| Wolfgang Hirschbach | |
| Birth Date: | 19 January 1570 |
| Birth Place: | Gotha, Germany |
| Death Place: | Wittenberg, Germany |
Wolfgang Hirschbach (19 January 1570, Gotha - 13 September 1620, Wittenberg) was a German legal scholar.
Wolfgang was the son of mayor Christoph Hirschbach and his wife Anna, who was the daughter merchant Hieronymus Poppe from Gotha. Hirschbach lost his mother at the age of three. He attended the Latin school in Gotha, which was under the direction John Helders who later became Gotha's superintendent. There Hirschbach acquired a solid education and insight and experience that had a lasting impact on his character and formed way of living. He was intended to follow an academic career from an early age. This explains his enrollment at the University of Jena in 1585. He went there after the completion of his training in Gotha in 1587.
In Jena he followed the customs of the time and to first studied the philosophical sciences, and then turned to a degree in law. On 9 September 1593 he continued his studies at the University of Wittenberg. He completed his doctorate there on 7 March 1598 with a degree of Doctor of law. As early as 1595, Hirschbach acted as a tutor and teacher for a number of young nobles, in Wittenberg and also in Leipzig. Apparently, his lessons had merit and on 30 September the Electoral family 1601 hired him as preceptor of Duke August of Saxony. After his brother in law Benedikt Carpzov the elder left Wittenberg in 1602, Hirschbach was appointed professor on the fourth chair, presumably on the recommendation of the Electoral family.
In 1608 he was promoted to the third chair of the criminal law. Associated with this chair, were a position as assessor at the electoral court of justice, the Law Faculty and the Schöppenstuhl in Wittenberg. In that task, he read the materias juris emphyteutici et compensationes and he managed during the summer semester 1611 is the office of the Rector Magnificus of the University of Wittenberg.
He died on 13 September 1620 from a fever and was buried on 17 September in Wittenberg.
On 21 May 1604 he married Magaretha Selfisch (born 22 September 1587 in Wittenberg), the youngest daughter of the Samuel Selfisch. From this marriage nine children were born; three died before their father.
Hirschbach must have had a close private connection to the Elector's family, as the Wittenberg parish register mentions on the baptismal record of his first-born son August, Elector Christian II of Saxony and Sophie of Brandenburg as godparents.