SCHMALZGRUEBER, FRANZ. – Canonist, born at Griesbach (Upper Bavaria) on 9 October 1663, died at Dillingen on 7 November 1735.
He entered the Society of Jesus in 1679 and taught philosophy and moral theology at the University of Innsbruck, and canon law at those of Ingolstadt and Dillingen (1702, 1705–24). In Rome, he served as censor for the publications of his Order (1724–26). Having resumed his chair at Dillingen in 1727, he died eight years later, rector magnificus of that University.
As a canonist, he enjoyed great authority in academic circles, at the Curias, and even in Protestant circles. As an author, he is counted among the great classics of the second renaissance (schola culta) of the science of canon law in the post-Tridentine period. His celebrated treatise, Ius ecclesiasticum universum seu lucubrations canonicae in quinque libros Decretalium (7 vols., Ingolstadt 1719), gathers the material treated in the annual university disputations, previously published in part in a series of separate treatises arranged according to the five books of the Decretals; a compendium of it was produced by one of his pupils: Succincta sacrorum canonum seu compendium iuris ecclesiastici (3 vols., Augsburg 1747). Although the treatise, still much used today, reveals a considerable dependence on earlier commentators, especially Reiffenstuel, its author excels through undeniable personal merits, particularly clarity and ease of exposition, breadth of synthesis, soundness and completeness of doctrine, and abundance of legal texts and jurisprudential solutions.
He also wrote: Consiliu, seu responsa iuris (2 vols., Ingolstadt 1722). Other minor treatises, such as Sponsalia et matrimonium (ibid. 1713), Crimea fori ecclesiastici (ibid. 1713), Clerus secularis et regularis, etc., are partial works subsequently incorporated into the principal treatise.