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Chapter Ten To the Blessed Domiciles Refuge in Woifenbiittel Persistence in seeking patronage finally bore fruit. Shortly after his last petition to Friedrich II, Schmidt obtained a position under somewhat mysterious circumstances in the retinue of another major prince: Karl I, Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbuttel Cr. 1735-80). Schmidt found in the duke's capital a happy combination of political protection , religious and intellectual tolerance, modest material security, and abundant scholarly resources, all of which he was able to enjoy for what proved to be the short remainder of his life. Schmidt's appointment to the ducal court had a prehistory. At the end of 1738, soon after Schmidt arrived in Hamburg, Court Counselor Georg Ludwig Hofmann of Burgfarrnbach alluded to an offer of help from a "good friend at W.," who may have been an official at Wolfenbutte1.1 The first unambiguous reference to Schmidt's future refuge in his correspondence came in April 1741 when an unnamed court counselor in Wolfenbuttel offered him some sort of position.2 Apparently he refused it in hopes of a better situation. In the last days of 1746, the option of working at the Wolfenbuttel court became available again, and this time Schmidt took it: already by Christmas, he seems to have begun working as mathematics tutor to the ducal court pages. The first written evidence of this comes from somewhat later: an edict of March 18, 1747, that Duke Karl is- ) sued to his seneschal's office CMarschallamt) concerning Schmidt. It noted that the duke had hired "Schroter" to replace the recently deceased court mathematician Fricke. It also ordered the office to direct his treasury to pay Schrbter 150 imperial dollars annually in salary, as well as to allow him free board in the pages' room.3 The seneschal office's own directive made explicit that Schroter was to be paid as of Christmas of 1746.4 Initially Schmidt's employment may have been on a trial basis . One eighteenth-century writer who had some familiarity with the Wolfenbuttel court scene reported that the duke responded to the objections of some local pas~ors to Schmidt's employment by appointing another page attendant named Nusser to be present at some of To THE BLESSED DOMICILES Schmidt's tutorials. Allegedly Nusser never found Schmidt to be overstepping the bounds of doctrinal propriety. To affirm his Lutheranism, Schmidt participated in holy communion and provided a statement of faith that was deemed to be impeccable.s AsSuming that Schmidt's trial employment began at Christmas 1746, the duke's edict of March 18, 1747, would have recognized his engagement ona permanent basis. Schmidt used the pseudonym "Schroter," a variation of his old one ("Schroeder" or "Schroder"), but took on a quite different educational and professional description, that of a law graduate.6 Presumably even the self-description Schmidt had used in his Hamburg asylum, that of a general arts graduate, was too close to the truth for the comfort of his new employers. They would be concerned to keep confidential that the new court mathematician was the author of the infamous Wertheim Bible. The identity of his educational background had changed, then, from that of a theologian when he was in Wertheim , to that of an arts graduate in Hamburg and now, in Wolfenbuttel , a lawyer. Schmidt's employment also brought with it some unusual, confidential duties. Beyond his public status as a mathematics tutor, Schmidt was also to undertake "certain extensive compositions [Ausarbeitungen ]"7 requiring an oath of confidentiality. These he was to carry out under the supervision of a man holding high rank in the councils of both the church and secular government in BraunschweigWolfenuttel , Julius Christian Heinrich Butemeister Cd. 1772). Butemeister was a member of the ducal church consistory as well as the secretary of the duke's privy cabinet, or highest executive council, the governmental organ supervising the consistory. A couple of years before Schmidt's arrival, Duke Karl had ordered all matters coming before his cabinet to be channeled through Butemeister.8 He was clearly a key official of the court. The secretive, apparently written work Schmidt was to engage in is unclear. As a later eighteenth-century reviewer of the , evidence noted, "Further information on this rather mysterious point cannot be found, and was also surely not to be expected in view of the situation."9 The government had reason to avoid explicit reference to Schmidt's identity, though the confidential conditions of his employment indicate that it...

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