acting as tutor to William Backhouse Astor
, John Jacob's son. He won the university prize essay of the year 1812 by a treatise on the Athenian Law of Inheritance, and a few months later the University of Jena granted him the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy.
races. He had read Hebrew
when a boy, and now worked at Arabic
at Munich, Persian at Leiden, and Norse at Copenhagen
. At the close of 1815 he went to Berlin
, to show Niebuhr
the plan of research which he had mapped out. Niebuhr was so impressed with Bunsen's ability that, two years later, when he became Prussian envoy to the papal court, he made the young scholar his secretary. The intervening years Bunsen spent in assiduous labour among the libraries and collections of Paris and Florence
. In July 1817 he married Frances Waddington
, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Benjamin Waddington of Llanover
, Monmouthshire
.
As secretary to Niebuhr, Bunsen was brought into contact with the Vatican
movement for the establishment of the papal church in the Prussia
n dominions, to provide for the largely increased Catholic population. He was among the first to realize the importance of this new vitality on the part of the Vatican, and he made it his duty to provide against its possible dangers by urging upon the Prussian court the wisdom of fair and impartial treatment of its Catholic subjects. In this object he was at first successful, and both from the Vatican and from Frederick William III, who put him in charge of the legation on Niebuhr's resignation, he received unqualified approbation.
Owing partly to the wise statesmanship of Count Spiegel
, archbishop of Cologne, an arrangement was made by which the thorny question of "mixed" marriages (i.e., between Catholic and Protestant
) would have been happily solved; but the archbishop died in 1835, the arrangement was never ratified, and the Prussian king was foolish enough to appoint as Spiegel's successor the narrow-minded partisan Baron Droste
. The pope gladly accepted the appointment, and in two years the forward policy of the Jesuits had brought about the strife which Bunsen and Spiegel had tried to prevent. Bunsen rashly recommended that Droste should be seized, but the coup was so clumsily attempted, that the incriminating documents were, it is said, destroyed in advance. The government, in this impasse, took the safest course, refused to support Bunsen, and accepted his resignation in April 1838.
, where he had become intimate with all that was most interesting in the cosmopolitan society of the papal capital, Bunsen went to England, where, except for a short term as Prussian ambassador to Switzerland
(1839–1841), he was destined to pass the rest of his official life. The accession to the throne of Prussia of Frederick William IV, on 7 June 1840, made a great change in Bunsen's career. Ever since their first meeting in 1828 the two men had been close friends and had exchanged ideas in an intimate correspondence, published under Ranke
's editorship in 1873. Enthusiasm for evangelical religion and admiration for the Anglican Church they held in common, and Bunsen was the instrument naturally selected for realizing the king's fantastic scheme of setting up at Jerusalem a Prusso-Anglican bishopric
as a sort of advertisement of the unity and aggressive force of Protestantism.
The special mission of Bunsen to England, from June to November 1841, was completely successful, in spite of the opposition of English high church
men and Lutheran extremists
. The Jerusalem bishopric, with the consent of the British government and the active encouragement of the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, was duly established, endowed with Prussian and English money, and remained for some forty years an isolated symbol of Protestant unity and a rock of stumbling to Anglican Catholics
.
During his stay in England Bunsen had made himself very popular among all classes of society, and he was selected by Queen Victoria
, out of three names proposed by the king of Prussia, as ambassador to the Court of St. James's
. In this post he remained for thirteen years. His tenure of the office coincided with the critical period in Prussian and European affairs which culminated in the revolutions of 1848. With the visionary schemes of Frederick William, whether that of setting up a strict episcopal organization in the Evangelical Church in Prussia, or that of reviving the defunct ideal of the medieval Empire, Bunsen found himself increasingly out of sympathy. He realized the significance of the signs that heralded the coming storm, and tried in vain to move the king to a policy which would have placed him at the head of a Germany united and free. He felt bitterly the humiliation of Prussia by Austria
after the victory of the reaction; and in 1852 he set his signature reluctantly to the treaty which, in his view, surrendered the "constitutional rights of Schleswig
and Holstein
". His whole influence was now directed to withdrawing Prussia from the blighting influence of Austria and Russia, and attempting to draw closer the ties that bound her to Britain. On the outbreak of the Crimean War
he urged Frederick William to throw in his lot with the western powers, and create a diversion in the north-east which would have forced Russia at once to terms. The rejection of his advice, and the proclamation of Prussia's attitude of "benevolent neutrality", led him in April 1854 to offer his resignation, which was accepted.
