Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/118

 106 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE Jacob Dracontius ; the Saxon nobleman and philosopher, Heinrich von Biinau : the lawyers, Adam Werner of Themar and John Wacker, called Yigilius, canon of the cathedral of Worms, and Dietrich von Pleningen, also took an active part in the intellectual life of the time. Dalberg's house was the rendezvous where these friends went freely in and out. Here they met together for intimate talk, or hospitable meals, or serious study. The Count Palatine Philip, according to Wimpheling, was occasionally among their number. Here Wimphe- ling discussed with his associates his scheme for a German history, Pleningen read out his German trans- lations of the Latin writers, and Eeuchlin his version of Homer. It was in Dalberg's house also that Eeuchlin arranged the representation of a Latin play, the first ever performed in Germany. But the intellectual influence of the Bishop of Worms was not confined to Heidelberg. He was not only curator of the university, but also leader and director of the Ehenish Literary Society, founded in 1491, by Conrad Celtes, in Mentz. Amongst the mem- bers of this body were the most distinguished men of all branches of science — theologians, lawyers, doctors, philosophers, mathematicians, linguists, historians, and poets, from the Ehinelands and from Middle and South- west Germany. Besides Trithemius, Eeuchlin, and Wimpheling, the society counted among its members such men as the mathematician and imperial historian, John Stabius ; the eminent Hebrew scholar, Sebastian Sprenz, afterwards Bishop of Brixen ; Ulrich Zasius, the prince of German advocates ; and, further, the Humanists, Conrad Peutinger of Augsburg, Wilibald