Ferdinand Walter (born at

Wetzlar Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the un ...

, 30 November 1794; died at

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

, 13 December 1879) was a German jurist, member of the

Prussian National Assembly The Prussian National Assembly () came into being after the revolution of 1848 and was tasked with drawing up a constitution for the Kingdom of Prussia. It first met in the building of the ''Sing-Akademie zu Berlin'' (later the Maxim Gorki Th ...

and professor at the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

Life

After studying at the Latin school of

Mülheim Mülheim, officially Mülheim an der Ruhr (, ; ; ) and also described as ''"City on the River"'', is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr Area between Duisburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Ratingen. It is ho ...

on the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

(1805-9), and later at

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

(1809-13), he fought against

Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

in 1814, as a volunteer in a Russian regiment. In autumn, 1814, he began to study jurisprudence at

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

, where he graduated, 22 November 1817. He remained at Heidelberg as ''

Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...

'' until Easter, 1819, where he was called to the newly founded

. He taught various juristic branches there until 1875, when he resigned on account of blindness. A layman, Walter was a strenuous champion of the rights of the Catholic Church against civil encroachment. He was a member of the

in 1848 and of the First Chamber of Deputies in 1849. In a special pamphlet (1848) he opposed the incorporation into the criminal code of an article allowing the State to deprive the clergy of ecclesiastical rights, and on 4 October 1849, he delivered an oration in defense of ecclesiastical independence in the management of church affairs.

Works

His most famous work is his ''"Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts"'' (Bonn, 1822) anon law textbook The eighth edition was translated into French and Spanish, the ninth into Italian. A fourteenth edition was prepared by Canon Gerlach, one of Walter's disciples (Bonn, 1871). The sources of canon law, which were added as an appendix to the sixth edition of the ''"Kirchenrecht"'', he materially enlarged and published separately as ''"Fontes juris ecclesiastici antiqui et hodierni"'' (Bonn, 1862). His other important works are: ''"Corpus juris Germanici antiqui"'' (3 vols., Bonn, 1824); ''"Romische Rechtsgeschichte"'' (Bonn, 1836); ''"Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte"'' (Bonn, 1853); ''"System des deutschen Privatrechts"'' (Bonn, 1855); ''"Das alte Wales"'', (Bonn, 1859), on the history, laws, and religion of ancient Wales; ''"Juristische Encyclopadic"'' (Bonn, 1856); ''"Naturrecht und Politik"'' (Bonn, 1863); ''"Aus meinem Leben"'' (Bonn, 1865), an autobiography; ''"Das alte Erz stift und die Reichsstadt Koln"'' (Bonn, 1866), a civil history of the former electorate of Cologne, left unfinished.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Walter, Ferdinand 1794 births 1879 deaths Canon law jurists Jurists from the Kingdom of Prussia Academic staff of the University of Bonn 19th-century German jurists Members of the Prussian National Assembly