; and one of the last papers signed by Frederick William, before his mind gave way in October, was that which conferred upon him the title of baron and a peerage for life. In 1858, at the special request of the regent (afterwards the emperor) William, he took his seat in the Prussian House of Lords
, and, though remaining silent, supported the new ministry, of which his political and personal friends were members.
He now concentrated all his efforts upon a translation of the Bible
with commentaries. While this was in preparation he published his God in History, in which he contends that the progress of mankind marches parallel to the conception of God formed within each nation by the highest exponents of its thought. At the same time he carried through the press, assisted by Samuel Birch, the concluding volumes of his work (published in English as well as in German) Egypt's Place in Universal History--containing a reconstruction of Egyptian chronology, together with an attempt to determine the relation in which the language and the religion of that country stand to the development of each among the more ancient non-Aryan and Aryan
races. His ideas on this subject were most fully developed in two volumes published in London before he left England--Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History as applied to Language and Religion (2 vols., 1854).
in 1858 and 1859 brought no improvement, and he died on 28 November 1860. One of his last requests having been that his wife would write down recollections of their common life, she published his Memoirs in 1868, which contain much of his private correspondence. The German translation of these Memoirs has added extracts from unpublished documents, throwing a new light upon the political events in which he played a part. Baron Humboldt
's letters to Bunsen were printed in 1869.
Bunsen's English connection, both through his wife (d. 1876) and through his own long residence in London, was further increased in his family. He had ten children, including five sons, Henry (1818–1855), Ernest (1819–1903), Karl (1821–1887), Georg (1824–1896) and Theodor (1832–1892). Of these Karl (Charles) and Theodor had careers in the German diplomatic service; and Georg, who for some time was an active politician in Germany, eventually retired to live in London; Henry, who was an English clergyman, became a naturalized Englishman, and Ernest, who in 1845 married an Englishwoman, Miss Gurney, subsequently resided and died in London. The form of "de Bunsen" was adopted for the surname in England. Ernest de Bunsen was a scholarly writer, who published various works both in German and in English, notably on Biblical chronology and other questions of comparative religion. His son, Sir Maurice de Bunsen (b. 1852), entered the English diplomatic service in 1877; and after a varied experience became minister at Lisbon
, and was Ambassador to Vienna at the outbreak of the First World War.
Korbach
Korbach is the district seat of Waldeck-Frankenberg in northern Hesse, Germany. It is over a thousand years old and a former Hanseatic town. It is located on the German Framework Road.- Geography and geology :...
, Waldeck
Waldeck (state)
Waldeck was a sovereign principality in the German Empire and German Confederation and, until 1929, a constituent state of the Weimar Republic. It comprised territories in present-day Hesse and Lower Saxony, ....
– 28 November 1860) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
and scholar.
Early life and education
Bunsen was born at KorbachKorbach
Korbach is the district seat of Waldeck-Frankenberg in northern Hesse, Germany. It is over a thousand years old and a former Hanseatic town. It is located on the German Framework Road.- Geography and geology :...
, an old town in the little German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
principality of Waldeck.
His father was a farmer who was driven by poverty to become a soldier. Having studied at the Korbach Grammar school and Marburg University, Bunsen went in his nineteenth year to Göttingen, where he supported himself by teaching and later by acting as tutor to William Backhouse Astor
William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
William Backhouse Astor, Sr. was an American businessman and member of the Astor family.-Origins and schooling:...
, John Jacob's son. He won the university prize essay of the year 1812 by a treatise on the Athenian Law of Inheritance, and a few months later the University of Jena granted him the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy.
Young scholar, Niebuhr's secretary and successor in Rome
During 1813 he travelled with Astor in South Germany, and then turned to the study of the religion, laws, language, and literature of the TeutonicTeutons
The Teutons or Teutones were mentioned as a Germanic tribe by Greek and Roman authors, notably Strabo and Marcus Velleius Paterculus and normally in close connection with the Cimbri, whose ethnicity is contested between Gauls and Germani...
races. He had read Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
when a boy, and now worked at Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
at Munich, Persian at Leiden, and Norse at Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
. At the close of 1815 he went to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, to show Niebuhr
Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Barthold Georg Niebuhr was a Danish-German statesman and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. Classical Rome caught the admiration of German thinkers...
the plan of research which he had mapped out. Niebuhr was so impressed with Bunsen's ability that, two years later, when he became Prussian envoy to the papal court, he made the young scholar his secretary. The intervening years Bunsen spent in assiduous labour among the libraries and collections of Paris and Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. In July 1817 he married Frances Waddington
Frances Bunsen
Frances Bunsen , or Baroness Bunsen, was a Welsh painter and author, the wife of Christian Charles Josias Bunsen and the older sister of Lady Llanover....
, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Benjamin Waddington of Llanover
Llanover
- Location :Llanover is located four miles south of Abergavenny just off the A4042 road to Pontypool.- History & Amenities :Llanover is associated with Lady Llanover who lived locally all her life and certainly left her mark on the village and the surrounding Llanover estate, still privately owned...
, Monmouthshire
Monmouthshire (historic)
Monmouthshire , also known as the County of Monmouth , is one of thirteen ancient counties of Wales and a former administrative county....
.
As secretary to Niebuhr, Bunsen was brought into contact with the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
movement for the establishment of the papal church in the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n dominions, to provide for the largely increased Catholic population. He was among the first to realize the importance of this new vitality on the part of the Vatican, and he made it his duty to provide against its possible dangers by urging upon the Prussian court the wisdom of fair and impartial treatment of its Catholic subjects. In this object he was at first successful, and both from the Vatican and from Frederick William III, who put him in charge of the legation on Niebuhr's resignation, he received unqualified approbation.
Owing partly to the wise statesmanship of Count Spiegel
Ferdinand August von Spiegel
Count Ferdinand August von Spiegel zum Desenberg und Canstein, was Archbishop of Cologne from 1824 until 1835.- Literature :...
, archbishop of Cologne, an arrangement was made by which the thorny question of "mixed" marriages (i.e., between Catholic and Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
) would have been happily solved; but the archbishop died in 1835, the arrangement was never ratified, and the Prussian king was foolish enough to appoint as Spiegel's successor the narrow-minded partisan Baron Droste
Clemens August von Droste-Vischering
Baron Clemens August von Droste-Vischering, German Clemens August Freiherr von Droste-Vischering was an Archbishop of Cologne.-Biography:...
. The pope gladly accepted the appointment, and in two years the forward policy of the Jesuits had brought about the strife which Bunsen and Spiegel had tried to prevent. Bunsen rashly recommended that Droste should be seized, but the coup was so clumsily attempted, that the incriminating documents were, it is said, destroyed in advance. The government, in this impasse, took the safest course, refused to support Bunsen, and accepted his resignation in April 1838.
Via Switzerland to England, ambassador
After leaving RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, where he had become intimate with all that was most interesting in the cosmopolitan society of the papal capital, Bunsen went to England, where, except for a short term as Prussian ambassador to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
(1839–1841), he was destined to pass the rest of his official life. The accession to the throne of Prussia of Frederick William IV, on 7 June 1840, made a great change in Bunsen's career. Ever since their first meeting in 1828 the two men had been close friends and had exchanged ideas in an intimate correspondence, published under Ranke
Leopold von Ranke
Leopold von Ranke was a German historian, considered one of the founders of modern source-based history. Ranke set the standards for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources , an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics .-...
's editorship in 1873. Enthusiasm for evangelical religion and admiration for the Anglican Church they held in common, and Bunsen was the instrument naturally selected for realizing the king's fantastic scheme of setting up at Jerusalem a Prusso-Anglican bishopric
Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem
The Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem was an episcopal see founded in Jerusalem in the nineteenth century by joint agreement of the Anglican Church of England and the united Evangelical Church in Prussia.-Background:...
as a sort of advertisement of the unity and aggressive force of Protestantism.
The special mission of Bunsen to England, from June to November 1841, was completely successful, in spite of the opposition of English high church
High church
The term "High Church" refers to beliefs and practices of ecclesiology, liturgy and theology, generally with an emphasis on formality, and resistance to "modernization." Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term has traditionally been principally associated with the...
men and Lutheran extremists
Neo-Lutheranism
Neo-Lutheranism was a 19th century revival movement within Lutheranism which began with the Pietist driven Erweckung, or Awakening, and developed in reaction against theological rationalism and pietism...
. The Jerusalem bishopric, with the consent of the British government and the active encouragement of the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, was duly established, endowed with Prussian and English money, and remained for some forty years an isolated symbol of Protestant unity and a rock of stumbling to Anglican Catholics
Anglo-Catholicism
The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches....
.
During his stay in England Bunsen had made himself very popular among all classes of society, and he was selected by Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
, out of three names proposed by the king of Prussia, as ambassador to the Court of St. James's
Court of St. James's
The Court of St James's is the royal court of the United Kingdom. It previously had the same function in the Kingdom of England and in the Kingdom of Great Britain .-Overview:...
