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Reformation and Latin Literature in Northern Europe Edited by Inger Ekrem, Minna Skafte Jensen, and Egil Kraggerud

SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSITY PRESS Oslo - Stockholm - Copenhagen - Oxford - Boston

Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforiaget AS) P.O. Box 2 9 5 9 T o v e n , N -0 6 0 8 Oslo, N orw ay Fax +47 22 57 53 53 URL: http://w w w .scup.no Stockholm office SCUP, Scandinavian University Press P.O. Box 3 2 5 5, S-103 65 Stockholm , Sweden C openhagen office Scandinavian University Press AS P.O. Box 54, D K -1002 Kobenhavn K, D enm ark O xford office Scandinavian University Press U K 60 St. AJdates, O xford 0 X 1 1ST, England Boston office Scandinavian University Press N o rth America 875 M assachusetts Ave., Ste. 84, C am b ridg e M A 02 1 39 , USA Fax +1 6 1 7 354 6875

©

Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforiaget AS), O slo 1996

ISBN 82-00-2 2 63 6 -0

All rights reserved. N o part o f this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transm itted, in any form or by any means, electronic, m echanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, w ithout the prior permission o f Scandinavian University Press. Enquiries should be sent to the Rights D ep artm en t, Scandinavian University Press, O slo, at the address above.

Printed on 90g Carat offset 00 by 0 s tf o ld trykkeri, N orw ay

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Preface From the 22nd to the 25th of October 1993 The Norwegian Academy o f Science and

Letters in Oslo was host to a symposium called “School and Humanism in the Century of Reformation.” The theme was suggested by Minna Skafte Jensen (now Odense University), Inger Ekrem and myself (both from the Classical Department at the University of Oslo). The proposal was readily and obligingly adopted as part of the Academy’s symposium programme. As can be seen from the present publication scholars from ten countries in Northern Europe participated with papers. The symposium in question can be regarded as an offshoot of the Nordic Neolatin research cooperation going back to 1987. In that year a programme was launched by Danish classical scholars and Neo-Latinists and funded on a five year basis by The

Joint Committee o f the Nordic Research Councils fo r the Humanities. The programme helped to initiate activities in the field of Neo-Latin studies in our countries on a simultaneous and broader basis. Foremost among the activities was a detailed registration of extant Neo-Latin publications resulting inter alia in a Copenhagen based

Nordic Neo-Latin Database 1 and in editions and monographs that elucidated the role of Latin in the early modem cultural history of the Nordic countries. The original title of the research programme, “Nordic Literature in Latin and its relation to Europe”, reflected in its last part an ambition which was as legitimate as it was difficult to satisfy with the time limits set the the programme. The primary aim was and still is to uncover and make known what had to a large extent been neglected and had for all practical purposes become an almost inaccessible area for modem scholarship equipped with little or no Latin. However, the Nordic cooperation never lost sight of the need for communicating with the Latin Europe outside its boundaries. In August 1991 Copenhagen was host to the VUIth International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies. A more recent result of the cooperation to appear was the book A History o f Nordic Neo-Latin Literature (Odense University Press 1995), edited by professor Minna Skafte Jensen, the administrative head of our joint projects from the start. The book is the most detailed survey to date of Latin literature in the Nordic countries in any international language. The present symposium was planned as a modest appendix to it all, not least in order to play down the concept o f national state and the Nordic realm as a cultural entity separated from the world at large considering the vivid and prolific international Res publica litteratorum. Or to put

' N o w in te rn a tio n a lly accessible on W o rld W ide W eb. v

it in more positive terms: The whole phenomenon of Latin culture in our countries can only be grasped adequately if one looks beyond the Nordic confines. It is natural to start this extension of the horizon with the Lutheran realm with its strong centres of learning and education. These were more or less indispensable for the Nordic countries in the 16th and 17th centuries and attracted some of the ablest young men of our countries to spend formative years in Germany or in Holland. As a consequence education and culture were internationalized to an astonishing degree when one takes distances, modest resources and often strained relations between the states into account. A symposium of this kind can by no means aim at covering its theme in every aspect. From the outset it was clear to the organizers that the symposium could only offer a limited number of contributions. Some important issues could only be touched upon if mentioned at all. When our conference was planned it was therefore encouraging to find that other gatherings of similar nature were to take place more or less simultaneously. So from the 16th to the 21st of August 1992 the University of Helsinki arranged a colloquium entitled Mare Balticum - Mare nostrum. Latin in the Countries

