JOANNES NAEVIUS AND THE DATE OF HIS DEATH

Another argument is supplied by the same letter, wherein is a list oî ail the friends that Erasmus had lost within the last few years, amongst whom Naevius is the most récent. It cites Capnio(t June 30, 1522) and Longolius (tSeptember 11, 1522) and aîter enumerating the friends who died in Germany, he adds : « Utinam hceret Hiitienum in hoc catalogo ponere». Now Hutten died at enmity with Erasmus, on August 29, 1523, which implies that Naevius' death occured at the end of 1523 or in the beginning oî 1524.

Nor is there any contradiction in the fact that according to the University records Naevius' successor, Joannes Heems of Armentières, became Régent of the Lily in 1522, which position it is shown he had occupied forthirty seven years and odds, v^hen he died on July 1, 1560 (')• Since Naevius suffered from paralysis during the last years of his life (-) he may hâve appointed Heems as Co-regens, which is the more probable, as it seems to hâve been a rule with those at the head oî the Lily to share the management with an associate. Thus Carolus Virulus, the founder, presided over his collège first with Cornélius Heymans, afterwards with his son Nicolaus. Nicolaus had as partner Léo Outers and later on Joannes Naevius {•^). Erasmus at the close oî his letter to Gavere, enjoins him to remember him to Joannem Armentheriensem et Petrum Curtium, qui in Naevii vices successerunt(*).

Nor was the co-regens merely a helper and assistant oî the regens ; for from the Acts of the Faculty of Arts it can be seen that Heems had to pay to Petrus Curtius an annual rent of îorty Rhine florins, commencing 1531 (the year in which he resigned that office), on account oî the right that Curtius asserted to hâve on the revenues of the Collège (').

It follows from thèse considérations that the term of thirty-seven years and odds, must not be accepted so conclusively as to imply an exclusive management during as many years. Nor can it hâve been an uninterrupted period as other contemporary statements prove ('■).

(1) Cp. Valerius Andréas, Fasti academici, p. 262. Louvain, 1650; Reusens, art. cité, p. 294.

(2) Erasmus writes to Gavere : — haud scio an ista mors possit videri subita, cum illi tôt annisres fuerit cum paralysi : Erasmus, Op. omn., III, 784, d.

(3) Cp. Reusens, art. cité, p. 288-292.

(4) Erasmus, Op. omn., III, 790, E.

(5) Reusens, art. cité, p. 305-306.

(6) Petrus Crucius, another inmate of the Lily, writes to Erasmus about 1527 or 1528 ; the letter is only dated : quinto Cal. Februarias) concerning their common

84 H. DE VOCHT.

In their Briefe an Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam (Leipzig 1904), Fôrstemann and Gunther reprint (on page 6) a letter from Gavere to Erasmus which must be a reply not only to the letter dated Basle, March 1, 1524, concerning Naevius' death, but also to a post-scriptum to that letter, which is lost, or to a verbal message which the bearer of the letter brought to Louvain. Whichever it may be, Gavere mentions several objects belonging to Erasmus that are still in the Lily and which he will prevent being sold by the heirs of Naevius.

This letter is dated from Louvain sexto calendas apriles anno 1522 (March 27). In their note on Gavere (p. 357) Fôrstemann and Gunther fix Naevius' death in 1522 or 1523. In my paper The Laîest Contributions to Erasmus' Correspondence {^), I urged against this opinion, the décisive assertion of Erasmus in his letter of March 1, 1524, that, whereas Hutten died on August 29, 1523, « postremus omnium nos reliquit Naevius (-) ». It seemed to me then, more consistent with probability that there should be a mistake in the date 1522 of Gavere's letter, than that such a peremptory statement of Erasmus should be deemed wrong.

The learned editor of the Opiis Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, P. S. Allen, who has seen the original letter of Gavere to Erasmus, declared to me that there can be no doubt whatever on the accuracy of the figures in the date printed by Fôrstemann and Giinther. He suggested that an alternative might be allowed if we assume that the sentence relating to Hutten was not written in the first rédaction of the letter in which it was sent to Gavere. When in 1524 Erasmus desired to publish it with his Exomologesis (Sept. 1524) he may hâve inserted the allusion to Hutten and altered the date. Such a supposition does not appear at ail improbable, especially if we consider that the brief sentence about Erasmus' foe does not harmonise in the least way with the context.

It should be compared with a second édition of the Catalogus Lucubrationum in which Erasmus retains the date of the first, although he mentions several writings that had appeared posterior

friend Petrus Curtius « pênes quem a calendis novembribus ultimis sic summa est collegii Liliani, ut citra collegam moderetur et administret. » Cp. Enthoven, Briefe an Desiderius Erasmus, p. 16, 53. Strasbourg, 1906 ; de Vocht, The Latest Contributions to Erasmus' Corrcspondence, in Englische Studien, 1909, t. XL, p. 372.

(1) Englische Studien, 1909, t. XL. p. 372 ff.

(2) Erasmus, Op. omn., t. III. 789, c.