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REUCHLIN, JOHANN (1455–1522)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 206 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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REUCHLIN, JOHANN (1455–1522) , See also:German humanist and Hebraist, was See also:born on the 22nd of See also:February 1455 at See also:Pforzheim in the See also:Black See also:Forest, where his See also:father was an See also:official of the Dominican monastery. In the pedantic See also:taste of his See also:time the; name was graecicized by his See also:Italian See also:friends into Capnion, a See also:form which Reuchlin himself uses as a sort of transparent See also:mask when he introduces himself as an interlocutor in the De Verbo Miri ico. For his native See also:place Reuchlin always retained an See also:affection; he constantly writes himself Phorcensis, and in the De Verbo he does not forget to ascribe to Pforzheim his first disposition to letters. Here he began his Latin studies in the monastery school, and, though in 1470 he was a See also:short time in See also:Freiburg, that university seems to have taught him little. Reuchlin's career as a See also:scholar appears to have turned almost on an See also:accident; his See also:fine See also:voice gained him a place in the See also:house-hold of See also:Charles I., See also:margrave of See also:Baden, and by-and-by, having already some reputation as a Latinist, he was chosen to accompany to the university of See also:Paris See also:Frederick, the third son of the See also:prince, a lad some years his junior, who was destined for an ecclesiastical career. This new connexion lasted but a See also:year or so, but it determined the course of Reuchlin's See also:life. He now began to learn See also:Greek, which had been taught in the See also:French See also:capital since 1470, and he also attached himself to the See also:leader of the Paris realists, See also:Jean Heynlin, or a Lapide (d. 1496), a worthy and learned See also:man, whom he followed to the vigorous See also:young university of See also:Basel in 1474. At Basel Reuchlin took his See also:master's degree (1477), and began to lecture with success, teaching a more classical Latin than was then See also:common in German See also:schools, and also explaining See also:Aristotle in Greek. His studies in this See also:language had been continued at Basel under Andronicus Contoblacas, and here too he formed the acquaintance of the bookseller, Johann Amorbach, for whom he prepared a Latin See also:lexicon (Vocabularius Breviloquus, 1st ed., 1475-76), which did See also:good service in its time and ran through many See also:editions. This first publication and Reuchlin's See also:account of his teaching at Basel in a See also:letter to See also:Cardinal See also:Adrian (Adriano See also:Castellesi) in February 1518 show that he had already found the See also:work which in a larger See also:sphere occupied his whole life. He was no See also:original See also:genius, but a born teacher.

But this work of teaching was not to be done mainly from the See also:

professor's See also:chair. Reuchlin soon See also:left Basel to seek further Greek training with See also:George Hieronymus at Paris, and to learn to write a See also:fair Greek See also:hand that he might support himself by copying See also:MSS. And now he See also:felt that he must choose a profession. His choice See also:fell on See also:law, and he was thus led to the See also:great school of See also:Orleans (1478), and finally to See also:Poitiers, where he became licentiate in See also:July 1481. From Poitiers Reuchlin went in See also:December 1481 to See also:Tubingen with the intention of becoming a teacher in the .university, but his friends recommended him to See also:Count See also:Eberhard of See also:Wurttemberg, who was about to See also:journey to See also:Italy and required an interpreter. Reuchlin was selected for this See also:post, and in February 1482 left See also:Stuttgart for See also:Florence and See also:Rome. The journey lasted but a few months, but it brought the German scholar into contact with several learned Italians, especially at the Medicean See also:Academy in Florence; his connexion with the count became permanent, and after his return to Stuttgart he received important posts at Eberhard's See also:court. About this time he appears to have married, but little is known of his married life. He left no See also:children; but in later years his See also:sister's See also:grandson See also:Melanchthon was almost as a son to him till the See also:Reformation estranged them. In 1490 he was again in Italy. Here he saw See also:Pico della See also:Mirandola, to whose Cabbalistic doctrines he afterwards became See also:heir, and also made the friendship of the See also:pope's secretary, See also:Jakob Questenberg, which was of service to him in his later troubles. Again in 1492 he was employed on an See also:embassy to the See also:emperor Frederick at See also:Linz, and here he began to read See also:Hebrew with the emperor's Jewish physician Jakob See also:ben Jehiel Loans.