o f the Baltic Sea (1500-1800 ), which appeared in print not long ago edited by Outi Merisalo and Raija Sarasti-Wilenius (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae. Ser. B, vol. 274, Jyvaskyla 1994). Important in this respect are also the initiatives taken by the Lutherhalle, Wittenberg and the Melanchthonhaus at Bretten to elucidate the LuheranMelanchthonian influence in the Nordic countries as seen from Germany. So from the 15th to the 18th of April 1993 a colloquium was held in Wittenberg under the title

Melanchthon in Nordeuropa. Its papers are due to appear in the near future. We hope that our symposium together with these and other endeavours will help to spark off

%

research and contribute towards a detailed future survey of the Latin culture of the whole area. The idea to make Oslo entertain a meeting like this was from the outset no obvious one. It was never a secret to us that Norway was (and still is) the weakest part in the Nordic humanistic chain, but the regrettable depth of Norway’s degradation at the outset of the Reformation period did not become fully clear to us until it was revealed by the Nordic registration programme. It is equally obvious that classical learning in Norway never quite recovered from its early poverty. The country, whose North Sea realm was of some standing, influence and culture at the height of the Middle Ages, was by the time of the Lutheran Reformation little more than a thinly inhabited colony of Denmark. The period has long been considered the nadir of Norway’s national history. The country’s Norse language had quickly vanished from church, education and adminsitration and Danish had taken its place by the influx of Danes to govern the country. Norway had to wait for more than a century after the Reformation for a modest vi

printing house of its own, and a university did not materialize until the end of the Napoleonic wars. Scarcely anywere in the country was to be found such aristocratic affluence and education that elsewhere contributed much to learning and literature. And yet, despite all factors to the contrary, within some decades of the Reformation the humanistic impulse had taken roots in the hearts of at least some men, the leading exponent of whom was the Lutheran bishop Jens Nilss0n (Johannes Nicolai). In consideration of the fact that little literary activity was going on at all the endeavours of Jens and his circle are indeed worthy of record. They must have produced much that never reached or was even meant to reach a printer. That some of their products were printed at all was due to the existence of the school in Oslo (the Schola Osloensis) and its exigencies. This is why the word ’school’ was made a focus of attention in our symposium. The school had a manifold function in our country from the Reformation and for a long time to come. Besides its primary function of disseminating Christianity in its Lutheran form it was a centre of learning in a dependent province like Norway without its own university. Publications were very much geared to the demands o f the school, but scant and unimpressive though they are from a humanistic point of view they meant a cultivation of the national soil which was gradually to bear richer fruit. The situation of Norway is not unique. A bookish culture, that was predominantly Latin, was bom in the last quarter of the 16th century. As a phenomenon it is incomprehensible considered in isolation. Though situated at the periphery of the learned world it reflects to a certain extent the broader vawes of humanistic learning from its southern neighbours, Denmark or the continent. From time to time it even happens that these peripheous products exhibit a strange form of originality. We gratefully acknowledge all those to whom we made appeals in order to arrange this conference and publish its papers. So it remains to thank the following institutions for their generous help: The Norwegian Academy o f Science and Letters in

O slo , The Norwegian Research Council fo r Science and Humanities (NAVF, now NFR), The Academy fo r Nordic Research Education (NORFA)y The Institute o f Classical and Romance Languages , University of Oslo. We also wish to thank Mrs. Elizabeth Seeberg for correcting the English, Dr. Stephan Rhein for correcting one German manuscript and cand. philol. Vibeke Roggen for assistance with the desk top editing and setting up an index.

