Johann Michael Moscherosch

Johann Michael Moscherosch (March 7, 1601 – April 4, 1669), German statesman, satirist, and educator, was born at Willstätt, on the Upper Rhine near Strassburg.

His bitterly brilliant but partisan writings graphically describe life in a Germany ravaged by the Thirty Years' War (1618–48). His satires, which at times are tedious, also show an overwhelming moral zeal added to a sense of mission.

Moscherosch was the son of farmer and bailiff Michael Moscherosch and his wife Veronika Beck. He grew up on his parents' farm in Willstätt in the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg, Germany. At the age of 11 he attended high school in Strassburg (now in France) and then studied law, philosophy and literature at the University of Strassburg. We owe the only eyewitness account of the theatrical performances of Caspar Brülow to his diary. In September 1623 Moscherosch defended his dissertation on Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars diatribe XV before a committee chaired by Matthias Bernegger. Following his award of the degree of Magister on April 8, 1624 he enrolled at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

After completing his studies Moscherosch first took educational trips to France and Switzerland, and then worked as a private tutor. From 1631 to 1634 he was one of the bailiffs of the Lutheran branch of the Counts of Kriechingen (today Créhange in France) and in the same capacity in the half of Saarwellingen belonging to Kriechingen. In 1636 the Pomeranian Duke of Croy-Arschot appointed him steward of his interest in the divided lordship of Finstingen (today Fénétrange), not far from Kriechingen. In this position, which he held until 1642, Moscherosch had to defend the rights of his employer in a confined space against the bailiffs of the other five lords. After his activities in the Lorraine border region Moscherosch fled the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War to Strassburg where he was chief of police and tax collector from 1645 to 1655. He also studied the medieval manuscripts of the city's library, such as Gottfried von Hagenau's Liber sex festorum beatae Virginis.

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