HINSCHIUS, PAUL (1835-1898), German jurist, was the son of Franz Sales August Hinschius (1807-77), and was born in Berlin on Dec. 25, 1835. His father was not only a scientific jurist, but also a lawyer in large practice in Berlin. After work ing under his father, Hinschius in 2852 began to study jurispru dence at Heidelberg and Berlin, the teacher who had most influ ence upon him being Aemilius Ludwig Richter to whom he afterwards ascribed the great revival of the study of ecclesiastical law in Germany. In 1855 Hinschius took the degree of doctor utriusque ha-is, and in 1859 was admitted to the juridical faculty of Berlin. He lectured at Halle, Berlin and Kiel uni versities, and in 1870-71 represented Kiel in the Prussian Upper House (1870-71). In 1872 he was appointed professor ordi narius of ecclesiastical law at Berlin. He took part in the con rerences of the ministry of ecclesiastical affairs, which issued in the famous "Falk laws." In connection with the developments of the Kulturkampf which resulted from the "Falk laws," he wrote several important treatises. He sat in the Reichstag as a Na tional Liberal from 1872 to 1878, and again in 1881 and 1882, and from 1889 onwards he represented the University of Berlin in the Prussian Upper House. He died on Dec. 13, 1898.
The two great works by which Hinschius established his fame are the Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et capitula Angilramni ( 2 parts, Leipzig, 2863) and Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken and Protestanten in Deutschland, vols. i.—vi. (1869-77). The first of these, for which during 1860 and 1861 he had gathered materials in Italy, Spain, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland and Belgium, was the first critical edition of the False Decretals. The Kirchenrecht is an exhaustive historical and analytical study of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and its government of the church.
See the articles s.v. by E. Seckel in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie (3rd ed., 1900) , and by Ulrich Steitz in the Allgemeine deutsche Bio graphie, vol. 5o (Leipzig, 1905) .