Bayle on Johannes Sturmius, Note B.

Note B from Bayle's Dictionary Entry on Johannes Sturmius [Link]:

He opened a school in 1538 which became famous.] This ought not to be so understood as if no publick lectures had been read in the city of Strasburgh, before that year. The contrary is true; for Sturmius says that when he arrived there Capito expounded the Bible, Hedio explained the Gospels, James Bedrot taught Greek, Michael Delius[1] Hebrew, Christian Herlin explained Euclid, Bucer, who was writing his retractation without any constraint put up on him, and correcting his Commentaries upon the Gospels, explained in his house Themistius's Paraphrases, and James Sturmius, Nicolas Cniepsius, and James Meyer were curators of the school[2]. The same Sturmius says, that when he made a journey from Louvain to Strasburgh in the year 1528, he found there a school[3], where Bucer read lectures upon the Psalms. What was done in the year 1538 is as follows. The college received an authentic form under the statutes drawn up after Sturmius's arrival, and began to be solemnly regulated according to the division of its several classes, and the functions assigned to each teacher and professor. Read this inscription, which is to be seen at Strasburgh[4]. 'Anno post millesimum 538, depositis armis, & pacata gravi inter CarolumV. Imperatorem Rom. & Franciscum I. Galliarum Regem, discordia, S. P. Argentin. juventuti Christianæ religione & liberalibus disciplinis instituendæ ludum literarium aperuit.

Praefecto primario Jacobo Sturmio,

Rectore Joan. Sturmio.’

['In the year 1538, the war being come to an end, and the great quarrel between the Emperor Charles V and Francis I, King of France, being made up, the Senate and people of Strasburgh erected a school for instructing the youth in Christianity and the liberal arts.

James Sturmius was super- intendant,

John Sturmius Rector.']

Those, who say that James Sturmius was Rector of the college of Strasburgh[5], would not have confounded that illustrious magistrate with our John Sturmius, if they had read that inscription. This confusion is to be found in a contrary sense in the Memorabilia Ecclesiastica of Andreas Carolus. That author stiles John Sturmius First Senator and Syndic of the city of Strasburgh. It is in that part of his work Adam, ubi supra, where he observes that the Academy of that place was not made an university till the year 1621. 'Anno superioris Centuriæ sexagesimo octavo[6] Gymnasium literarium Argentinense, a Johanne Sturmio fundatum, qui primarium Senatorem & Syndicum loci agebat, gratia Maximiliani secundi privilegia Academica accepit, & Sturmius, qui commodam rationem instituendæ juventutis monstraverat, perpetuus Rector creatus est; Sed hoc demum anno jus Universitatis ei Ferdinandus II impertiit, ac potestatem conferendi omnium Facultatum gradus honorarios dedit.’ Micræl. Hist. Eccles. 172[7]. 

['In the year 68 of the last century the school at Strasburgh, founded by John Sturmius, who was First Senator and Syndic of the place, received the privileges of an Academy by the favour of Maximilian II; and Sturmius, who had proposed a proper method for instructing the youth was created perpetual Rector. But it was not before the present year that Ferdinand II bestowed upon it the rights of an university, and the power of conferring degrees in all the different faculties.']

This writer, you see, quotes Micrælius, though the latter has not committed that fault; for he has very well distinguished the two Sturmius's: he says that James, a Senator and a Syndic, founded the college, and that John, who taught the scholars, was made Rector of it for life. Anno 1568, Argentinensis schola, quam jam ante XXX annos Jacobus Sturmius, senator primaries & syndicus, adornari curaverat, privilegia a Maximiliano II accepit, & Johannes Sturmius, qui rationem instituendae juventutis monstraverat', perpetuus Rector est creatus. Nostra demum aetate, A. 1621, jus universitatis a Ferdinando II acceptit[8].

---

[1] Note that he was married to Anne Mychsnera, who spoke Latin fluently.  Absque baetificatione latine cum domesticis loquens. Jo. Sturmius, Part, i, Anti-Pappi quarti, pag. m. 17.

[2] Ex Sturmio, ibid. p. 16, 17.

[3] Tum schola etiam constituta erat.  Id. Ibid. pag. 10.

[4] See Nathan Chytraeus, in Itinerum. In Itinerum Deliciis, pag. m. 430.

[5] See Melchior Adam, ubi supra, pag. 343.

[6] According to Melchior Adam, ubi supra, pag. 344, it was in 1566.

[7] Andr. Carolus Memorab. Eccles. Saeculi XVII, ad ann. 1621. pag. 526.

[8] Micrael.  Hist. Eccles. pag. 570.  Edit. 1699.