Jakob Joseph Matthys (the family name is also spelled Mathis and Mathys;Die gewöhnliche Schreibweise des Nidwaldner Familiennamens ist Mathis, vgl. Familiennamenbuch der Schweiz, aber Jakob Joseph schrieb sich selbst zumindest in den späteren Jahren Matthys. born 12 December 1802 in Oberrickenbach, municipality of Wolfenschiessen; died 9 March 1866 in Stans) was a Catholic priest who served as chaplain in Niederrickenbach for about 15 years and as chaplain in Dallenwil for about 20 years.
Primarily in his first position, which by far did not fill him, he dealt with at least 37 foreign languages as well as a now forgotten planned language. He wrote his own biography in 1844 in 35 languages, including the native dialect and the native written language.
When Matthys learned in 1862 of the project for the Schweizerisches Idiotikon that had just begun, he worked out a monumental Nidwalden dictionary - a folio of 611 closely written pages - as well as an 89-page dialect grammar despite illness and sent both to Zurich. The dictionary is still one of the most important Nidwalden sources of the Idiotikon editorial staff, and the grammar is of importance in the history of science.
Life
Childhood and study
Matthys was a son of Niklaus Josef Mathis, a small farmer and - after he had sold his small estate out of necessityAutobiographie, § 1 (abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], hier pp. 144/45). - a day labor, and Anna Josefa, née Käslin. He grew up in great poverty, from six to sixteen in Beckenried, his mother's home village. As a boy, he tended goats on the Buochserhorn,[Joseph Ignaz von Ah?:] Kaplan Jakob Matthys. In: Obwaldner Zeitung, Nr. 22 vom 17. März 1866, Titelblatt und p. 86 (Jahrgang durchpaginiert), hier Titelblatt. combed silk and spun cotton; later, he gathered resin with his father, searched for roots for doctors and distillers, and wood for coopers and other craftsmen.Autobiographie, § 2 (abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], hier pp. 146/47). As he grew older, he worked as a farmhand.Autobiographie, § 4 (abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], hier pp. 150/51).
Matthys did not attend school until he was 21 years old. He taught himself reading, writing and arithmetic. It was said of the fifteen-year-old lad that anyone in the area who had to calculate a haystack, a livestock lease‚Weide und Futter für das Vieh respektive der Ertrag eines Grundstücks daran‘; siehe Schweizerisches Idiotikon, Band I, Spalte 624 f., Artikel Atzi(n)g (Digitalisat). or a "Käslosung"‚Erlös aus dem Verkauf von Käse‘; siehe Schweizerisches Idiotikon, Band III, Spalte 1438 f., Artikel Lōsi(n)g II, wo Bedeutung 3a (Digitalisat). had this done by young Matthys.[Joseph Ignaz von Ah:] Von einem Kaplan im Unterwaldnerlande und wie viele Sprachen er erlernt und wie er es dazu gebracht hat. Eine kurzweilige Geschichte, aus der man auch noch etwas anderes lernen kann, als nur fremde Wörter und Sprachen. In: St. Ursenkalender, Jahrgang 1872. Hrsg. vom Verein zur Verbreitung guter Bücher. Schwendimann, Solothurn 1872, pp. 17–26, hier p. 20. From 1821 to January 1823 he served in Bavaria with one of the princes of OettingenIn seiner Autobiographie schreibt Matthys, er sei «auf dem fürstlichen Hofe bei Öttingen angekommen» und «angenommen» worden (Autobiographie, § 4; abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], pp. 150/151). Im Brief an Clemens Zelger spricht er lediglich vom «fränkischen Bayern» (Jakob Joseph Matthys: Eine Autobiographie. In: Der Bund vom 13. Juli 1854, Beilage Nr. 191, pp. 767 f., hier p. 768). Von Ah präzisiert hingegen «fürstliche Familie von Oettingen-Wallerstein» ([Joseph Ignaz von Ah:] Von einem Kaplan im Unterwaldnerlande und wie viele Sprachen er erlernt und wie er es dazu gebracht hat. Eine kurzweilige Geschichte, aus der man auch noch etwas anderes lernen kann, als nur fremde Wörter und Sprachen. In: St. Ursenkalender, Jahrgang 1872. Hrsg. vom Verein zur Verbreitung guter Bücher. Schwendimann, Solothurn 1872, pp. 17–26, hier p. 22). Ausgehend von Letztgenanntem identifiziert Iso Baumer Matthys’ Arbeitgeber als «Fürst Friedrich Kraft Heinrich von Oettingen-Wallerstein» (1793–1842; Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], hier S. 10). Die Fürsten von Oettingen-Wallerstein residierten allerdings in Wallerstein, wogegen Matthys’ «fürstlicher Hof bei Öttingen» eher an die Linie Oettingen-Spielberg denken lässt. as a "Swiss servant". In 1822 he bought the Latin grammar and the Latin-German dictionary of Christian Gottlieb Broeder at the market of the "nearby city" and began to learn Latin. He continued this self-study in the summer of 1823, when he was a shepherd high above Engelberg. In order not to have to constantly look up words in the dictionary, he learned it by heart without further ado.Autobiographie, § 6 f. (abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], pp. 154–157).