EK

vii

Contents Jozef IJsewijn (Leuven):

Humanistic Relations Between Scandinavia and the Low Countries

p. 1

Renatae Litterae quomodo tenas Scandicas (ab Islandia ad Fenniam) ct Balticas intraverint in eisque floruerint, plerumque a plerisque ignoratur, et aliis de causis et quia de illis taccnt cnchiridia ct libri de humanismi historia maioribus linguis conscripti. Nostra in oratione doctas necessitudines enarravimus has inter terras et Belgium Vetus (quod nunc est regnum Batavicum, regnum Bclgicum, archiducatus Luxemburgensis necnon regiones quaedam iis contiguae in W estphalia, Rhenania et Francogallia septemtrionali). Illas autem necessitudines inquisivimus a saeculo XVI ineunte ad tempora Christinae Suecorum reginae. Itaque in unum quasi conspectum conferre conati sumus ac proponere studiosos viros, quos quidem noverimus, qui aut in Belgium e terris borealibus venere aut a Belgis in Septemtrioncs profecti sunt latine sive discentes sive docentes sive scribentes, item libros quibus Renatae Litterae propagatae sint.

Martin Treu (Wittenberg):

Schule der Reformation - Schule des Humanismus: Die Begründung der Wittenberger Tradition

p. 19

At the beginning of the Reformation a major crisis in the educational system in W ittenberg ist to be found. The university of old was linked to the Roman church. At the same time the humanist movement fought violently against the “scholastic system”. Luther established in a series of reforms a new type o f universities and afterwards schools, which based their education on the word o f god in the gospel combined with a humanist knowledge of the classical languages. In the process he pointed out in a collection o f small German pamphlets that education is a deeply theological problem that can only be solved by a broad and specific Christian schooling system. But it took the better part of the 16th century until at last in W ittenberg and Saxony those goals were achieved.

Janis Kreslins (Stockholm):

A Safe Haven in a Turbulent World: The University of Rostock and Lutheran Northern Europe

p. 30

D uring the latter half o f the sixteenth century, the University o f Rostock em erged as one of, if not the leading, institution of higher learning for Lutherans in Northern Europe, a position which the university was able to retain well into the seventeenth century. Rostock was not renowned for its original curriculum . It attracted students because it had a reputation of being a first-rate teaching institution. T he most renowned faculty member at Rostock was David Chytracus. A student of M elanchton, Chytraeus was a staunch defendor o f non-specialized literary study. Students were expected to attain a high level of methodological proficiency and master the art o f presentation. One o f the strengths of the Chytraean curriculum was its flexibility. During the last decade of the sixteenth-century and during the first half of the seventeenth century, Rostock was in the forefront as regards the introduction of

metaphysics into Lutheran currículums and the development of a Lutheran methodus concionandi.

Stefan Rhein (Breiten):

De usu Graecae linguae. Die Griechischstudien an der Universität Rostock p. 42 Die Entwicklung der Griechisch-Studien unter dem Einfluß von Humanismus und Reformation wird oft allzu geradlinig und optimistisch dargestellt. Die Schwierigkeiten bei der Institutionalisierung des universitären Lehrfachs “Griechisch” treten im Fall der Universität Rostock sehr deutlich zu Tage. Bis zur Blüte in der 2. Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts, die mit Namen wie David Chytraeus, Johannes Posselius, Johannes Caselius verbunden ist, war es ein mühseliger W eg verschiedener Studienreformen und individueller Bemühungen (Nikolaus Marschalk, Janus Comarius, Arnold Burenius). Nicht 1526, sondern erst 1564 wurde endgültig der “Professor Graecae Linguae» ernannt.

Arvo Tering (Tartu):

Baltic Students at Rostock University in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century

p. 56

In the second half of the 16th century, among about 20 universities, Rostock University was most frequently visited by the students from the Baltic countries. The largest number of Baltic students came from Riga, which was due to the strong cathedral school (Domschule) and regular town council grants. Among the many factors increasing the attraction o f Rostock University (good ship traffic, trade and family contacts, the tradition o f studying in Rostock, common Low German area) the personal contacts o f prominent professors, especially those of David Chytraeus, with Baltic intellectuals and potentates were very important.

Raija Sarasti-Wilenius (Helsinki):

Finnish Students at the Universities of Rostock and Wittenberg during the Sixteenth Century

p. 71

In the sixteenth century the Universities of Rostock and W ittenberg played an important part in transmitting the ideas and values o f Humanism to Finland, by way o f the Finnish students who had been sent there in order to acquire a higher education in theology and the humanist disciplines. This had not been available in Finland before the University of Turku was established in 1640. As only a relatively small number of the clergy possessed much literary culture, humanist learning was inevitably joined to theology.

