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Hermann von dem Busche's Vallum humanitatis (1518): A German Defense of the Renaissance Studia Humanitatis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

James V. Mehl*
Affiliation:
Missouri Western State College

Extract

Hermann von dem Busche typifies the younger, more aggressive generation of humanists who became embroiled in the literary feuds and controversies of pre-Reformation Germany.' While Peter Luder and Conrad Celtis had preceded him as "apostles of humanism" in Germany, Busche carried the tradition of the "wandering poet" into the early sixteenth century. His major prose work, the Vallum humanitatis, exemplifies an important literary genre of the humanists, the "defense of poetry," usually approached as a defense of humanistic learning against scholastic opponents. Several recent studies need to be taken into account when assessing the literary and historical significance of Busche's Vallum humanitatis. Concetta Greenfield's analysis of Italian "defenses of poetry" between 1250 and 1500 lends further credence to Kristeller's wellknown thesis regarding the simultaneous development of scholasticism and humanism in Renaissance Italy.

Type
Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1989

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Footnotes

*

Parts of this essay have been previously presented at the Sixth Congress of the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies in Wolfenbiittel, West Germany, 1985, and the International Conference on the German Renaissance, Reformation, and Baroque Periods at the University of Kansas, 1986. I wish to thank the respondents at these meetings, especially Professor Peter Schäffer, for their many comments and useful suggestions for revising this paper.

References

1 Busche should be counted among the humanists of the Erfurt circle, as discussed by Spitz, Lewis W., The Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists (Cambridge, Mass., 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 18. See also the comments on Busche's character by Reinhard Becker, A War of Fools: The Letters of Obscure Men; A Study of the Satire and the Satirized (Bern, Frankfurt am Main, and Las Vegas, 1981), 54, n. 160; and by Dietrich Reichling, Ortwin Gratius: Sein Leben und Wirken (Heiligenstadt, 1884; rpt. Nieuwkoop, 1963), 30-33.

2 Spitz, Religious Renaissance, 82, states that this humanist type became “extremely rare” by the sixteenth century; along with Busche, he lists only Aesticampianus and Jacob Locher among the Germans.

3 Greenfield, Concetta Carestia, Humanist and Scholastic Poetics, 1250-1500 (London and Toronto, 1981)Google Scholar. See esp. the works by Kristeller, Paul Oskar, Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanist Strains (New York, 1961)Google Scholar, and Renaissance Thought, vol. 2, Papers on Humanism and the Arts (New York, 1965).

4 Lefebvre, “Le poète, la poésie et la poétique: Elements pour une définition et pour une datation de l'humanisme allemand,” in idem and Margolin, Jean-Claude, eds., L'humanisme allemand (1480-1540) (Munich and Paris, 1979)Google Scholar, 285-301. It should be noted, however, that an earlier, first edition of the Scoparius had been printed (Deventer, Albert Pafraet, 1517). The materials in Lefebvre should be supplemented by Frank Baron's study of Hoest's Saint Catherine's Lecture of 1464, in Stephan Hoest: Reden und Briefe (Munich, 1971), 26-35,118-41; by Peter Schäffer's edition and commentary on Joachim Vadian, Depoetica et carminis ratione, 3 vols. (Munich, 1973-77); and by my own study, “Ortwin Gratius’ Orationes Quodlibeticae: Humanist Apology in Scholastic Form, ”Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 11 (1981): 57-69, which disagrees substantially with the interpretation of Jacques Chomarat, “Les Hommes obscurs et la poésie,” in Lefebvre and Margolin, L'humanisme allemand, 261-83.

5 Overfield, JamesH., Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany (Princeton, N.J., 1984)Google Scholar, 293; Nauert, Charles G., Jr., “The Clash of Humanists and Scholastics: an Approach to Pre-Reformation on Controversies,” Sixteenth-Century Journal 4 (1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 1-18.

6 The following biographical information is taken largely from Ludwig Geiger, “Hermann von dem Busch,” Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. 3, 637-40; Aloys Bömer, “Hermannus Buschius,” in idem and Leuenschloss, Otto, eds., Westfälische Lebensbilder, vol. 1 (Münster, 1930)Google Scholar, 50-67; UseGuenther, “HermannusBuschius,”in Bietenholz, Peter G., ed., Contemporaries of Erasmus, vol. 1 (Toronto, Buffalo, and London, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 233-34; anQl the older account by H.J. Liessem, Hermann van dem Busche: Sein Leben und seine Schriften (1884-1908; rpt. Nieuwkoop, 1965), which, unfortunately, traces events only down to the Donatus controversy around IS09, but does contain a thorough, annotated bibliography of his writings.

