Guillaume Caoursin

Guillaume Caoursin (* around 1430 in Douai ; † 1501 in Rhodes ) was Vice Chancellor of the Order of St. John and one of the most important authors of his time.

Life

He was born around 1430 in Douai in Flanders to a family from the Mediterranean island of Rhodes. Caoursin received his PhD from the University of Paris ( Sorbonne ). Although he was not a member of the Order of St. John, he made it there under the Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson to be its vice-chancellor. As such, he carried out numerous diplomatic tasks.

Even today he is best known as the historiographer (historian) of the order, but above all as the author of a chronicle of the siege of Rhodes in 1480 ( "Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis descriptio" ), which he published in 1482 with Johann Snell in Odense . This chronicle contains numerous illustrations by Caoursin and was subsequently published in Venice , Paris , Bruges , Salamanca , Ulm and London . The numerous illustrations in this book are the first accurate description of the costumes and weapons of the Turks in Western Europe. The German translation of “Historia von Rhodis” by Johann Adelphus Muling was published by Martin Flach in Strasbourg in 1513.

Caoursin also made a contribution to a collection of the statutes of the Order of St. John and translated them into French. The medieval statutes of the Order of St. John were mostly very confusing. So they list the resolutions of the general chapters not systematically, but chronologically in the order of the masters, and many resolutions are repeated - often with slight modifications. That is why the Order searched for an appropriate form of revision for a long time, until finally the General Chapter of 1489 (after forty years of history) passed a systematic version of the statutes, which Guillaume Caoursin had revised.

Individual evidence

↑ G. Caoursin: Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis descriptio . Erhard Ratdolt , Venice after 1481
^ G. Caoursin: De obsidione et bello Rhodiano . Johann Snell, Odense 1482
↑ Bodo Gotzkowsky (ed.): Johannes Adelphus, Selected Writings. Second volume: Historia von Rhodis, Die Türckisch Chronica. Editions of German literature of the XV. to XVIII. Century, vol. 86, Berlin, New York.
^ FJ Worstbrock: Muling, Johann Adelphus (Art.). In: Author's Lexicon of German Humanism, Vol. 2, Lfg. 1, 2009, Col. 255–277.
↑ Historia Von Rhodis, How chivalrously she behaved with the tyrannical keiser Machomet vß Türckye [n], funny vn [d] leplich zuo read . Martin Flach, Strasbourg 1513, VD 16 C 790, online .
^ Jürgen Sarnowsky: Power and rule in the Order of St. John of the 15th century. Constitution and administration of the Johanniter on Rhodes (1421–1522) (Vita regularis. Orders and interpretations of religious life in the Middle Ages, 14), Münster 2001. Page 37 ff.

Web links

Literature by and about Guillaume Caoursin in the catalog of the German National Library

personal data
SURNAME	Caoursin, Guillaume
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Author, chronicler, diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH	around 1430
PLACE OF BIRTH	Douai
DATE OF DEATH	1501
Place of death	Rhodes

[1] G. Caoursin: Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis descriptio . Erhard Ratdolt , Venice after 1481

[2] G. Caoursin: De obsidione et bello Rhodiano . Johann Snell, Odense 1482

[3] Bodo Gotzkowsky (ed.): Johannes Adelphus, Selected Writings. Second volume: Historia von Rhodis, Die Türckisch Chronica. Editions of German literature of the XV. to XVIII. Century, vol. 86, Berlin, New York.

[4] FJ Worstbrock: Muling, Johann Adelphus (Art.). In: Author's Lexicon of German Humanism, Vol. 2, Lfg. 1, 2009, Col. 255–277.

[5] Historia Von Rhodis, How chivalrously she behaved with the tyrannical keiser Machomet vß Türckye [n], funny vn [d] leplich zuo read . Martin Flach, Strasbourg 1513, VD 16 C 790, online .

[6] Jürgen Sarnowsky: Power and rule in the Order of St. John of the 15th century. Constitution and administration of the Johanniter on Rhodes (1421–1522) (Vita regularis. Orders and interpretations of religious life in the Middle Ages, 14), Münster 2001. Page 37 ff.