Outi Merisalo (Helsinki):

Schools and Reformation in the Grand Duchy of Finland from the Sixteenth Century to the End of the Eighteenth

p. 83

The realm o f Sweden officially became Protestant in 1527, and this entailed vast changes in the school system of the Magnus Ducatus Finlandiae as well. The traditional monastic schools were abolished, and the contents of the teaching were naturally adapted to the ideas of Protestantism. It is only through the school reforms o f the seventeenth century that a well-organized, heavily Humanistic curriculum , x

closely following Philipp M elanchthon's School Order, is imposed, thus consecrating the predom inant position of Latin in secondary education. Humanism and Protestantism are largely synonymous in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Finland, and absolutely instrumental in giving the country a definitely W estern character.

Rasa Jurgelénaité (Vilnius):

The First Humanistic Schools in Lithuania During the Sixteenth Century p. 92 D uring the first half o f the sixteenth century, several eminent men (Abrahamus Culvensis [1510-1545], Stanislaus Rapagellanus [beginning of the sixteenth century -1545], Georgius Zablocius [1510-1563] and others) returned to Lithuania after having graduated from humanistic universities in Germany. They began to propagate the ideas o f the Reformation, and attempted to found a humanistic school in Vilnius. Culvensis, who had studied at the universities of Cracow, Leipzig, W ittenberg and Siena, opened the first humanistic secondary school in Vilnius in 1539. Here young people planning to enter a university studied Latin and Greek, and gained an elementary knowledge o f poetics and philosophy. A s the Counter-Reform ation movement gained more power, the school was closed in 1542. The Protestant Culvensis and other teachers at the school had to leave Lithuania, and sought refuge at Künigsberg; they were invited to teach at the University o f Königsberg, which was founded in 1544. This was the time o f inflexible attacks on the Reformation, when humanistic ideas were spreading, and hum anistic schools were being established in Lithuania.

Brigita Cirule (Riga):

The Organization of Schools in the Century of the Reformation in Latvia p. 98 The present paper focuses mainly on the activities of the Cathedral School o f Riga during the period o f the Lutheran Reformation. The foundation of this school dates from the beginning of the thirteenth %

century. A fter the Reformation had reached Livonia, the Cathedral School was transforemd into a three-year Protestant gymnasium, and gradually became one o f the most popular schools of classical learning in Livonia. A study o f the history of the school shows that, during the sixteenth century, it was mainly led by outstanding scholars, who had received their humanistic education at the greatest universities in Europe at the time. Undoubtedly this fact determined the course o f the school. The Cathedral School o f Riga played an important part in the shaping o f the humanistic tradition of Livonia.

Sigurdur Petursson (Reykjavik):

Latin Teaching in Iceland after the Reformation

p. 106

In the first half of the 16th century Latin teaching seems to have been limited and rather elementary in Iceland. Due to the Reformation, based on King Christian I ll’s Church Ordinance from 1537, Latin teaching was gradually brought to a higher level, especially through the foundation of cathedral schools at the two episcopal seats in 1552. Direct information being scarce, we must also resort to indirect inform ation. Accordingly, this paper is based on 1) documents concerning the foundation of the schools

and any information about books used in the teaching, 2) gathering information about the qualifications and proficiency o f the rectors and students in the two schools. Summing this material up we m ay conclude that in less than one hundred years Latin teaching in Iceland reached a level which offered sufficient preparation for ordinary ecclesiastical service and university studies.

Helge Bei der Wieden (Bückeburg):

Die gelehrte Kenntnis Islands im Rostock des ausgehenden 16. Jahrhunderts p. 123 In the medieval and Renaissance periods, European knowledge of Iceland cam e mainly from ancient Latin authors and the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus. Icelandic sources were as yet unknown. During the 16th century Icelandic humanists began describing their country in Latin books and m aps. However, when in the second half of the century the historian David Chytraeus (1530-1600), professor at Rostock University, studied Icelandic affairs, he had access to quite a few reliable sources, and he was in vivid contact with Icelanders, receiving students from there at his own university and keeping a correspondence with the learned Amgrím ur Jónsson. In his Saxonia, the last revision o f which was published in 1599, he also dealt with Iceland in relative detail. But in his description of touchy matters such as the violent introduction of Lutheranism to Iceland by the Danish authorities, he was reticent and did not tell all he knew. The reason was twofold, probably: a consideration of the interests o f the powerful Danish neighbour, and a feeling that the more unpleasant sides of the Reformation were better left untold.

