Biography
Althusius was born about 1563, to a family of modest means in Diedenshausen, County Sayn-Wittgenstein (Siegen-Wittgenstein), a Calvinist County in what is now the state of North Rhine Westphalia but was then the seat of an independent Grafschaft or County. Under the patronage of a local count, he attended the Gymnasium Philippinum in Marburg from 1577 and began his studies in 1581, concentrating in law, philosophy, and logic, first in Cologne, then in Basel and probably with study excursion in Geneva 1585/1586.
In 1586, after completing his studies, Althusius joined the law faculty at the Protestant-Calvinist Herborn Academy of Nassau County, from 1592 to 1596 he changed to the Calvinist Academy in Burgsteinfurt/Westphalia, and after return he was appointed president of the Nassau College in Siegen (removed in this town from 1594 to 1600) in 1599/1600 and in Herborn in 1602, also beginning his political career by serving as a member of the Nassau (Germany) county council. For the next several years, he became involved in various colleges throughout the area, variously serving as their president and lecturing on law and philosophy, and in 1603, he was elected to be a municipal trustee of the city of Emden, in East Frisia, where he ultimately made his fame. He became a city Syndic in 1604, which placed him at the helm of Emden's governance until his death.
Johannes Althusius died on August 12, 1638, in Emden.
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