VETT LUDWIG VON, a statesman, theologian, and historian of Germany, was born at Herzogenaurach, near Erlangen, on the 20th December 1626. He was sprung from a noble family of Franconia, and his father, who had held a good position in the army of Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years' War, was executed by a Swedish court-martial in 1642. The lad began his studies at the gymnasium of Coburg in 1638, and was subsequently removed to the gymnasium of Gotha, at the request of the Duke of Gotha, who, after his father's death, showed him great kindness. At the University of Strasburg he applied himself with great zeal to nearly all the exercises of the place; and, on the completion of his studies, he was taken into the service of his patron, where he rose through the various grades of office, till, in 1664, he was made privy councillor and chancellor. Seckendorf took an important share in every educational and in every religious movement which agitated the duke's dominions during the time he held office under him. For some private reason or other he left the duke's service in 1664, and entered that of Moritz, duke of Zeit, where he was appointed to his former offices. Here Seckendorf exhibited the same popular qualities which had hitherto characterized him; but by some mischance he became involved in some squabbles with the clergy, which induced him, on the duke's death, to resign. He retired to his country-house of Meuselwitz, near Altenburg. Having accepted an invitation from Frederic, elector of Brandenburg, in 1691, to enter his services as privy councillor at Berlin, and chancellor of the University of Halle, Seckendorf died the following year.

The principal works of Seckendorf are as follows:—Deutscher Fürstenstaat, Gotha, 1665; Compendium Historiae Ecclesiasticae, Leipzig, 1666; Christenstat, Leipzig, 1685; Jus Publicum Romanorum, Frankfurt, 1686; Commentarius Historicus et Apologeticus de Lutheranismo, Frankfurt, 1692. The Life of Seckendorf was written by Schreiber, Leipzig, 1734.