Peter Zeeberg (Copenhagen):

Heinrich Rantzau (1526-1598), a Literary Maecenas between Denmark and Germany

p. 138

The governor o f Slesvig-Holstein, Heinrich Rantzau (1526-1598), was a Latin writer and, especially, a literary patron on a large scale. The author o f this paper is presently working on a bibliography of the works he wrote or supported. The paper gives a short characterization of this material and the Humanist circle which Rantzau gathered around him, with examples from Rantzau’s correpondence with David Chytraeus. His correspondence with Danes (from the kingdom, as opposed to SlesvigHolstein) is examined, with the conclusion that he did not to any great extent further Danish Humanism by including Danes in his circle. The major exception is his function as an intermediary between Georg Braun and Danes who could furnish him with material for his Civitates Orbis

Terrarum. On the other hand, Rantzau saw to it that his books came to Denmark in great numbers, and with them came the influence from important German Humanists, not least historians.

Fidel Rädle (Göttingen):

Wirklichkeit und poetische Welt in Michael Abels Gedichten

p. 151

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit dem poetischen Werk des in Frankfurt an der Oder geborenen, weitgereisten und von Kaiser Rudolph II. zum Dichter gekrönten Michael Abel (ca. 1542- ca. 1609). Abel hat als Anhänger des christlich-humanistischen Kulturprogrammas von Philipp M elanchton ein Corpus bemerkenswert anspruchsvoller gelehrter und zugleich entschieden christlicher Gedichte

hinterlassen. Er steht in der Nachfolge des Georg Fabricius, Johannes Stiegel sowie seines Freundes M ichael Haslob und knüpft mit diesen an altchristliche Dichtungstraditionen (z. B. die Hymnik) an. W ie im vorliegenden Beitrag vor allem am Exempel eines grossen Hoedoeporicon dem onstriert wird, ist A bels poetische Praxis gekennzeichnet durch ein meditativ-allegorisches Verfahren, das in seiner konsequent christlichen Thematisierung der Bibelexegese nahesteht.

Karsten Friis-Jensen (Copenhagen):

Versification and Topicality. Two encomiastic poems written during the Seven Years War p. 179 One of the standard exercises of medieval and Renaissance schools was to write Latin quantitative verse. W e have little material o f this procedure in Denmark earlier than the seventeenth century. However, two poems published in 1568-9 by the linguist Jacob Madsen Arhus (1538-86) and the historian Anders S 0 rensen Vedel (1542-1616) as young scholars may be taken as evidence that the ability to compose verse paraphrases of a given text and apply a technique of abbreviation or am plification, known to have been trained in medieval schools, was still practised in post-Reformation school teaching. Both the analysed poems, V edel’s paraphrase of Psalm 127 and M adsen’s o f the first book o f Saxo’s history of Denmark, were dedicated to leading statesmen o f the day and m ade to apply directly to the ongoing war between Sweden and Denmark.

Marianne Pade (Copenhagen):

A Melanchthonian Commentary to the First Three Books of Thucydides? Cod. Philol. 166, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg

p. 193

The Hamburg-manuscript contains 1) notes from an introductory lecture on Thucydides. The lecture was by Philip M elanchthon, but the notes contain much material which is also found in Vitus W insem ius’ work on Thucydides; and 2) a commentary on Book I-III which also resembles W insem ius’ work. We know that Melanchthon had planned to lecture on Thucydides in 1542, which is the date at the end of Book I o f the commentary, and again in 1551. W insemius taught Greek at the Faculty o f Philosophy at W ittenberg from 1541 and Johannes Caselius, who studied at W ittenberg 1551-53, heard him lecture on Greek poetry. In his preface to the 1561 edition of the first four books o f the Historiae , W insemius said that he had already been working on the Latin translation for some time. If our com mentary on Books I-III is indeed a fair copy of notes taken down at lectures, these could have been lectures by M elanchthon as well as by W insemius, who both taught Greek at W ittenberg between 1542 and 1555.