7 The use of “Pasiphilus” has caused some confusion among his biographers. Geiger, “Busch,” 637, infers that Busche intended it as a play on words of his homeland, “Westphalus.” But since the Greek word “pasiphilē” means “loved by all people,” Bömer (Lebensbilder, vol. I, 50) has the more likely interpretation of “Pasiphilus” as “Allerweltsfreund,” adopted by the wandering poet of humanism as a kind of self-irony.

8 On Langen see Klemens Löffler, “Rudolf von Langen,” in Lebensbilder, vol. 1, 344- 57, and Bömer, Aloys, Das literarische Leben in Münster bis zur endgültigen Rezeption des Humanismus (Münster, 1906), 6379 Google Scholar.

9 D'Amico, John F., Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome (Baltimore and London, 1983), 91102 Google Scholar; Stinger, CharlesL., The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington, Ind., 1985)Google Scholar, 8-9 and passim. For the particular kind of humanist education that Busche probably experienced under Leto, see Anthony Grafton and Jardine, Lisa, From Humanism to the Humanities (Cambridge, Mass., 1986)Google Scholar, 87-92.

10 Contemporaries, vol. 1, 233.

11 Spitz has stressed the importance of classical models, as well as their transmission from Italy, for the development of German humanism; “The Course of German Humanism,” in Heiko A. Oberman and Brady, Thomas A., Jr., eds., Itinerarium Italkum (Leiden, 1975), 371436 Google Scholar.

12 Lebensbilder, vol. 1, 52, and Liessem, Busche, 2-3.

13 See the bibliography of his writings in Liessem, Busche, Anhang, as well as the update in the Index Aureliensis, vol. 6, pt. I, 57-65.

14 Keussen, Hermann, ed., Die Matrikelder Universitat Kdln, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1919)Google Scholar, 382: “in humanitatis studiis non vulgariter edoctus, que quidem poetice discipline studia in hac alma nostra universitate studii Coloniensis ad annum fere professus est.”

15 Kuckhoff, Josef, Die Geschichte des Gymnasium Tricoronatum (Cologne, 1931)Google Scholar, 26.

16 Liessem, Busche, 6. Very similar concerns were expressed about the same time by Langen; see Overfield, Humanism, 110.

17 They include Hamm, Mtinster, Osnabrück, Bremen, Hamburg, Liibeck, andWismar; Contemporaries, vol. 1, 233 as cited in n. 6 above; Geiger, “Busch,” 637; and Liessem, Busche, 9.

18 The Oestrum, published later at Leipzig, 1506; see Overfield, Humanism, 106-07; Liessem, Busche, 9-10, and Anhang, 14; Geiger, “Busch,” 637-38.

19 Overfield, ibid., 183-85, 213, 226-27; Liessem, ibid., 11-21; Grossman, Maria, Humanism in Wittenberg 1485-1517 (Nieuwkoop, 1975)Google Scholar, 46-47.

20 Overfield, ibid., 236-37.

21 Lebensbilder, vol. 1, 56; Geiger, “Busch,” 638.

22 Overfield, Humanism, 237.

23 Liessem, Busche, 26, includes a German translation of part of the letter; Overfield's translation, Humanism, 237, is worth repeating here: “Flee everything that leads to ruin, the excessive enj oy ment of wine and all sordid behavior. For this cripples every strength, deludes the mind and brings your profession in danger. Preserve your eyes which through excesses of both evils have been almost completely destroyed through sickly drunken discharges and redness. If you are to protect your possessions and property, you must earn it through industrious teaching; take care you are not forced into beggary in your old age.”

24 Hermann defended the classical Roman poets against Sbrulius, who preferred modern Christian poets such as Baptista Mantuanus; Geiger, “Busch,” 638. See also Grossman, Humanism, 73.

25 Nauert, “Peter of Ravenna and the ‘Obscure Men’ of Cologne: A Case of Pre- Reformation Controversy,” in Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi, eds., Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron (DeKalb, 111., 1971), 609-40, esp. 614.

26 Liessem, Busche, 27-41, where it is also mentioned that Busche's musical theory was similar to that of the humanist Heinrich Glarean. The “Flora” was later reprinted with the woodcut of Cologne by Anton Woensam, printed by Quentell in 15 31; see Jurgen Stohlmann, “Zum Lobe Kölns: Die Stadtansicht von 1531 und die ‘Flora’ des von dem Busche, Hermann, ” Jahrbuch des Kölnischen Geschichtsvereins 51 (1980)Google Scholar: 1-56; rep. also in Hans Rupprich, td.,Humanismus und Renaissance in den deutschen Stadten und an den Universitäten (Humanismus und Renaissance, 2 [Leipzig, 1935]), 140-49.

