Friedrich Bernard Christian Maassen (September 24, 1823–April 9, 1900, age 76) was a German jurist, professor of law, and Roman Catholic scholar. Maasen was born in Wismar, Mecklenburg-Schwerin. After studying the humanities in his native city, he studied jurisprudence at Jena, Berlin, Kiel and finally Rostock, where in 1849 as an advocate, he took his degree at the university there in 1851. He was active in the constitutional conflict of 1848 between the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Diet, defending the rights of the representatives in three pamphlets, and, together with Franz von Florencourt, founded the anti-revolutionary "Norddeutscher Korrespondent". Shortly after his graduation he became a convert to Roman Catholicism. Later realizing that, as a Catholic, he was no longe