BRANT, SEBASTIAN (1457-1521), German humanist and satirist, was born at Strasbourg about the year 1457. He studied at Basle, took the degree of doctor of laws in 1489, and for some time held a professorship of jurisprudence there. Returning to Strasbourg he was made syndic of the town, and died on May 1o, 15 21. He first attracted attention in humanistic circles by his Latin poetry and edited many ecclesiastical and legal works; but he is now known only by his famous satire Das Narrenschiff the popularity and influence of which spread throughout Europe. Under the form of an allegory (a ship laden with fools and steered by fools to the fools' paradise of Narragonia) Brant here lashes with unsparing vigour the weaknesses and vices of his time. Although, like most of the German humanists, essentially conservative in his religious views, Brant's eyes were open to the abuses in the church, and the Narrenschiff was a most effective preparation for the Protestant Reformation. Alexander Barclay's ship of Fools (1509) is a free imitation of the German poem, and a Latin version by Jacobus Locher (149 7) was hardly less popular than the German original. Cock Lovell's Bote (printed by Wyn kyn de Worde, c. 151o) is another imitation of the Narrenschiff. Cock Lovell is a fraudulent currier who gathers round him a rascally collection of tradesmen. They sail off in a riotous fashion up hill and down dale throughout England. Of Brant's other works the chief is a version of Freidank's Bescheidenheit (15o8).
Brant's Narrenschiff has been edited by F. Zarncke (1854) ; by K. Goedeke (1872) ; and by F. Bobertag (Kiirschner's Deutsche National literatur, vol. xvi. 1889) . A German translation was published by K. Simrock in 1872, with reproductions of the original fine woodcuts. On the influence of Brant in England, see C. H. Herford, The Literary Relations of England and Germany in the 26th century (i886).