Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/149

UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER CENTRES OF LEARNING 137 itself students from Italy, France, Spain, England, Hungary, and Poland. Among its staff of professors Jacob Locher, sur- named Philomusus, became distinguished as early as 1498 as a translator, as the compiler of several books of instruction, and as the editor and commentator of ancient classic writers. John Turmayr, also called Aventinus, was active in furthering Humanistic studies at Ingolstadt, and was the founder of a literary society there. Another ornament of this university was John Boschenstein, of Erlangen, who, like his master, Peuchlin, was a reviver of the study of the Hebrew language and literature. But the most universal genius among the Ingolstadt professors was John Eck, lecturer on theology, a man of unusual endowments and rare originality and versa- tility. When only fifteen years of age he had often delivered lectures during six hours a day at Freiburg, besides himself attending the courses of the leading theologians and jurists. From early youth he maintained the closest inter- course with the most celebrated of his contemporaries, such as Brant, Geiler von Kaisersberg, Peutinger, Eeisch, Wimpheling, Eeuchlin, Zasius, and others, and he developed gradually into an out-and-out theologian and philosopher. In his twenty-fourth jescr he was elected professor of theology at Ingolstadt, and two years later rector of the university. With a view to reform- ing the system of lectures in the philosophical faculty he published, amongst other works, two folio volumes of commentaries on the dialectics and physics of Aris- totle. He gained high repute throughout Germany as a teacher, a writer, and a controversialist. The