Inger Ekrem (Oslo):

Melanchthon - Chytraeus - Gunarius. Der Einfluss des Geschichtsunterrichts und der Geschichtsschreibung in den deutschen Ländern und in DänemarkNorwegen auf einen norwegischen Lektor (ca. 1550-1608).

p. 207

Um das Jahr 1600, als Geschichte in der Schule in Dänemark-Norwegen, und auch in den deutschen Ländern, eher ungewöhnlich als üblich war, gab der norwegische Lektor Halvardus Gunarius drei lateinische Chroniken für seine Schüler in Oslo heraus. Die Chroniken sind in Hexametern und

Disticha geschrieben und repräsentieren eine erste Einführung sowohl in der Universal- als auch in der Nationalgeschichte. Der Beitrag versucht zu zeigen, wie Halvardus Gunarius von gleichzeitigen deutschen, dänischen und norwegischen Geschichtsschreibern beeinflusst ist. Es ist nicht bekannt, ob er tatsächlich seine Chroniken im Unterricht benutzt hat. Dies ist aber höchst wahrscheinlich, weil in Norwegen grosser Mangel an Schulbüchern war. Sein Verdienst liegt vor allem darin, dass er Bücher geschrieben und herausgegeben hat, und zwar in einem Lande, wo, soviel wir wissen, von einheimischen Schriftstellern bis zum Jahre 1596 höchstens noch etwa 15 gedruckte Bücher verfasst worden waren.

Karen Skovgaard-Petersen (Bergen):

Universal History and Early National Past - the De Historia (1604) by Jon Jakobsen Venusin p. 226 The first printed Danish treatise on the theory o f history was the De Historia (K0benhavn 1604) by J.J. Venusin (-1608). Venusin was a professor of rhetoric at the University o f Copenhagen, and the De

Historia is written in the form o f a dissertatio , being divided into 133 theses. Having defined history as rerum gestarum narratio , Venusin moves on to discuss different categorizations o f historiography. Primarily, he focusses on the problem of the possibility of obtaining knowledge o f the remote past. Arguing against the French jurist and historian François Baudouin (1520-73), he claim s that historical traditions older than the earliest written sources cannot be trusted. Consequently, he denies the possibility o f writing universal history in Baudouin’s sense, that is, a history which covers all ages and all places. It is noteworthy that the M elanchthonian concept of universal history is not present at all in V enusin’s discussion, the more so since he had studied with one of the outstanding pupils o f M elanchthon, David Chytraeus.

Erland Sellberg (Stockholm):

A Conflict about Ethics The Ramist Laurentius Paulinus Gothus

p. 237

Laurentius Paulinus Gothus was Archbishop o f Sweden in the early seventeenth century. He was one of the most influential representatives of the clergy, and opposed the King’s efforts to gain control of the Church and the schools, including the only Swedish university. In 1615 Paulinus declared that pagan ethics should be banished from Christian schools and universities. But his attem pt was repudiated by the professor of ethics. In reality this was a conflict between the interests of the State and those o f the Church. The importance of Ramus and Ramism for Paulinus’ theological and, most of all, his political endeavours, has been much discussed. As Vice Chancellor of the University he tried to prevent the Lutheran-scholastic theology, and the neo-Aristotelian philosophy from gaining a foothold, and to support the declining Ramistic philosophy.

Index nominum

p. 246

Humanistic Relations Between Scandinavia and the Low Countries Jozef IJsewijn

Prospective students of the humanistic relations between the Low Countries on the one hand, and Scandinavia and the Baltic countries on the other, are baffled from the outset in their attempt to find a good introduction to this field, written in a generally accessible language. To the best of my knowledge, no survey of the humanistic relations between these regions exists in any major Western language. Moreover, the history of Scandinavian and Baltic Humanism and their Neo-Latin literature remains largely unknown to scholars in other parts of the world. The learned relations which existed between the various parts of Europe as long as the Latin-speaking and writing

Respublica Literarum existed, and which we can still see in the correspondence of men such as the early eighteenth-century Swedish scholar Eric Benzelius, are now too often severed. Conclusive evidence of this regrettable situation is the fact that Scandinavian and Baltic Humanism is conspicuously absent from standard surveys of European Humanism, such as A. Rabil’s three volumes Renaissance Humanism: Foundations,

