The humanist Hermann Schotten, or Hermannus Schottennius Hessus (c. 1503-1546), student, schoolmaster, and university lecturer in Cologne, was the author of a number of works on humanist pedagogy. His Confabulationes tironum litterariorum of 1525, a collection of Latin dialogues designed to help schoolboys master Classical Latin conversation, was written in admiring imitation of the colloquies of Erasmus. But Schotten had his own distinctive style: a natural ear for dialogue, and a sympathetic understanding of the schoolboy world. As a result, he produced one of the liveliest pedagogical works of the century and a vivid and valuable cultural document of life in the early modern metropolis of Cologne. This critical edition of the Confabulationes, the first since the sixteenth century, makes this one-time best-seller available and comprehensible to modern readers. It presents the Latin text, a full English translation, and extensive notes on the language and on Schotten's many literary and cultural allusions, accompanied by a detailed investigation of the early printing history of the collection. -- .

This study, a companion to Peter Macardle’s edition of the "Confabulationes," examines the ways in which the colloquies relate to their Cologne background, to the major contemporary colloquy collections (particularly Erasmus’s "Colloquia "and Mosellanus’s "Paedologia"), and to the humanist renewal of Classical Latin. It also looks in detail at the documentary traces of Schotten’s career, and of his networks of friendship and patronage, and tries to understand how he fitted into the structures of a university which has often been (wrongly) understood as hostile to humanism. Based on primary archival material, this is the only full-length study of this underrated German humanist’s life and work.

This compilation of writings from Erasmus and Luther's great debate--over free will and grace, and their respective efficacy for salvation--offers a fuller representation of the disputants' main arguments than has ever been available in a single volume in English. Included are key, corresponding selections from not only Erasmus' conciliatory A Discussion or Discourse concerning Free Will and Luther's forceful and fully argued rebuttal, but--with the battle now joined--from Erasmus' own forceful and fully argued rebuttal of Luther. Students of Reformation theology, Christian humanism, and sixteenth-century rhetoric will find here the key to a wider appreciation of one of early modern Christianity's most illuminating and disputed controversies.

This compilation of writings from Erasmus and Luther's great debate--over free will and grace, and their respective efficacy for salvation--offers a fuller representation of the disputants' main arguments than has ever been available in a single volume in English. Included are key, corresponding selections from not only Erasmus' conciliatory A Discussion or Discourse concerning Free Will and Luther's forceful and fully argued rebuttal, but--with the battle now joined--from Erasmus' own forceful and fully argued rebuttal of Luther. Students of Reformation theology, Christian humanism, and sixteenth-century rhetoric will find here the key to a wider appreciation of one of early modern Christianity's most illuminating and disputed controversies.