He knew something of this language before, but Loans's instruction laid the basis of that thorough knowledge which he afterwards improved on his third visit to Rome in 1498 by the instruction of Obadja Sforno of See also:

Cesena. In 1494 his rising reputation had been greatly enhanced by the publication of De Verbo Mirifico. In 1496 Eberhard of Wurttemberg died, and enemies of Reuchlin had the See also:ear of his successor, See also:Duke Eberhard. He was glad, therefore, hastily to follow the invitation of Johann von See also:Dalberg (1445-1503), the scholarly See also:bishop of See also:Worms, and flee to See also:Heidelberg, which was then the seat of the " Rhenish Society." In this court of letters Reuchlin's appointed See also:function was to make See also:translations from the Greek authors, in which his See also:reading was already extremely wide. Though Reuchlin had no public See also:office as teacher, and even at Heidelberg was prevented from lecturing, he was during a great See also:part of his life the real centre of all Greek teaching as well as of all Hebrew teaching in See also:Germany. To carry out this work he found it necessary to provide a See also:series of See also:helps for beginners and others. He never published a Greek See also:grammar, though he had one in MS. for use with his pupils, but he put out several little elementary Greek books. Reuchlin, it may be noted, pronounced Greek as his native teachers had taught him to do, i.e. in the See also:modern Greek See also:fashion. This See also:pronunciation, which he defends in Dialogus de Recta See also:Lat. Graecique Serm. Pron. (1519), came to be known, in contrast to that used by See also:Erasmus, as the Reuchlinian.

At Heidelberg Reuchlin had many private pupils, among whom See also:

Franz von See also:Sickingen is the best known name. With the monks he had never been liked; at Stuttgart also his great enemy was the Augustinian See also:Conrad Holzinger. On this man hetook a scholar's revenge in his first Latin See also:comedy See also:Sergius, a See also:satire on worthless monks and false See also:relics. Through Dalberg, Reuchlin came into contact with See also:Philip, elector See also:palatine of the See also:Rhine, who employed him to See also:direct the studies of his sons, and in 1498 gave him the See also:mission to Rome which has been already noticed as fruitful for Reuehlin's progress in Hebrew. He came back laden with Hebrew books, and found when he reached Heidelberg that a See also:change of See also:government had opened the way for his return to Stuttgart, where his wife had remained all along. His friends had now again the upper hand, and knew Reuchlin's value. In 15oo, or perhaps in 1502, he was given a very high judicial office in the Swabian See also:League, which he held till 1512, when he retired to a small See also:estate near Stuttgart. For many years Reuchlin had been increasingly absorbed in Hebrew studies, which had for him more than a See also:mere philological See also:interest. Though he was always a good See also:Catholic, and even took the See also:habit of an Augustinian See also:monk when he felt that his See also:death was near, he was too thorough a humanist to be a See also:blind follower of the See also:church. He knew the abuses of monkish See also:religion, and was interested in the reform of See also:preaching as shown in his De Arte Predicandi (15o3)—a See also:book which became a sort of preacher's See also:manual; but above all as a scholar he was eager that the See also:Bible should be better known, and could not tie himself to the authority of the See also:Vulgate. The See also:key to the Hebraea veritas was the grammatical and exegetical tradition of the See also:medieval rabbins, especially of See also:David Kimhi, and when he had mastered this himself he was resolved to open it to others. In 1506 appeared his See also:epoch-making De Rudimentis Hebraicis—grammar and lexicon—mainly after Kimhi, yet not a mere copy of one. man's teaching.

The edition was costly and sold slowly. One great difficulty was that the See also:

wars of See also:Maximilian I., in Italy prevented Hebrew Bibles coming into Germany. But for this also Reuchlin found help by See also:printing the See also:Penitential See also:Psalms with grammatical explanations (1512), and other helps followed from time to time. But his Greek studies had interested him in those fantastical and mystical systems of later times with which the Cabbala has no small See also:affinity. Following Pico, he seemed to find in the Cabbala a profound See also:theosophy which might be of the greatest service for the See also:defence of See also:Christianity and the reconciliation of See also:science with the mysteries of faith—an unhappy delusion indeed, but one not surprising in that See also:strange time of ferment. Reuchlin's mystico-cabbalistic ideas and See also:objects were expounded in the De Verbo Mirifico, and finally in the De Arte Cabbalistica (1517). Unhappily many of his contemporaries thought that the first step to the See also:conversion of the See also:Jews was to take from them their books. This view had for its See also:chief See also:advocate the bigoted Johann Pfefferkorn (1469-1521), himself a baptized Hebrew. Pfefferkorn's plans were backed by the See also:Dominicans of See also:Cologne; and in 1509 he got from the emperor authority to confiscate all Jewish books directed against the See also:Christian faith. Armed with this See also:mandate, he visited Stuttgart and asked Reuchlin's help as a jurist and See also:expert in putting it into See also:execution. Reuchlin evaded the demand, mainly because the mandate lacked certain formalities, but he could not See also:long remain neutral. The execution of Pfefferkorn's schemes led to difficulties and to a new See also:appeal to Maximilian.