. In this post he remained for thirteen years. His tenure of the office coincided with the critical period in Prussian and European affairs which culminated in the revolutions of 1848. With the visionary schemes of Frederick William, whether that of setting up a strict episcopal organization in the Evangelical Church in Prussia, or that of reviving the defunct ideal of the medieval Empire, Bunsen found himself increasingly out of sympathy. He realized the significance of the signs that heralded the coming storm, and tried in vain to move the king to a policy which would have placed him at the head of a Germany united and free. He felt bitterly the humiliation of Prussia by Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
after the victory of the reaction; and in 1852 he set his signature reluctantly to the treaty which, in his view, surrendered the "constitutional rights of Schleswig
Schleswig
Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...
and Holstein
Holstein
Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....
". His whole influence was now directed to withdrawing Prussia from the blighting influence of Austria and Russia, and attempting to draw closer the ties that bound her to Britain. On the outbreak of the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
he urged Frederick William to throw in his lot with the western powers, and create a diversion in the north-east which would have forced Russia at once to terms. The rejection of his advice, and the proclamation of Prussia's attitude of "benevolent neutrality", led him in April 1854 to offer his resignation, which was accepted.
Retirement in Heidelberg and Bonn, baron title, MP
Bunsen's life as a public man was now practically at an end. He retired first to a villa on the Neckar near Heidelberg and later to Bonn. He refused to stand for a seat, in the Liberal interest, in the Lower House of the Prussian diet, but continued to take an active interest in politics, and in 1855 published in two volumes a work, Die Zeichen der Zeit: Briefe, etc., which exercised an immense influence in reviving the Liberal movement which the failure of the revolution had crushed. In September 1857 Bunsen attended, as the king's guest, a meeting of the Evangelical Alliance at BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
; and one of the last papers signed by Frederick William, before his mind gave way in October, was that which conferred upon him the title of baron and a peerage for life. In 1858, at the special request of the regent (afterwards the emperor) William, he took his seat in the Prussian House of Lords
Prussian House of Lords
The Prussian House of Lords was the first chamber of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1850-1918. The second chamber was the Prussian House of Representatives . The House of Lords was created on January 31, 1850 with the adoption of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Prussia...
, and, though remaining silent, supported the new ministry, of which his political and personal friends were members.
Late literary work
Literary work was, however, his main preoccupation during all this period. Two discoveries of ancient manuscripts made duririg his stay in London, the one containing a shorter text of the Epistles of St Ignatius, and the other an unknown work On All the Heresies, by Bishop Hippolytus, had already led him to write his Hippolytus and his Age: Doctrine and Practice of Rome under Commodus and Severus (1852).He now concentrated all his efforts upon a translation of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
with commentaries. While this was in preparation he published his God in History, in which he contends that the progress of mankind marches parallel to the conception of God formed within each nation by the highest exponents of its thought. At the same time he carried through the press, assisted by Samuel Birch, the concluding volumes of his work (published in English as well as in German) Egypt's Place in Universal History--containing a reconstruction of Egyptian chronology, together with an attempt to determine the relation in which the language and the religion of that country stand to the development of each among the more ancient non-Aryan and Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
races. His ideas on this subject were most fully developed in two volumes published in London before he left England--Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History as applied to Language and Religion (2 vols., 1854).
Illness and death, legacy
In 1858 Bunsen's health began to fail; visits to CannesCannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
in 1858 and 1859 brought no improvement, and he died on 28 November 1860. One of his last requests having been that his wife would write down recollections of their common life, she published his Memoirs in 1868, which contain much of his private correspondence. The German translation of these Memoirs has added extracts from unpublished documents, throwing a new light upon the political events in which he played a part. Baron Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
's letters to Bunsen were printed in 1869.
Bunsen's English connection, both through his wife (d. 1876) and through his own long residence in London, was further increased in his family. He had ten children, including five sons, Henry (1818–1855), Ernest (1819–1903), Karl (1821–1887), Georg (1824–1896) and Theodor (1832–1892). Of these Karl (Charles) and Theodor had careers in the German diplomatic service; and Georg, who for some time was an active politician in Germany, eventually retired to live in London; Henry, who was an English clergyman, became a naturalized Englishman, and Ernest, who in 1845 married an Englishwoman, Miss Gurney, subsequently resided and died in London. The form of "de Bunsen" was adopted for the surname in England. Ernest de Bunsen was a scholarly writer, who published various works both in German and in English, notably on Biblical chronology and other questions of comparative religion. His son, Sir Maurice de Bunsen (b. 1852), entered the English diplomatic service in 1877; and after a varied experience became minister at Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, and was Ambassador to Vienna at the outbreak of the First World War.