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Notes
Although no records have yet been found which indicate the exact date of Susenbrotus' birth, from information found in his works we can nevertheless restrict the time of that event to the period between August 1, 1485, and March 5, 1486. The preface to his Epitome Troporum ac Schematum, for example, closes with the notice: "Rauenspurgi ex museolo nostro 5 Martii Anno humanitatis Christi reconciliatoris nostri [15]41. Scholicae administrationis 35. Aetatis meae 56." At the end of the dedicatory epistle to the Methodus octo partium orationis, appears this information: "Ex Ravenspurgo ultima Iulii. Anno domini quadragesimo secundo. Aetatis meae 57. Scholicae functionis 36." From records in the archives of Ravensburg, furthermore, we learn that Susenbrotus died a short time after being struck and mortally wounded by a drunken cooper in 1542.
For an account of Susenbrotus' influence upon the classroom in England, see T. W. Baldwin's William Shakspere's Small Latine & Lesse Greeke (1944), vols. 1 and 2 passim, and particularly pp. 138-175 of vol. 2. For an account of his influence in Germany, see the Geschichte des humanistischen Schulwesens in Württemburg (1912-1920), vols. 1-4 passim.
". . . Compendium Grammatices, ex Prisciano, Diomede & aliis tumultuanter collectum, pueris dictabam. . ."
My discussion of this edition is based upon photostats of a copy preserved in the Universitätsbibliothek, Tübingen.
With no more than photographic reprints of the title-pages to judge by at the moment, I nevertheless feel fairly certain that a more detailed study of the various types which appear in the 1535 and 1539 editions of the Grammaticœ would bear out my present opinion that several of the types are not only identical in style and from the same font, but even from the same cases. Particularly striking is the fact that on the lower right stem of the first M of the word Grammaticœ there appears an identical defect, a fine fissure slanting downwards from right to left, in both editions.
The fact of this indebtedness is directly acknowledged in another version of this title, found in Conrad Gesner's Bibliotheca Universalis, sive Catalogus omnium scriptorum (Zürich: Christopher Froschauer, 1545): "Grammaticæ artis partium omnium integra institutio ex Grammaticorum coryphaeis cum alijs pluribus, tum praecipue Thoma Linacro, iam denuo accurate concinnata, emendata, & citra Lectoris fastidium locupletata."
See the matriculation entry in Die Matrikel der Universität Basel (Basel, 1951), Band I 1460-1529, ed. Hans Georg Wackernagel, p 348.
In his brief but valuable study, "Hans Susenbrot, ein verschollener schwäbischer Humanist und lateinischer Schulmeister" (Diözesanarchiv von Schwaben, Stuttgart, 1907, pp. 8-12), P. Fox, S. J., quotes this marginal from a copy in the library of the Jesuit college at Feldkirch which shows the correct date, 1539. The British Museum copy and a copy in the archives of Ravensburg also have the correct date, 1539.
See pp. 383-384 of Gerwig Blarer Abt von Weingarten 1520-1567, vol. I, edited by Heinrich Günter, Stuttgart, 1914.
Gesner, op. cit., lists among the works of Susenbrotus: "Rudimenta Latinae & Graecae Grammatiæ simul coniuncta, nondum impressa."
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