GIPHANIUS, HUBERTUS (HUBERT van GIFFEN). - Jurist and philologist. B. at Buren (Holland) in 1534, d. at Prague in 1604.
He studied at Louvain, Paris, and Orléans under Cuiacio. At Venice, where he was in the retinue of the French ambassador, he devoted himself to philosophical and philological studies. He then moved to Strasbourg as professor of logic, ethics, and institutions (1570–83), later going to Altdorf and subsequently to Ingolstadt (1590), where he taught law, establishing himself as the greatest jurist in Germany of his time by virtue of his extraordinary learning and the breadth of his investigations.
In 1599 he was summoned to the court of Rodolfo II as imperial councillor and referendary. Among his works, in which the jurist and the philologist alternate, the following should be mentioned: Eiusdem Batracomyomachia, Hymni, etc. (Strasbourg 1572); Lecturae altdorfinae in aliquot Codicis titula Digestorum (Frankfurt 1605); Tractatus feudalis (ibid. 1606); Antinomiae iuris feudalis (ibid. 1606); Tractatus de diversis regulis iuris antiqui (Strasbourg 1607); De renunciationibus (Frankfurt 1608); Commentarii in X libros Etichorum Aristotelis (ibid. 1608); In IV libros Institutionum iuris civilis Iustiniani commentarius (Strasbourg 1611); Oeconomia iuris (ibid. 1612); Observationes vingulares in linguam latinam (Frankfurt 1624).