REIICHLIN, JOHANN, also known by his GrNcized nam'e of Capnio, one of the first and most active protifoters of Hebrew studies in Germany, whose labors and struggles in no small degree helped to bring about the reformation, was born at. Pforzheim in Baden, Dec. 23, 1455. He received his earliest education at Schlettstadt, and in 1473 was appointed traveling companion to prince Friedrich of Baden, in which capacity lie visited Paris, made the acquaintance of the celebrated Wessel (q.v.), and studied Greek under Ilerinonyinus of Sparta, besides assiduously practicing the compositiOn of Latin. Two years later Menthdtu went to Basel, where he continued his study of Greek, and wrote his Latin dictionary, Vocabularies Latines Brevitoques Batas (Basel, 1478). In the same year he paid a second visit to France, studied law at Orleans (1479), and fought at Poitiers (1480), then returned to Germany, married, and set up at TiAbingen as a teacher of jurisprudence and literature. Subsequently he was raised to the rank of a count of the German empire in 1492, and about the same time the study of Hebrew under a learned Jew, Jacob Jehiel Loans, the imperial physician. In 1496 Reuchlin went to Heidelberg, where he wrote a satirical comedy eutitled Sergius, sine Capitis Caput, directed against the unworthy Augustinian monk Holzinger. who had been made chan cellor of Wilrtemberg. In 1498 he was sent to Rome by Philip, the elector-palatine, and delivered a Latin oration before the pope. While remaining there he applied himself more vionirously than ever to the study of and Greek, and with such success his Greek master, Argyropulus, exclaimed in wonderment at his proficiency: " Our persecuted Greece has taken refuge beyond the Alps." Reuchliu returned to WiIrtem berg in 1499. In 1506 appeared his Ruclimenta Lingece Hebraica, a work of which he was justly proud. He made it, as lie said in his preface, "without any foreign help," declares it to be "the first attempt to execute a grammar of the Hebrew tongue," and finishes with the Horatian boast, Ecegi MOItumentum are perennius. His Hebraic studies, which embraced the post-biblical Jewish literature, were—in their consequences—the most important of his life, drawing him into bitter strife with learned Jews, Jewish proselytes, and the Dominicans, and directly and powerfully helping on the reformation. It was in the year 1510 that the struggle between light and darkness, as the Getmaus regard it, broke out. In that year Johann Pfefferkorn, a Jewish proselyte, in the true
spirit of a renegade, called upon princes and subjects to persecute the religion of his fathers, and especially urged the emperor to burn or confiscate all Jewish books except the Bible. Reuchlin remonstrated, maintaining that no Jewish books should be destroyed except those directly written against Christianity. This tolerant attitude drew upon Reuchlin the enmity of the Dominicans, and particularly the inquisitor, Jakob you Hoogstraten. These enemies of Reuchlin held possession of the universities of Paris, Louvain, Erfurt, and Mainz; but all the distinguished and independent thinkers in Germany, were on the side of the brave and humane scholar. Among the as they were termed, we may especially mention the names of Ulrich von Eutten (q.v.) and Franz von Sickingen (q.v.), to the first of whom (in conjuction with Rubeanus; etc.) we owe the Episto'ce Obscurarum Virorem (q.v.), and to the second of whom Reuchlin owed his safety, for he threatened (1519) Hoogstraten and his monks with his most terrible vengeance if they did not cease. to persecute " his teacher, Doctor Reuchlin, that wise, experienced, pious, and ingenious man." When the reformation was inaugurated by the of the papal bull (1517), Reuchlin instinctively felt that a crisis had DAM, and exulted in the heroism of Luther. " God be praised!" he said; " we have now got a man who will give them [the monks] mighty hard work." Luther, in a letter to Reuchlin (1518), tells the latter teat lie bad longed to take part with him in his noble struggle, but hod never found an opportunity. But the end of the scholar's troubles was not yet come. A quarrel broke out between Ulrich duke of Wurtemberg and the Swabian league, in the course of which Reuchlin become a prisoner of duke Wilhelm of Bavaria, who, however, generously restored him his freedom, and in 1520 appointed him professor at the univer sity of Ingolstadt. While here he received a call to Wilrtemberg, which he declined, but sent Philip Melanchthon in his stead. In 1522 the plague broke out in Ingolstadt, and Reuchlin again withdrew to Tubingen, intending to denote himself exclusively to learned studies, but soon after he fell sick, and died at Stuttgart on June 30. Reuchlin's life has been written by Gehres (1815), Yleyerhoff (Berl. 1830), and Geiger (Leips. 1871).