Samuel von Pufendorf

1632–1694

Nationality: German

Historical Period: The Early Modern Period

Samuel Pufendorf was born in Saxony in 1632, the son of a Lutheran clergyman. He studied at Leipzig and Jena and held the first modern professorship in natural law, at the University of Heidelberg. Pufendorf was successively professor of natural law at Lund in Sweden and Swedish historiographer royal. He ended his career as Prussian court historian and died in Berlin in 1694. In addition to fundamental works in Protestant natural law, much admired by Locke, Pufendorf contributed importantly to German constitutional theory and wrote major historical works.

• Author: The Divine Feudal Law: Or, Covenants with Mankind, Represented
• Author: An Introduction to the History of the Principal Kingdoms and States of Europe (1682, 2013)
• Author: Of the Nature and Qualification of Religion, in Reference to Civil Society
• Author: The Present State of Germany
• Author: Two Books of the Elements of Universal Jurisprudence
• Author: The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature (1673, 2003)