Forms and Legacy , first published in Philadelphia in 1988, with a revised edition in 1991. As a result, English-speaking students of Humanism will learn nothing about such important authors as Olaus Magnus, whose work their great poet John Milton had read nor, for that matter, about Tycho Brahe. They will not learn that Andreas Knopius (Knopken), the first reformer of Livonia, had as early as in 1524 explicitely referred the readers of his commentary on St. Paul's Letter to the Romans to Erasmus’s translation o f the New Testament. That is a pity, and impoverishes their knowledge of the panEuropean dimension of Humanism. It is, in fact, really astonishing that at a time of growing European political and economic unity, the knowledge of the former intellectual and cultural unity of Europe is often lost.1 Our once common language, Latin, has been banished from most schools, even from some university faculties. The consequences are already obvious: first, a widespread ignorance of Latin leads to grotesque distortions of

'

C onscious o f this regrettable situation, the Royal Belgian Academy (“Koninklijke Academic voor W etenschappen, Letteren en Schone Künsten van België”) in Brussels has founded a “Center of E uropean Culture”, which was opened during a solemn meeting on December 4, 1993.

1

Jozef IJsewijn

the past. Let me cite a recent example, which directly concerns Sweden. In 1990 the Latin correspondence of the French bilingual author Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1594-1654) was published by the University of Saint-Étienne. In it we find a letter written by Gilles Ménage, a friend of Balzac’s, to Queen Christina o f Sweden. The passage: Cum Nicolaus Heinsius mihi Holmia tua per litteras significasset [...] - [When Nicolaus Heinsius (a Dutch Humanist at the Swedish court) had let me know in a letter sent from your city of Stockholm] - has been translated by the French editors as follows: [...] comme Nicolas Heinsius me l ’avait fa it savoir dans une lettre par ta

secrétaire Holmia , and so Miss Holmia, Latin secretary to Queen Christina, was called to life.2 A second consequence of the loss of Latin is the fact that art and literature are now often studied within the anachronistic limits o f modem political boundaries and, when comparatists try to transcend these, the really unifying factor of the past - Latin - still remains completely forgotten. In spite of the new Erasmus exchange programmes for students, there were probably more Scandinavian and Baltic students in Louvain in the early sixteenth century than there are today, and they were not hindered by language and programme problems - every professor spoke Latin, and there was a common European teaching programme. The basic humanistic ideas and ideals were the same all over Europe, they were understood everywhere. I would like to illustrate this with an example which links our countries. It concerns early sixteenth-century Brabant and late seventeenth-century Scandinavia, and it shows how highly estimated classical learning was throughout the whole period of Northern Humanism. In his student play Petriscus , the famous playwright Georgius Macropedius argues that capital punishment for delinquent students is not right: since they know Greek, they cannot be really evil. This must seem rather a startling argument to us, but it was not felt to be so in the humanistic world. During the 8th Neo-Latin Congress in Copenhagen in 1991, books and manuscripts illustrating European Humanism and Neo-Latin letters from Denmark were on display at the Royal Library. Among the exhibited items was a letter in Latin verse written by a young Norwegian woman who had been accused of having killed her child at birth. This letter was sent to the Danish scholar Otto Sperling (1634-1715) in 1700, and he took it to the King. Sperling’s argument against a death sentence in this case was exactly the same as that employed by Macropedius - a woman who could write Latin verse should not be executed. This is not pure coincidene, but the result o f

2

J. Jehasse et B. Yon, Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac. Epistolae selectae, 1650 (Épîtres latines choisies). Texte latin, traduction, introduction, notes et index (Saint-Étienne 1990). See p. 163. 2