In 1510 Reuchlin was summoned in the name of the emperor to give his See also:

opinion on the suppression of the Jewish books. His See also:answer is dated from Stuttgart, See also:October 6, 1510; in it he divides the books into six classes—apart from the Bible which no one proposed to destroy—and, going through each class, he shows that the books openly insulting to Christianity are very few and viewed as worthless by most Jews themselves, while the others are either See also:works necessary to the Jewish' See also:worship, which was licensed by papal as well as imperial law, or contain See also:matter of value and scholarly interest which ought not to be sacrificed because they are connected with another faith than that of the Christians. He proposed that the emperor should See also:decree that for ten years there be two Hebrew chairs at every German university for which the Jews should furnish books. The other experts proposed that all books should be taken from the Jews; and, as the emperor still hesitated, the bigots threw on Reuchlin the whole blame of their See also:ill success. Pfefferkorn circulated at the See also:Frankfort fair of 151I a See also:gross See also:libel (Handspiegel wider and gegen See also:die Juden) declaring that Reuchlin had been bribed; and Reuchlin retorted as warmly in the Augenspiegel (1511). His adversary's next move was to declare the Augenspiegel a dangerous book; the Cologne theological See also:faculty, with the inquisitor Jakob von Hochstraten (d. 1527) took up this cry, and on the 7th of October 1512 they obtained an imperial See also:order confiscating the Augenspiegel. Reuchlin was timid, but he was honesty itself. He was willing to receive corrections in See also:theology, which was not his subject, but he could not unsay what he had said; and as his enemies tried to See also:press him into a corner he met them with open See also:defiance in a Defensio contra Calumniatores (1513). The See also:universities were now appealed to for opinions, and were all against Reuchlin. Even Paris (See also:August 1514) condemned the Augenspiegel, and called on Reuchlin to recant. Meantime a formal See also:process had begun at See also:Mainz before the See also:grand inquisitor, but Reuchlin by an appeal succeeded in transferring the question to Rome.

See also:

Judgment was not finally given till July 1516; and then, though the decision was really for Reuchlin, the trial was simply quashed. The result had cost Reuchlin years of trouble and no small part of his modest See also:fortune, but it was See also:worth the See also:sacrifice. For far above the direct importance of the issue was the great stirring of public opinion which had gone forward. And if the obscurantists escaped easily at Rome, with only a See also:half condemnation, they received a crushing See also:blow in Germany. No party could survive the ridicule that was poured on them in the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, the first See also:volume of which written chiefly by Crotus Rubeanus appeared in 1514, and the second by See also:Ulrich von See also:Hutten in 1517. Hutten and Franz von Sickingen did all they could to force Reuchlin's enemies to a restitution of his material See also:damages; they even threatened a See also:feud against the Dominicans of Cologne and See also:Spires. In 1520 a See also:commission met in Frankfort to investigate the See also:case. It condemned Hochstraten. But the final decision of Rome did not indemnify him. The contest ended, however; public interest had grown See also:cold, absorbed entirely by the Lutheran question, and Reuchlin had no See also:reason to fear new attacks. Reuchlin did not long enjoy his victory in See also:peace. In 1519 Stuttgart was visited by See also:famine, See also:civil See also:war and pestilence.

From See also:

November of this year to the See also:spring of 1521 the See also:veteran statesman sought See also:refuge in See also:Ingolstadt and taught there for a year as professor of Greek and Hebrew. It was See also:forty-one years since at Poitiers he had last spoken from a public chair; but the old man of sixty-five had not lost his See also:gift of teaching, and hundreds of scholars crowded See also:round him. This gleam of autumn See also:sunshine was again broken by the See also:plague; but now he was called to Tubingen and again spent the See also:winter of 1521-22 teaching in his own systematic way. But in the spring he found it necessary to visit the See also:baths of Liebenzell, and here he was seized with See also:jaundice, of which he died on the 3oth of See also:June 1522, leaving in the See also:history of the new learning a name only second to that of his younger contemporary Erasmus. The authorities for Reuchlin's life are enumerated in L. Geiger, Johann Reuchlin (1871), which is the See also:standard See also:biography. The controversy about the books of the Jews is well sketched by D. F. See also:Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten. See also S. A. See also:Hirsch, " See also:John Reuchlin, the Father of the Study of Hebrew among the Christians," and his " John Pfefferkorn and the See also:Battle of Books," in his Essays (See also:London, 1905).

Some interesting details about Reuchlin are given in the autobiography of Conrad See also:

Pellicanus (q.v.), which was not published when Geiger's book appeared. See also the See also:article on Reuchlin in See also:Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, and literature there cited. (W. R.

End of Article: REUCHLIN, JOHANN (1455–1522)

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