27 See my “The 1509 Dispute over Donatus: Humanist Editor as Controversialist,” Publishing History 16 (1984): 7-19.

28 Best, ThomasW., The Humanist Ulrich von Hutten: A Reappraisal of his Humor (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1969), 4850 Google Scholar.

29 Bömer attributes to Busche letters, pt. 1, nos. 19, 36, and perhaps 12 and 39, as well as pt.2, nos. 61 and 62; “Hermann von dem Busches Anteil an den Epistolae obscurorum virorum,” in Aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart: Festgabe Friedrich Philippigeividmet (Miinster, 1923), 86-99; see also Best, Ulrich von Hutten, 14, regarding the authorship problem. The Cologne printer Heinrich von Neuss published editions of the Epistolae in 1516 and 1517 (Böcking nos. 3 and 4); Bonier, “Verfasser und Drücker der Epistolae obscurorum virorum; Kritik einer neuen Hypothese,” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 61 (1924): 1-12.

30 Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 34.

31 Ibid., 36.

32 Ibid., 39.

33 Ibid., 46. While in Wesel he wrote handbooks for students, including his Breviores Ciceronis epistolae (Cologne: Eucharius Hirtzhorn [Cervicornus], 1517), in Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 47, and his Dictata quaedam utilissima, ex Proverbiis sacris et Ecclesiastico, ad studiosorum quorumque utilitatem (Cologne: Hirtzhorn, 1517), the first edition, apparently unknown to Liessem (cf. Anhang, 56), where the 1518 Kaiser publication is the first listed). See also the reference in the Epistolae, pt. 2, no. 45; in the edition of Holborn, Hajo, On the Eve of the Reformation: “Letters of Obscure Men”, trans. Francis Stokes (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, 195: “I rejoiced when you told me that Buschius no longer abideth at Cologne, for he was a stumbling-block to the University, enticing students away with that poetry of his.”

34 On hearing of his return, Erasmus expressed delight that Busche would now be better able to do battle against “barbarians” in Cologne; Erasmus to Caesarius, Louvain, 5 April 1518, in Allen, P. S. et al., eds., Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterdami, vol. 3, (Oxford, 1913)Google Scholar, 262, and in McConica, James, etal., eds., Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 5 (Toronto, Buffalo, and London, 1979)Google Scholar, 358-59. Erasmus had met Busche in Frankfurt am Main in 1515, fostering a friendship which would last nearly ten years; Contemporaries, vol. 1, 233.

35 Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 48. For an account of these events see also Lebensbilder, vol. 1, 59-60.

36 Liessem, ibid., 60-63; Overfield, Humanism, 291-92; Nauert, , “Graf Hermann von Neuenahr and the Limits of Humanism in Cologne,” Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques 15 (1988)Google Scholar: 65-79, esp. 71.

37 The small quarto volume has sixty leaves, with the pagination indicated by signatures from A2 to M3; see Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 49, for additional publication information. Bissels, Paul, Humanismus und Buckdruck: Vorreden Humanistischer Drucke in Köln in ersten Drittel des 16.Jahrhunderts (Nieuwkoop, 1965)Google Scholar, 8, includes the shop of Nikolaus and his brother Konrad among the major humanist printers in Cologne. For the date of the letter see Liessem, Anhang, 61.

38 The dedication to Neuenar is dated 2 March 1518 and is on fols. A2-B4 of the Vallum humanitatis (Cologne: Nikolaus Kaiser [Caesar], 1518). For this study I have used the British Library copy, 819.f. 1; Allen, in Opus Epistolarum, vol. 4, 279, n. 54, states that this is the same copy presented by Busche to a friend at the Frankfurt fair on 13 September 1518. In March Kaiser had also published an epithet by Busche presented to Hermann and his brother upon the recent death of their father; Liessem, Anhang, 48-49.

39 The note is in the Vallum, fols. B4v - C I . The few brief treatments of the Vallum have focused almost exclusively on this note and the dedicatory letter; see Bissels, Humanismus, 12-13; Lefebvre, “Poète,” 288-91; and Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 49-52.

40 Vallum, fol. A3V. Neuenar's castle at Bedburg is actually sixteen miles west of Cologne. Erasmus confirms the count's hospitality on his return to Louvain that year: “With him I spent five delightful days, in such tranquillity and comfort that I finished a good part of my revision while I was there, for I had brought that part of the New Testament with me”; Erasmus to Beatus Rhenanus, Louvain, [first half of October] 1518, in Works, vol. 6, 117; Opus epistolarum, vol. 3, 396. See also the letter from the Colognejurist Adolf Eicholz to Erasmus, Cologne, 6 October 1518: Works, vol. 6, m - 12; Opus epistolarum, vol. 3, 390-92.

41 Vallum, fol. A4V.

42 Ibid., fol. A5V: “bonarum literarum studia.”

43 Ibid., fols. A6v-Bi: “ubi nihil quod ex humanitatis artibus sit discere vel audire, sine publica etiam insectatione illis liceat?”

44 Ibid., fol. Biv : “Hie poetriam (sic enim ipsi vocant) totum destruere clamitat, ille humanitatis artis fatuitatis studia dictitat, alius fabularum deliramenta accusato, alius verborum lenocinia adlatrat, alius alia probra occentat. Nusquam certe in Italia (parente litterarum) exaudiuntur barbarica haec convicia in studia humanitatis … . Non iureconsultus, non theologus, non philosophus ibi, e cathedra contra poetas, et oratores, de lana caprina rixatur.”

45 Ibid., fol. B2: “vilissimos quosque opifices et cerdones.” On the poet and orator as “fabricator” see Walter J. Ong, “The Province of Rhetoric and Poetic,” in Schwartz, Joseph and Rycenga, John A., eds., The Province of Rhetoric (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, 48-56, esp. 53.

46 Vallum, fol. B3: “generosissime et eruditissime novaquilae Comes Hermanne.“ About this time Erasmus mentions “the eaglet” Neuenar “doing battle like a very Hercules against those arrogant professors of unlearned learning” at Cologne; Erasmus to Caesarius, Louvain, 5 April 1518, and Erasmus to Busche, Louvain, 23 April 1518, in Works, vol. 5, 359, 403; Opus epistolarutn, vol. 3, 262, 297.

47 A sermon preached by a Dominican in Cologne in 1516, attacking the poets, is reported in the Lucubrationes theologicae (Rome, 1528), as cited by Janssen, Johannes, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, vol. 2 (Freiburg, 1889), 35 Google Scholar. And while Heinz Otto Burger places the sermon in Wesel, in his Renaissance, Hutnanismus, Reformation (Berlin and Zurich, 1969), 442-43, it is much more likely that Busche heard the sermon in Cologne at Christmastime because he had already given notice of his resignation as headmaster at Wesel by August, 1517; see Lebensbilder, vol. 1, 60.

48 For Mussato and Boccaccio see Greenfield, Poetics, 80, 122, respectively; for Polich, see Overfield, Humanism, 174-75.

49 Vallum, fol. B4V: “nihil divini continere, nihil honesti.”

50 Ibid.: “vox haec ‘amo’ aspiretur nee ne, amorem autem dei et proximi, et qualiter in ipso vivendum sit, parvipendere, sed insuper eos promiscue porcos esse.”

51 The reference to “the apostle” may have been added to mock the narrow biblicism of the obscurantist preacher. Busche could also have had in mind the Dominican Savanarola whose attacks against poets and predictions of a final age were well known; see Greenfield, Poetics, 246-56.

52 Vallum, fol. Ci: “sola barbariem.”

53 Ibid.: “capita accusationis praescriptae dumtaxat, sine mentione auctoris, pro virili mea confodere, et dissolvere tentabo.”

54 Ibid., fol. B3V: “Hunc itaque numerum ad substructionem nostri istius valli, non temere adhibuimus, sed ut cubi. I. solidi absolutique operis, sive corporis ratio illi (aliqua saltern) constaret.”

55 Ibid., fols. B3V: -B4: “In primo tomo Studia humanitatis, non vanitatis, perversitatisque (ut placet adversariis) sed ipsa liberalium artium studia esse probantur. In secundo, plurimum utilitatis et boni contineri in his literis ostenditur, contra eosdem qui penitus nihil frugi, in illis clamitant inveniri. Tertio adversus praedictos, qui haec studia censent iuventuti fere interdicenda, ego contendo atque adfirmo, ad sacram scripturam intelligendam, non expetenda solum, verum etiam aliquo pacto necessaria. Quarto ubi ab iisdem illis, non nisi turpes, et sordidi, apud haec studia evadere dicuntur, ego contra, quosdam (nee parum multos) illis imbutos, sanctissimos evasisse, pientissimeque vixisse demonstro. Quinto, eloquentiam, quam non supervacaneam modo, verum quod amplius est, rem nihili praedicant, ego rem magnam, et utilem (etiam ecclesiasticis) assero, seduloque ostendo. Sexto de his verbis divi Hieronymi, Daemonum cibus, et caeteris huiusmodi agitur, quod ea non solum de poetis (ut interpretantur adversarii) sed de Aristotele, et philosophis omnibus, perinde atque de poetis, vel etiam magis dicta legantur. Septimo Carmen sacrorum mysteriis, atque adeo sublimioribus etiam mysteriis, non solum nostros, sed etiam sanctos olim prophetas frequenter accomodasse indicator. Octavo et ultimo, omnium praestantissimarum nationum, et imprimis Italiae, ac reginae gentium ipsius Romae praeiudiciis, non toleranda tantum, sed etiam publica impensa fovenda esse haec studia colligitur.” This section is reprinted in Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 50.

56 Vallum, fol. B4: “Nullum est hie argumentum formale, nulla artificialis conclusio in barbara.”

57 See Kristeller on the development of the studia humanitatis, in Renaissance Thought, vol. 2, esp. 9-10, 110-14, as well as the complementary treatment by Greenfield, Poetics, 1-40.

58 Vallum, fol. Civ: Gellius, Attic Nights, bk. 12 (sic 13), chap. 17; my translation is based on that in the Loeb ed., vol. 2, 457.

59 Vallum, fol CIV:: “veram graeciam”; Pliny to Maximus, in Letters, bk. 8, no. 24; in the Loeb ed., vol. 2, 73.

60 Vallum, fol. C2: “Poeticam, et oratoriam, quam humanitatis vocabulo praecipue censentur, adversarii nostri (ut video) nihil propter sola fabularum deliramenta, et inanium verborum tumultusprofiteri arbitrantur. At poetarum et oratorum institutumest, non delectare solum, sed etiam prodesse, quod sine sapientiae disciplinas, fieri ego posse non opinor.”

61 Ibid., fol. C3: “non vanitatis neque falsitatis.”

62 Ibid., fol. C3V: “possetis et totam Siciliam comprehendere sub una Aethna inquam.” Busche's frustration here is explained by his earlier attempt to introduce a revised edition of Donatus to replace Alexander and other scholastic glosses. The significance of such reform efforts in late medieval universities is shown by Terrence Heath, “Logical Grammar, Grammatical Logic, and Humanism in Three German Universities,” Studies in the Renaissance 18 (1971): 9-64, and by Perreiah, Alan, “Humanistic Critiques of Scholastic Dialectic,” Sixteenth-Century Journal 13 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 3-22.

63 See Greenfield, Poetics, esp. 32-36.

64 Vallum, fol. C3V: “ex eis copia optimorum verborum comparatur, et eloquentia rebus persuadendis, sententiisque explicandis maxime necessaria adquiritur.”

65 Ibid., fol. C4: “pulcherrimis operibus.”

66 Ibid.; the reference is to the Confessions, bk. 3, chap. 4 (7).

67 Busche had earlier expressed his interest in improved biblical studies in his Sermo Coloniae in celebri Synodo ad clerum dictus continens accuratam exhortationem ad studium sacre scripture (Cologne, 1513); see Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 32-35. He also quoted extensively from Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus to illustrate his handbook on ethics, the Dictata utilissima; see n. 33 above.

68 Again Busche is in line with both northern and Italian humanists in his preference for the early Church fathers. Hoest preferred Jerome (Baron, Hoest, esp. 31); Gratius ranked Lactantius first, followed by Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine (Mehl, “Ortwin Gratius’ Orationes,” 62); Vadian emphasized Augustine and Jerome (Schäffer, Poetics, vol. 3, 30). For other examples see Rice, Eugene F., “The Humanist Idea of Christian Antiquity: Lefèvre d'Etaples and His Circle,” Studies in the Renaissance 9 (1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 126-60, and for the Italian humanists see Greenfield,, 29 ff. and Trinkaus, Charles, “In Our Image and Likeness”: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought, vol. 2 (Chicago, 1970)Google Scholar, 553 ff.

69 Vallum, fol. C4V. The quotation is from Augustine's De doctrina Christiana, bk. 2, chap. 16 (24). Hermann's heavy reliance on the De doctrina both here and in the later books suggests an Erasmian influence. Busche no doubt was familiar with early versions of the Antibarbari, with the Enchiridion, as well as with various exegetical and controversial works, wherein Erasmus used the De doctrina as a principal source; see Charles Béné, Erasme et Saint Augustin (Geneva, 1969).

70 Vallum, fol. C6: “ad intelligenda sacram scripturam, non utilem modo, verum etiam necessariam propre esse historia.” He then cites the De doctrina Christiana, bk. 12, chap. 28 (42, 43).

71 Vallum, fols. C6V-D1.

72 Ibid., fol. D2.

73 Ibid., fol. D2V: “inanis, aut inepta.” For discussions of Thomas’ relation to scholastic poetics, see Greenfield, Poetics, 41-55, and also Ong, “Province of Rhetoric,” 50- 51. Hastings Rashdall has recognized the prominence of Thomas at Cologne: “As the most prominent and central of the educational and ecclesiastical centers of Germany, Cologne was selected by the Dominicans as the chicfstudium of their order in that country — a studium made illustrious by the teaching of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas”; The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, rev. ed., F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1936), 255. At Cologne the philosophical split was not between the via antiqua and moderna, as was the case at most other German universities, but rather between Albertists and Thomists.

74 Vallum, fol. D3; the quotation is from the Dedoctrina Christiana, bk. 2, chap. 40(60), with a translation taken from The Fathers of the Church (Washington, D.C., 1947), vol. 4, 112-13. On the significance of this passage for humanist poetics see Greenfield, Poetics, 33-34.

75 This is also from the De doctrina Christiana, bk. 2, chap. 40 (61).

76 Vadian expressed a similar view in his Depoetica; see Schaffer, Poetics, vol. 3, 21 ff.

77 Vallum, fol. D4: “duorum meo iudicio summorum ecclesiasticae doctrinae professorum.”

78 Ibid., fol. D4V. Greenfield, Poetics, 29, discusses the trope as one of the allegorical types used in scriptural interpretation.

79 SeeKuckhoff, Geschichte, 27-30, and also Heath, “Logical Grammar,” 18-21. The earlier shift to speculative grammar in scholasticism is explained by Bursill-Hall, G. L., Speculative Grammars of the Middle Ages (The Hague and Paris, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Busche satirized Ziitphen and his commentary on Alexander in the Epistolae, pt. 1, no. 19.

80 Vallum, fol. EI: “pumex aridus citius certe aguam postulanti dederit.”

81 Busche's support of Greek and Hebrew studies can be explained by his associations with Reuchlin, Erasmus, and Johannes Caesarius, who taught Greek privately in Cologne and instructed Hermann von Neuenar in the ancient language.

82 Vallum, fol. EIV : “Multos sanctos et graveis viros.” The list includes Aristides, Justinus, Melito, Dionysius, Clement of Alexandra, Apollonius, Ammonius, Triphon, Minutius Felix, Theodoras, Cyprian, Malchion, Anatolius, Phileas, Lactantius, Methodius, Juvencus, Hilary, Damasus, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Orosius, Eutropius, Ausonius, Prudentius, Sedulius, John Damascene, and Boethius.

83 Ibid., fol. E2: “erroris et blasphoemiae.”

84 Ibid., fol. E3: “eloquentissimum theologum.”

85 Papal support of humanistic studies during the Renaissance is being increasingly recognized as a factor in the generally pro-papal stance among the German humanists prior to the Reformation; see Brann, Noel L., “Pre-Reformation Humanism in Germany and Papal Monarchy: A Study in Ambivalence, ” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 14 (1984)Google Scholar: 159-85, esp. 163-68, 177.

86 Vallum, fol. E4V.

87 Ibid., fol. E6: “clarissimo.”

88 Ibid., fol. Fiv : “ieiunam, et sordidam statim cavillatus … . grammaticae professor idoneus.” Here Busche is referring to his 1509 dispute over Donatus; see Liessem, Busche, 49. About that same time the Faculty of Theology had issued a public prohibition against the study of pagan poets, allowing only Virgil and “the earlier Christian poets” to be read at Cologne; Keussen, Hermann, ed., Regesten und Auszüge der Universität Köln, 1388-1559, in MitteilungenausdemStadtarchiv von Köln, vol. 15 (Cologne, 1918)Google Scholar, 337. See also Overfield, Humanism, 235; Scribner, R. W., “Why was there no Reformation in Cologne?”, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 49 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 217-41, esp. 229-30; and Chaix, Gerald, Réforme et contreréforme catholiques: Recherches sur la Chartreuse de Cologne au XVIe siècle, vol. 1 (Salzburg, 1981)Google Scholar, 114-16.

89 Vallum, fol. F2: “praecipua humani miracula ingenii.” See also Gray, Hanna, “Renaissance Humanism: the Pursuit of Eloquence, ” Journal of the History of Ideas 24 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 497-5I4, and Seigel, Jerrold E., Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism (Princeton, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90 Specifically in bk. 4, chap. 5 (8). Ennen (Geschichte, vol. 4, 83) mentions that Busche, following his return to Cologne in early 1518, was almost daily at table with the “Präzeptor Pater Wenzeslaus” in the Canonry of the Antonines. Justus Hashagen has provided further identification of this friend of Busche as Ulner, Wenceslaus, in his “Hauptrichtungen des rheinischen Humanismus,” Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein 106 (1922)Google Scholar: 1-56, here 27.

91 Vallum, fol. G4V.

92 Ibid., fol. H3V: “Daemonum cibus est carmina poetarum, secularis sapientia, rhetoricorum pompa verborum”; from Jerome's letter no. 21 in Migne, PL vol. 20, 385. Both Vadian and Heinrich Bebel responded to the same charge; Schäffer, Poetica, vol. 3, 37. Wimpfeling referred to the passage from Jerome in chap. 3 of his Contra turpem libellum Philomusi (Nuremburg, 1510); rep. in Lefebvre, Lesfols et lafolie (Paris, 1968), 415.

93 Vallum, fol. H4V: “Nulli certe fuerunt rabidiores adversus Christum, et ecclesiam eius canes, quam philosophi, quod in Celso, Porphyrio, Iuliano, Pelagio, Arrio, Manicheo, multisque aliis manifestissime patuit.”

94 Busche is playing on a well-known depiction of the Dominicans as the “hounds of the Lord”; see, for example, Millard Meiss's discussion of Andrea da Firenze's frescoes (esp. the Via Veritatis) in the chapter house of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, in Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (Princeton, N.J., 1951), 94-104.

95 Busche had satirized the Cologne Dominicans in the Epistolae, pt. 1, nos. 12, 36, and pt. 2, no. 61.

96 Vallum, fol. II.

97 Lefebvre, “Le poète,” 290-91.

98 Vallum, fol. I iv: “cibus hominum innocentium est, et tanto magis, quanto suavius et numerosius rhythmus ille poeticus, modulatione sua, animum legends adficit et movet, quam alia quamvis oratio humanitus comparata, illo eodem rhythmo, sive numero destituta.” Liessem, Busche, 42, states that Busche first acquired knowledge of this art from the Dominican Jacob Magdalius, who taught poetry and music at Cologne. Busche earlier had contributed an introductory poem for Magdalius’ Correctorium Biblie (Cologne: Quentell, 1508); Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 17.

99 Vallum, fol. 12.

100 Ibid., fol. I3; he cites specifically Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, bk. 2. The other authorities include Ausonius, Terence, Donatus, Quintilian, Timagenes, Strabo, and Pliny. For Gratius’ approach to the same subject, see my “Ortwin Gratius’ Orationes,” 67.

101 Vallum fols. I5-K1. Interestingly, Busche does not include bk. 6, which Augustine himself considered the most important; see also Greenfield, Poetics, 30-31. He then follows on fols. K2-K3 with discussions of Plato and Aristotle.

102 Vallum, fols. K4-L1v.

103 Ibid., fol. LIv : “quam rectius multo, cacabilem quis dixerit.” Such crude adaptation of book titles to mock scholastic learning anticipates the famous list in the Library of Saint Victor, in Rabelais’ Pantagruel, bk. 2, chap. 7; see also M. A. Screech, “Two Attitudes to Hebrew Studies: Erasmus and Rabelais,” in James M. Kittelson and Pamela J. Transue, eds., Rebirth, Reform and Resilience: Universities in Transition 1300-1700 (Columbus, Oh., 1984), 293-323, esp. 315-16.

104 Valium, fol. L4.

105 Ibid., fol. L6: “reverendissimos cardinaleis, et summum pontificem.”

106 Ibid.: “in romano gymnasio humanitatis studia publice docent.” See also the discussions of papal patronage in Renaissance Rome by D'Amico and Stinger, Renaissance Humanism, as well as the older accounts by Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes, trans. F. I. Antrobus, et al., 40 vols. (St. Louis, 1902-52), through vol. 7.

107 Vallum, fol. M i v-M2: “Legendi (ut Crassus in primo de oratore Ciceronis inquit) poetae, cognoscenda historia, omnium bonarum artium scriptores, ac doctores et legendi … laudandi, interpretandi, corrigendi, vituperandi, refellendi, disputandumque de omni genere in contrarias parteis.”

