Macropedius

Georgius Macropédius , of its true name Joris van Lanckvelt (April 23rd (?) 1487 - at the end of July 1558), is humanistic a Dutch, at the same time schoolmaster and more the dramatic great author of the 16th century which wrote in Latin.

Its life

Macropédius was born in 1487 with Gemert (Brabant-Septentrional, Netherlands) under the name of Joris van Lanckvelt. One knows few things of his youth. After having attended during a few years the parochial school of Gemert, where he learns how to read, to write, sing and with speaking Latin, he remains with Wood-the-Duke in order to continue his formation at the Latin school. With Wood-the-Duke, he lives one of the pensions of the Frères of the common life, members of the Movement of the modern Dévotion. In 1502, at the 15 years age, he becomes member of the community of the Brothers of the Common life and prepares with a career in teaching and priesthood. Ten years later, it is ordered priest and it teaches at the Latin school of Wood-the-Duke.

Between 1506 and 1510, it starts to write schoolbooks and Latin plays. The first versions of its part Asotus ( the son lost ) go back to this period. It had taken a traditional name, as it was of habit at the time: “Joris” had become “Georgius” and “Van Lanckvelt” was replaced by “Macropédius”.

About 1525, it is named vice-chancellor of the Holy College Jerome with Liege. With some other professors, Macropédius contributes to the rise of this Latin school. In 1527, it turns over to Wood-the-Duke and, three years later, in 1530, it settles with Utrecht, more the big city of the Netherlands of North with L `time. It becomes increasingly famous and it is famous for its fidelity with the Catholicisme. In 1531, it turns over to Gemert in order to liquidate a succession. Under its direction, the Holy College Jerome in Utrecht becomes the Latin school most important of the Netherlands of North. Macropédius teaches there Latin, the Greek , perhaps the Hebrew , the poetic Art, the Rhétorique, mathematics and the music. Each year, especially for the school, it composes the text and the music of a Latin song. It writes there moreover the majority of its schoolbooks and its plays, which are published not only with Wood-the-Duke and Utrecht, but also with Antwerp, with London, Cologne, Frankfurt, Basle like in other big cities.

In the years 1552-1554, its complete works are re-examined, corrected and republished in two volumes with music: Omnes Georgii Macropedii Fabulae Comicae . Thereafter, Macropédius publishes only one play, Jesus Scholasticus . In 1557 or 1558, it leaves the Holy College Jerome and Utrecht to turn over in the Brabant. He dies in the house of the Brothers of the Common life at the time of an epidemic of Peste in 1558 and he is buried with the Church of the Brothers. After its death, some of its grateful former students draw up in his honor a monument with an epitaph and a portrait of their loved Master. Today, the monument as well as the church disappeared.

Its works

Macropédius published ten schoolbooks, whose Epistolica (1543) celebrates it, a book on epistolary art and rhetoric. This book had been published for the first time in 1543 in Antwerp, then with Wood-the-Duke, in Cologne, in Frankfurt, in Basle, in Dillingen and Leyde under the title Methodus de Conscribendis Epistolis . Many schools, in the Netherlands, in England and in the German empire, used it. Thirty-six different editions are known. As from 1576, English editions were also published. Shakespeare could know this work, since his/her friend printer and fellow-citizen Richard Field, at whom it remained, had printed a new edition of it. The last edition appeared in 1649, in London, hundred years after the first.

Its schoolbooks show that Macropédius was large a humanistic and a faithful disciple of Désidérius Erasmus. He knew the Seven Liberal arts and the Three Languages (Latin, the Greek and Hebrew). He also knew the Greek and Latin literature, the religious Bible and texts. The many republications of its works in the Netherlands, in the German empire, in France and England, show that the activities of Macropédius were approved by its contemporaries and the next generation of humanistic. Between 1542 and 1561, its school book on the Greek language, entitled Græcarum Institutionum Rudimenta , seven times at Paris (T. Richard) were printed, which shows that one used it in France. Macropédius strongly contributed to successes of the reform of the humanistic teaching of first half of the 16th century. Infatiguable, it stimulated the use of the Greek, not only in order to make possible the reading of the New Testament, but also to facilitate the study of the traditional Greek writers.

Macropédius owes its greater glory with its twelve plays. In the Netherlands and in the German empire, he was the best dramatic author who wrote in Latin and the most productive author of the 16th century.

