Riegger, Joseph Anton Stephan Von

Riegger, Joseph Anton Stephan von, an eminent teacher of jurisprudence, who was also author, imperial councilor, censor of books, etc., and whose principal field of labor was the University of Freiburg, was born at Innspruck, Feb. 13, 1742. He wrote his first work — a review of the works of Plautus and Terence when scarcely fifteen years of age, became master in philosophy in 1761, and in 1764 entered on his first position as a teacher in the Theresianum. During his preliminary studies he had published a Bibliotheca Juris Canonici (1761): — an edition of August. Archiep. Taracon. De Emend. Gratiani Dialogi, and a new edition of the canonist Cironius, and had also written verses in German and Latin. In 1765 he was called to a professorship at Freiburg, and for the first time delivered lectures on jurisprudence in the German tongue. His promotions were now so rapid that scarcely a year passed without bringing to him new honors of this kind, and his reputation secured for him the charge of repeated government commissions of importance and delicacy; but the payment of debts incurred by his father and by an insolvent brother so impaired his fortune that a removal from Freiburg became desirable. He became professor of civil law at Prague and government councilor of Bohemia, and died Aug. 5, 1795. He had been actively connected with the reform movements of his age, and had given books to the world which excited much attention in their time, e.g. one on the right of a prince to tax persons of clerical rank. A work on the decretals of popes, etc., in which unpublished MSS. were largely introduced, would have been his crowning labor, but an installment issued under the title Bernardi Breviarium Extravagantium (1778) failed to secure the sympathy of the public and caused him to renounce the undertaking. His numerous writings in the departments of belles lettres, jurisprudence, and canon law are given in Mensel, Lexikon d. v. Jahre 1750-1800 verstorb. deutsch. Schriftsteller (Leips. 1811), vol. 11; and in Weidlich, Biogr. Nachrichten, etc. (Halle, 1751), part 2. See Grünwald, Biographie d. beid. Ritter von Riegger (Prague, 1798); Schlichtegroll, Necrolog. auf d. Jahr 1795, 1st half.