„Zwischen Schule, Universität und Privatbildung. Das Gothaer Gymnasium illustre im Kontext frühneuzeitlicher Kulturen gelehrten Wissens“

On 21 December 1524, a Latin school was founded in the Augustinian monastery of the Ernestine ducal residence of Gotha as part of the Reformation. It quickly rose to become an institution of regional and even national importance and a vital part of the educational landscape in central Germany. Thanks to financial support, the school soon took on a university-like character. With the founding of the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha in 1640, the Gymnasium illustre was placed under the direct control of the consistory and, thanks to reforms under headmaster Andreas Reyher, came to play a pioneering pedagogical role in the empire. The ducal collections at Friedenstein Castle were also used for practice-oriented education. As at universities, private tutoring formed an essential part of local education. The historical development of the Gotha grammar school is extremely well documented and shows that in the early modern period, a strict distinction between school and university is often impossible. In addition, opportunities for higher education were very diverse and sometimes existed outside of an institutional framework.

After a conference held in 2014 at the Gotha Research Library compared the interdenominational education systems of the early modern period, the upcoming conference, marking the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Gotha Grammar School, will focus on the plurality of early modern cultures of erudite knowledge, curricular overlaps and the idiosyncrasies of various educational institutions and opportunities, the tension between their complementarity and competition, as well as the process of establishing new disciplines of knowledge and innovative methods.