- Humanistic Relations -

a centuries-long community of thought all over Europe. Not even the religious differences could wipe out the basic cultural identity brought about by the common humanistic education founded on classical texts. This humanistic culture joined the intellectual élite of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Scandinavia including Iceland, and o f the Baltic countries, with the rest of Western Europe in general, and with the Low Countries in particular. In the next few pages I shall try to draw up a picture - albeit an imperfect one - of the humanistic relations between the Low Countries and the Scandinavian-Baltic region. I say imperfect, because all I could do was to collect the scanty information scattered in a number of scholarly publications to which I had access, and which I was able to understand. I hope that my tentative picture may stimulate Nordic and Baltic scholars to search in their archives and in old local publications for more information on the Humanists and students I mention, and to make the results available to the learned world beyond their own region. The humanistic relations between the Scandinavian and Baltic regions on the one hand, and the Low Countries on the other, are important as well as interesting. They lasted for more than a century and a half, roughly from the age of Erasmus to that of Queen Christina of Sweden. Early Nordic Humanism developed in part in the Low Countries, as a result of personal contacts and with the aid of written documents. At a later stage, Netherlandish and Scandinavian-Baltic humanists became partners on an equal footing: Netherlandish scholars began to travel north, especially to Sor0, Copenhagen and Stockholm, while Northern scholars continued to come south. Important works by Scandinavian and Baltic authors, such as the second part of the monumental H istoria Lithuanica by Albertus Kojalovicius, published in Antwerp in 1669, were written - or at least printed - in the Netherlands. And vice versa, authors from the Low Countries wrote and published part of their work in Scandinavia; sometimes they even contributed to the development of classical studies in the local vernaculars. The History of Alexander the Great, by the Roman author Quintus Curtius, was translated into Swedish by a certain Johannes Leeuwhuisen, whom his Dutch friend Narssius most appropriately called a Belga-Suecus , a Swede from the Netherlands.3 But in many cases it was not the scholar himself, but his correspondence and his books which travelled the distance, and came to Latvian Riga

I took this infprmation from the “Epigramma in Quintum Curtium, in Suedicam linguam versus a D. Joanne Leeuhusen, Belga-Sueco” published in appendix to the first edition o f N arssius’s tragedy G ustavus Saucius (Copenhagen 1628). 3

- Jozef IJsewijn and Finnish Turku/Abo, as well as to Icelandic Hola. The Icelandic Bishop Brynjolf Sveinsson (1605-1675) was acquainted with some of Lipsius’s works.4 This Lipsius was a good friend of Count Henry of Rantzau in Slesvig-Holstein, and after the publication of his De Constantia , Christopher Sturtzius, a doctor of law from Livonia ( t 1602), sent a letter to Lipsius on 1 June 1587, requesting the privilege of becoming friends with the great professor in Louvain. Almost all such personal and written contacts were established at or through the universities and, to a lesser extent, the princely courts. That means that during the early sixteenth century relations with the Low Countries were mainly concentrated to a small area of the southern part of the Duchy of Brabant, the triangle formed by the towns of Mechelen, Brussels and Leuven (Louvain). Until 1575 Louvain was the only university in the Low Countries (Douai, founded in 1562 for French-speaking students does not concern us here), and from 1518 onwards, the Collegium trilingue Lovaniense was good reason for humanist-minded students to undertake the journey to Louvain. The Hapsburg court alternated between Brussels and Mechelen, and offered certain career possibilities to talented itinerant scholars. The Reformation changed all this profoundly: the Low Countries split into a southern part, which remained Catholic under Spanish-Hapsburg sovereignty, and which was therefore no longer attractive for reformed Nordic students, and a northern independent Calvinist republic. The latter founded its own university in Leiden in 1575, and this was later followed by those in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Groningen. Close relations developed between Holland and those parts of northern Europe which adopted the Reformation. It follows that the later humanistic relations were directed to and from Calvinist Leiden rather than Catholic Louvain. This is very clearly illustrated by the numbers of students in the registers of Louvain: between 1485 and 1527, the period of early northern Humanism, there were at least twenty-five students from Scandinavia, and ten from the Baltic. The best-known among them although I could not find him in the admittedly incomplete student lists - was Johannes Magnus (1488-1544), who became a famous Swedish historian and itinerant church politician.5 Between 1528 and 1569 I could not find a single Baltic student, and only

4

'

See, for example, a passage of Sveinsson’s Histórica de rebus Islandicis relatio (§ II), published by J. Benediktsson, "Two Treatises on Iceland from the 17th Century”. Bibliotheca Arnaniagnaeana III (Copenhagen 1943), p. 34: (...] paganorum de 0cv0pomon6p$

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