Crotus Rubianus

Crotus Rubianus

 

(real name Johann Jäger). Born circa 1480 in Dornheim, near Arnstadt; died circa 1540 in Halber-stadt. German humanist.

The son of a peasant, Crotus Rubianus played a prominent role in the Erfurt circle of humanists and influenced his friend U. von Hutten and the young M. Luther. He lived in Italy from 1516 to 1520. Upholding the freedom of development of secular culture, Crotus Rubianus sharply satirized the ignorance of theologians and the faults of the Catholic clergy. He supported J. Reuchlin and the Italian humanist philosopher P. Pomponazzi in the controversy with the obscurantists. Crotus Rubianus was one of the chief authors of the anticlerical satire Epistolae obscurorum virorum (Letters of Obscure Men).