The directory «Plots»

Spee von Langenfeld Friedrich
(1591—1635)

Spee was born February 25, 1591, in what is today Düsseldorf, and at age nineteen entered the Society of Jesus at Trier. After ordination he did pastoral work in Peine and taught philosophy and moral theology at the Jesuit colleges in Paderborn, Cologne, and Trier. He condemned intolerance, torture, the persecution of witches and the witchcraft trials of his day in his Cautio Criminalis, and suffered in turn because of it. His career was spent amid the Thirty Years War, and it was ministering to plague-ridden prisoners of war and the wounded that he himself fell ill and died. Two volumes of his poetry also survived him as well as spiritual songs and hymns, some available on CD today. The stamp alludes to his music as well as his Cautio Criminalis.

German Federal Republic, 1991, Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld

German Federal Republic, 1991.02.14, Bonn. Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld