Joannes Susenbrotus

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Joannes Susenbrotus (also known as Johannes or Hans Susenbrot, 1484/1485—1542/1543) was a German humanist, teacher of Latin, and author of textbooks.

Grammaticae artis institutio, Leipzig 1539

Susenbrotus was born in the Imperial Free City of Wangen im Allgäu and studied at the universities of Vienna and Basel. From 1506, he was a teacher in Leutkirch, and subsequently in Pfullendorf, Schaffhausen, and - from 1522 - in Ravensburg.

He wrote several books in Latin, amongst them a Latin textbook Grammaticae artis institutio and a collection of Christian poems. His rhetorics textbook Epitome troporum defines 132 tropes and figures and gives examples of their use in ancient literature as well as references in contemporary books on rhetorics.

Living in the days of the Protestant Reformation, Susenbrotus distinctly remained a Roman Catholic. Around 1542, Susenbrotus died from injuries sustained when a drunk caskmaker beat him up in Ravensburg.

Susenbrotus' textbooks spread his name to pupils all over Europe. William Shakespeare seems to have known Epitome troporum, since - as T. W. Baldwin pointed out - he uses numerous examples from Susenbrotus' book in his works. On 12 March 1615, students of Trinity College, Cambridge, played the Latin comedy, Susenbrotus, or Fortunia, probably written by John Chappell, in the presence of King James I at Royston.

[edit] Works

Grammaticae artis institutio, Schumann, Leipzig 1539, and various later editions
Scholae christianae epigrammatum libri duo, ex variis Christianorum poetis excerpti, ac iam à multis mendis repurgati in usum Christianorum adulescentulorum, Brylinger, Basel 1541 (collected Christian poems)
Epitome troporum ac schematum et Grammaticorum & Rhetorume arte rhetorica libri tres, Froschauer, Tiguri (Zurich) 1541? and various later editions, first edition in England 1562, latest edition edited, translated and commented by Joseph Xavier Brennan, Urbana IL 1953 (Table of contents)
Methodus octo partium orationis una cum formulis declinandi nomina ac coniugandi verba, pueris nuper musarum adyta ingressis cognitu cum primis necessaria, Froschauer, Tiguri (Zurich) 1565

[edit] References

Thomas Whitfield Baldwin: William Shakspere's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke. University of Illinois Press, Urbana IL 1944
Joseph Xavier Brennan: Joannes Susenbrotus. A forgotten Humanist, in: PMLA Publications of the modern language association of America, December 1960, Vol. LXXV, No. 5
Joseph Xavier Brennan: The Grammaticae Artis Institutio of Joannes Susenbrotus, the Epitome Troporum ac Schematum etc., in: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 14/1961
Wilhelm Fox: Hans Susenbrot, ein verschollener schwäbischer Humanist und lateinischer Schulmeister, in: Diözesan-Archiv von Schwaben, Vol. 25, 1907, pp. 8-12
Connie McQuillen (ed.): A comedy called Susenbrotus. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1997, ISBN 0-472-10756-9
Ulrich-Dieter Oppitz: Ein Sachsenspiegel-Fragment in Ravensburg und Johann Susenbrot, in: Ulm und Oberschwaben, Vol. 51, 2000, pp. 216-219