Andrisca is a comedy on two adulteresses crafty ones who carry the breeches and dispute with their husbands. At the end of the 16th century, Shakespeare had treated this same topic in the tamed Shrew . Bassarus is a comedy on the fatty Tuesday. In Asotus , Macropédius treats the biblical topic of the lost son. Its part is played Trinity College with Cambridge and the University of Prague. In 1539 is by its greater success, Hécastus . It is about Latin a free adaptation of work Dutchwoman Elckerlyc . The main character is Hécastus (“everyone”), a teenager in good health which enjoys the life. When he learns that he soon will die, none of his/her best friends, no member of his family and none of her knowledge is ready to accompany it during its last voyage. Hécastus is the masterpiece of Macropédius. Before the end of the 16th century, Hécastus printed, is translated and played of many times in several countries, as well in Latin as in other languages. There are twelve different editions and six translations in German. One of these translations is of Hans Sachs, the poet of the German Réforme. Hécastus is translated also into Danish, Dutch and Swedish. The Swedish translation goes back to 1681,142 years after the first edition. It is especially in the German empire that the part has the most success, with eighteen known representations, mainly in the Protestant areas. (Work Dutchwoman Elckerlyc and Hécastus of Macropédius are at the origin of the German play Jedermann . Each year, one still plays this part in the Cathedral of Bamberg, just like with the Festival of Salzburg.) In 1552, Macropédius publishes a new edition of Hécastus . Foreword, one could conclude that it was forced there. It seems that humanistic tolerant Macropédius was suspected of having sympathies to the Reform.

Its succession

The success of Macropédius is not limited to its schoolbooks and its plays. Professor and vice-chancellor of the Latin schools of Wood-the-Duke, Liege and Utrecht, it counts among its pupils the hellenist Arnoldus Arlenius, the linguist Willem Canter, the professor of medicine of the university of Leyde Johannes Heurnius, the geographer Gerardus Mercator, the printer Laurentius Torrentinus (which had much success in Italy) and the doctor Johannes Wier, who in 1563 already denounced the Sorcellerie and drives out it with the witches. In 1565, seven years after its death, a group of former students publishes a collection of poems in order to commemorate their Master, Apotheosis D. Georgii Macropedii . To the XVIIe century, however, Macropédius and its works fall little by little into the lapse of memory. One less and less plays his parts and its works are not republished any more. Its parts were written in Latin, while the poets of the republic of the Netherlands wrote more and more in Dutch.

At the end of the XIXe century, German and Belgian scientists redécouvrent Macropédius. In the 20th century, many books and articles on this humanistic and its works are published. In 1972, the American scientist Thomas W. Best publishes book on Macropédius ( Twaynes World Authors Series , New York). More recently, its parts were translated into Dutch and it appears translations in English, also on Internet.

French editions of works of Macropédius

Josephus : History of Joseph, extraicte of Saincte Bible and reduitte in the shape of Comedy, lately traduitte of Latin of Macropedius, in Francois, language by Antoine Tiron , Antwerp, 1564 (J. Waesberge).
Lazarus Mendicus : New morality of the bad Rich person and the Miser (anonymous translation), Aix-en-Provence 1823 (A. Pontier).

References

; In French

Bibliotheca Belgica. General bibliography of the Netherlands , Ferd. Van der Haeghen and R. van den Berghe eds., Ghent 1880-1890; Mr. Lenger, ED., 6 T., Brussels 1964, T. 4.
Gerlo A. and H.D.L. Vervliet, Bibliography of Humanism of the Old Netherlands. With a bibliographical repertory of humanistic and poets néo-Latin , Brussels 1972; Supplement 1970-1985, Mr. de Schepper and C. Heesakkers, Brussels 1988.
Halkin, L., the college Inhabitant of Li2ege of the Brothers of the Common life, Yearly of the Archaeological and Historical Federation from Belgium , 31 (1938) 299-311.
Halkin, L. the Brothers of the Common life of the Saint-Jerome house has Liege (1495-1595), Bulletin of the archaeological Institute Liégeois , 65 (1945) 5-70.
Lebeau, J., Salvator Mundi. The example of Joseph in the German theater in XVIe century , 2 T., Nieuwkoop 1977.
Leys, F., Hecastus de Macropedius and the `Landjuweel' of Ghent (1539), Humanistica Lovaniensia T. 37 (1988) 267-268.
Roersch, A., `a description of the town of Liege at the sixteenth century', Bulletin of the Company inhabitant of Li2ege of Bibliography T. 1 (1892) 177-185. (French Translation of a letter Latin of Macropedius on the town of Liege approximately 1525! )
Roersch, A., `Macropedius' in: National Biography of Belgium , (royal Academy of sciences, the letters and the fine arts of Belgium), T. 13, Brussels 1894-1895, 10-22.

; In German

Bolte, J., Georgius Macropedius, Rebels und Aluta , (Lateinische Litteraturdenkmäler of the XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts 13) Berlin 1897 (Reprint 1983).
Bolte, J., Drei Schauspiele vom sterbenden Menschen , Leipzig 1927 (Reprint Hildesheim 1986).

; In English

Best, Thomas W., Macropedius , (Twayne' S World Authors Series 218) New York 1972.

; In Dutch

Giebels H. & Slits, F., Georgius Macropedius 1487-1558. Leven in Werken van een Brabantse humanist , Tilburg (Zuidelijk Historisch Contact) 2005 (with CDrom containing the literary transcriptions of all its œvres). ISBN 90-70641-65-8.

Genevieve Mazairac

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