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Jacob Paul Freiherr von Gundling (19 August 1673 in Hersbruck - 11 April 1731 in Potsdam) was a German historian. Court Historiographer to King Frederick I of Prussia, he became a figure of ridicule in the "Tobacco Cabinet" (Tabakskollegium) of Frederick William I. ==Life== Gundling came from a Franconian family. His father Wolfgang Gundling, who died in 1689, was a pastor at St Sebold in Kirchensittenbach near Nuremberg. Shortly before his birth the family fled to Hersbruck from marauding imperial soldiers. From 1690 to 1693, Gundling attended the Pforta county school in Naumburg, later studying law and history at the universities of Altdorf, Helmstedt and Jena as well as Halle. In 1699 he accompanied the Nuremberg patrician Jacobus von Tetzell on his travels to Holland and England. King Frederick I of Prussia appointed him Professor of History and Law at the Berlin Knights' Academy in 1705, and as historian at the Chief Herald's Office in 1706.〔Clark, Christopher, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, Penguin 2006〕 The Chief Herald's Office was responsible for verifying the genealogical credentials of nobles seeking public office. Gundling's position was, at first, an enviable one. Like many other foreign intellectuals he was attracted to Potsdam by Frederick I's lavish patronage and enlightenment ideas. He accompanied the king wherever he went, to supply him with erudite conversation, and was served food from his table.〔Littell, E, The Living Age, Second Series, Vol 2, p.648 Boston, New York & Philadelphia 1853〕 The king's dining room had had a sort of pulpit erected in it, from which Gundling, as royal newspaper reader, would expound on the topics in the news while the guests were eating.〔Littell, E, The Living Age, Second Series, Vol 2,p.648 Boston, New York & Philadelphia 1853〕 After the death of the king in 1713, his son, the 'soldier king' Friedrich Wilhelm I dispensed with all of his father's cultured ways and abolished the Knights' Academy, but appointed Gundling to be his Councilor and historian. However his role at the Prussian court came more to resemble that of court jester, as he became the butt of many cruel taunts and practical jokes perpetrated by the King's rowdy and sometimes violent associates in the so-called 'Tobacco Cabinet'. Under the late King Frederick I, the Tobacco Cabinet had been a relaxed and informal social circle, including women, which ran on a convivial basis. His son Frederick William I maintained the institution, but fundamentally changed its character. It became an all-male society, whose members were mostly military men who gathered in sparsely-furnished rooms to smoke, hold discussions and drink to excess.〔The Cambridge Modern History, Volume 11, edited by Stanley Leathes, G. W. (George Walter) Prothero, Sir Adolphus William Ward, Cambridge University Press 1909 p.210〕 At sessions of the Tobacco Cabinet, court scholars would be brought in to give expert advice on some topic, and a discussion would follow. Often, the excessive alcohol consumption meant that these debates ended in physical fights for the amusement of College members. At these sessions Gundling was particularly singled out for humiliation.〔The Holy Roman Empire Reconsidered, edited by Jason Philip Coy, Benjamin Marschke, David Warren Sabean, Spektrum 2010 p.54〕 In February 1714, he was required to deliver a lecture to assembled guests offering arguments for and against the existence of ghosts, while being made to drink heavily. After his lecture he was escorted by two Grenadier Guards back to his room, where he screamed with terror at the sight of a figure moving around covered in a sheet.〔Clark, Christopher, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, Penguin 2006〕 On another occasion, while he was drunk, his official Chamberlain's key was cut off his coat, and, in punishment for 'losing' it, he was made to wear a large wooden Chamberlain's key a yard long around his neck;〔Littell, E, The Living Age, Second Series, Vol 2, p. 649, Boston, New York & Philadelphia 1853〕 He was invited to dinner and conveyed in a sedan chair from which the bottom fell out while it was moving, forcing him to run to keep up with the bearers, who paid no heed to his cries. A monkey, dressed as Gundling, was introduced to him as his own son, and he was compelled to embrace and kiss it. One night, in the middle of winter, when he was making his way home over the castle drawbrige, he was seized by four burly Grenadier Guards and dropped repeatedly onto the frozen moat below until his weight broke the ice, and he was ridiculed from above as he struggled in agony. Then the king left two young bears in his bedroom to terrify him. He frequently returned home to find his doorway bricked up, and on occasion the quiet of his study was shattered with firecrackers.