The chaplain at home became aware of the young man and found him a patron in the painter Martin Obersteg the Younger, so that Matthys was able to attend the Capuchin-run Latin school in Stans from December 1823.Autobiographie, § 8–10 (abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], pp. 156–165). Learning was easy for him - instead of four years he completed the school in two and a half. In the school year 1826/1827 he was at the Jesuit College of Solothurn, where he immediately took the second to last year's course before transferring to the university. In 1828 he studied at the Jesuit College St. Michael in Fribourg, from 1829 to 1831 at the Seminary in Lucerne and in 1831/1832 at the Seminary in ChurAutobiographie, § 11 (abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], pp. 164–167). - there he always graduated with top grades. Since his patron had died in the meantime, he had to earn his living as a tutor. On 6 March 1831 he received the minor orders, already on 13 March he had become subdeacon, on 19 March deacon and on 25 March he received the ordination to the priesthood.
As pilgrimage chaplain in Maria-Rickenbach (1831–1845)
As a child from a poor family, Matthys had to look for a position as soon as possible. On 6 November 1831 he was elected chaplain in Niederrickenbach (Municipality of Oberdorf), where he was responsible as pilgrimage chaplain. The small mountain village, lonely and situated at an altitude of about 1200 meters, was at that time only a moderately visited place of pilgrimage and there was also no monastery. Matthys had little to do during the winter months, and there were few children to teach. In his autobiography Matthys enumerated in seven points all the things that had been concealed from him in order to distract from the lack of attractiveness of the chaplaincy, which therefore nobody but he had wanted.Autobiographie, § 15 f. (abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], pp. 178–181). During this time he took refuge in a restless study of languages. The benefice, however, only came with about 500 guilders - clearly too little for Matthys, who was dependent on many expensive books for his language learning, had to support his penniless relatives, and increasingly suffered from health problems.Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 (Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42), hier pp. 22 f.
Learning foreign languages apparently appealed to Matthys more than his chaplain duties - in any case, the reports on his spiritual work are "extraordinarily scarce".Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 (Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42), hier p. 26. Nevertheless, in 1835 he published a revision of the pilgrimage booklet of Maria-Rickenbach, the frommen Wallfahrters. New in it were the many quotations from Latin and Greek church fathers, teachers and writers, whom he invokes as witnesses to Marian devotion - in the series of mentions in the pious pilgrimage booklet Bernard of Clairvaux, Gregory, Eucherius, Anselm, Bonaventure, Ephräm, Ambrose, Jerome, Thomas Aquinas, Antoninus of Florence, John of Damascus, Augustine, Basil, William of Paris, Ildefonsus, Rupert, Irenaeus, Epiphanios, Athanasius, Anthony of Padua, Germanus, Albertus Magnus, Peter Damian, Beda Venerabilis, Ignatius, Methodius and Sophronius. Matthys evidently not only learned vast amounts of languages during these years, but also immersed himself in patristics.Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 (Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42), hier pp. 26–30; die Zusammenstellung der Kirchenväter, -lehrer und -schriftsteller auf p. 29.
The Maria-Rickenbach period also saw Matthys' fight against a new textbook of 1835 that allegedly did not conform to official Catholic dogma (see below), which further embittered him and turned him into a grouchy loner. The construction of the new chaplain's house, which dragged on until 1842 or 1843, also troubled Matthys - in the only half-finished house he could not heat during the winter and suffered from gout and rheumatism.Siehe hierzu Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 (Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42), hier pp. 34–38 sowie Matthys’ Autobiographie, §§ 27–30 (abgedruckt in Iso Baumers Biographie, pp. 200–207). Bathing cures, however, were expensive, since he had to hire a curate's clergyman for each day of his absence. Matthys therefore strove for another position, but set up loud barriers for himself: For example, he rejected the chaplaincy of Oberrickenbach offered to him, which held a prospect of the parish of Wolfenschiessen, because he did not want it to appear that he was only waiting for the passing of the Wolfenschiessen pastor. In any case, his solitary nature meant that he was only incompletely informed when a vacancy occurred somewhere.Zu Krankheit und Stellensuche beziehungsweise den Hinderungsgründen siehe Autobiographie, §§ 31–34 (abgedruckt in Iso Baumer: Jakob Joseph Matthys. Priester – Sprachenkenner – Dialektologe. Verlag Historischer Verein Nidwalden, Stans 1985 [Beiträge zur Geschichte Nidwaldens, Heft 42], pp. 206–219).
The multilingual biography written during this difficult period has shaped the all too one-sided image of Matthys as that of an unfortunate eccentric.
As chaplain in Dallenwil (1845-1864) and the last years in Stans