108 Ibid., fol. M2V: See also Overfield, Humanism, 253-56.

109 Vallum, fol. M2V: “horum ineptiae … atque stultitiae.” An “Epilogus, siverepetitio totius Valli” follows on fol. M3.

110 Geiger, “Busch,”640.

111 Contemporaries, vol. I, 233. Erasmus had likely conveyed his criticisms of the strident tone of the book during an unexpected meeting with Busche in Speyer during the autumn of 1518; mentioned in Works, vol. 6, 114; Epistolarum, vol. 3, 394. But he also assisted Busche in seeking a teaching position at Louvain that fall; Erasmus to Busche, Louvain, 21 October 1518; Works, vol. 6, 155-56;Epistolarum, vol. 3,421. Later Erasmus expressed satisfaction with the Vallum in three published works: Erasmus to Johann Witz, Louvain, c.June 1520, printed as a preface to bk. 1 ofthe Antibarbari, in Works, vol. 23, 17, and in Epistolarum, vol. 4, 279-80; Erasmus to Vincent Theodorici, Louvain, c. March 1521, printed in Epistolae ad diversos, in Epistolarum, vol. 4, 470; and in the Spongia (Basel, 1523), as rep. in Böcking, Eduardus, ed., Ulrici Hutteni opera omnia, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1860)Google Scholar, 276. See also Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 51-52.

112 Epistolae, pt. 2, no. 62; in the Holborn ed., 229. Recall also the reference to “promiscuous pigs” in n. 50 above.

113 Epistolae, pt. 1, no. 19; in the Holborn ed., 40-41.

114 Greenfield, Poetics, 18.

115 Ibid., 28. See also Paul Joachimsen, , “Der Humanismus und die Entwicklung des deutschen Geistes,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 8 (1930)Google Scholar: 419-80, here 436-37.

116 Overfield, Humanism, 327; much the same point had been stated earlier by Geiger, “Busch,” 640. Busche's Vallum humanitatis was reprinted only one time, in the edition of J. Burckhard (Frankfurt am Main, 1719); see Liessem, Busche, Anhang, 52.

117 After teaching Greek at the university since 1517, Neuenar was appointed Dompropst and university chancellor in 1524; Arnold Stelzmann, “Die Bursa Cucana und die Anfänge der humanistischen Bildungsbestrebungen in Köln,” in Tricoronatum: Festschrift zur400-Jahr-Feierdes Dreikönigsgymnasiums (Cologne, 1952), 19-23. The next year he sent to the city council a letter supporting the curricular reform proposals of Quirinus von Wilich, the suffragan bishop of Cologne; Overfield, Humanism, 324, and Nauert, “Graf Hermann,” 74-76. On the university reform efforts see also Erich Meuthen, Die alte Universität (Kolner Universitätsgeschichte, I [Cologne and Vienna, 1988]), esp. 229-35.

118 See my “Dispute over Donatus,” 13.

119 Karl Hengst, Jesuiten an Universitäten und Jesuitenuniversitäten (Paderbom, et al., 1981), 99-109; Kuckhoff, Geschichte, 55 ff.; and Franzheim, Liesel, “Das Gymnasium Tricoronatum und sein Lateinunterricht um die Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbuch des kölnischen Geschichtsvereins 48 (1977 CrossRefGoogle Scholar): 139-50.

120 Lebensbilder, vol. 1, 62; Contemporaries, vol. 1, 233-34.

121 Lebensbilder, vol. i, 61. Just prior to the Mainz incident, Busche's agitation in Cologne had apparently caused the legate to make secret preparations in that city for the bookburning in November, 1520.

122 Paul Kalkoff, “Der Humanist Hermann von dem Busche und die lutherfreundliche Kundgebung auf dem Wormser Reichstage vom 20. April 1521,” Archivfiir Reformationsgeschichte 8 (1910): 341-79.

123 Lebensbilder, vol. 1, 62. That act, plus Hermann's aggressive debate with the opponents of the Reformation, brought such scandal that Erasmus, who was living in Basel at the time, sent a formal letter of apology to the local bishop. But by the summer of 1523 Erasmus heard rumors that Hermann was about to attack him, and their friendship broke off. See Contemporaries, vol. I, 234. 124 Overfield, Humanism, 315-16.

125 Lebensbilder, vol. i, 63. In 1527, at the age of fifty-nine, he was married there. The debate between Luther and Zwingli in Marburg in October, 1529, may have prompted Busche's last work, De singulars auctoritate Veteris et Novi Instrumenti (Marburg, 1529), in which he takes Luther's side on the question of biblical authority.

126 Lebensbilder, vol. 1, 64-65. S7 * An early version of this essay was delivered at the annual meeting of the Western Society for French History in Baltimore, Maryland, in November, 1986. I am very grateful to Professor Donald Kelley, who commented on both the paper and the subsequent essay, which has also benefited from a careful reading by Professor Donald Wilcox.