〔Littell, E, The Living Age, Second Series, Vol 2, p.649 Boston, New York & Philadelphia 1853〕 In 1716 Gundling sought to escape his misery by fleeing to his brother Nicholas Jerome Gundlingius, professor and scholar in Halle, but he was brought back. Unauthorized departure from court was considered to be desertion. Some three years after his attempted flight, Gundling underwent one of the cruellest jokes ever played on him. A man named David Fassman was his rival at court, and, after his death, was to take over many of his offices. Fassman had composed a vicious satire on Gundling, called 'The Learned Fool', which the king commanded him to present to the Tobacco Cabinet with Gundling present. Incensed by what he was hearing, Gundling seized a silver pan filled with charcoal which was used for lighting pipes, and flung it at Fassman's face, singeing his eyebrows and lashes. Fassman responded by using the same pan to beat Gundling very severely, and thereafter the two men repeatedly came to blows in the Tobacco Cabinet. Eventually the king commanded them to fight a duel. On the field, Gundling refused to fire and dropped his pistol, but Fassman shot at Gundling, though his pistol was only filled with powder. As a result, he managed to set Gundling's wig on fire, much to the amusement of the king's companions.〔Littell, E, The Living Age, Second Series, Vol 2, p.649, Boston, New York & Philadelphia 1853〕 Evidently because of these continued humiliations he developed stomach ulcers, the pain of which he sought to deaden by further alcohol consumption. A second flight led him to Catholic Breslau, where he was offered a post - on the condition that he convert to Catholicism. Gundling refused and returned to Prussia under pressure from the soldier king. On 3 January 1720 he married Anne de Larray, the daughter of an aristocratic Huguenot, who had fled from France to Berlin by way of Holland. Court society correctly believed that the decision to marry was a move on Gundling's part to escape the constraints of his existence as the king's learned fool, or at least to establish a second, domestic aspect to his life in distinction to it, and therefore did everything possible to prevent the project. Satirical drawings and notes about the bride and groom were circulated, and Gundling's food was to have been mixed with a strong laxative before the wedding night. Gundling managed to escape this and other attacks planned for the wedding day by reporting himself sick, and having the marriage take place secretly and earlier than planned. Despite these continued torments Gundling enjoyed, in the formal sense at least, high standing in Prussian public life. The King entrusted him with a number of high state offices, appointed him to the position of President of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and on 25 September 1724 made him a baron. He had a substantial income, horses, carriages and servants, and was able, in most respects, to lead a privileged life. Gundling died on 11 April 1731 in Potsdam as a consequence of his ulcers. Even in death the king did not spare him humiliation. By royal command he had been compelled for a number of years to keep, in his bedroom, a coffin made from a varnished wine barrel, on which the following verse was written: ::Here there lies within his skin ::Half man, half pig, a wondrous thing ::Clever in his youth, in old age not so bright, ::Full of wit at morning, full of drink at night. ::Let the voice of Bacchus sing ::This, my child, is Gundeling ::() ::Reader, say can you divine ::Whether he was man or swine?〔Clark, Christopher, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, Penguin 2006〕 After he died, the king had his body paraded through the streets of Potsdam and then publicly displayed, wearing the outlandish costume he required Gundling to wear for his own amusement, propped up in the barrel. Various ribald songs were composed specially for his funeral, but the king's antics were so outrageous that the local clergy categorically refused to have anything to do with this parody of a funeral ceremony.〔The Holy Roman Empire Reconsidered, edited by Jason Philip Coy, Benjamin Marschke, David Warren Sabean, Spektrum 2010 p.54〕 Instead, the funeral sermon was delivered by none other than Gundling's long-time tormentor, David Fassman.〔Littell, E, The Living Age, Second Series, Vol 2, p.649, Boston, New York & Philadelphia 1853〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jacob Paul von Gundling」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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