Maternus Steyndorffer

Maternus Steyndorffer (* around 1517 in Erfurt ; † around 1547 there) was a humanistic poet from the first half of the 16th century.

Life

Steyndorffer's date of birth is derived from his first mention in the register of the University of Erfurt, where he was registered in 1527, but was not able to take the student oath until 1533 because he was too young. Further matriculation entries can be found in Marburg in 1532 and in Wittenberg in 1536 . The family lived in the neighboring house of the Collegium saxorum in Erfurt at Allerheiligengasse 11 (where the first Erfurt incunabulum had been printed a few years earlier). His godfather was the Erfurt professor Maternus Pistorius .

Like the majority of Erfurt's population, the Steyndörffer family was Lutheran, and a daughter of the house later married the dean of the college, Kaspar Kanngießer , a Melanchthon student. The year Steyndörffer's death is revealed from a grave poem that Petrus Lotichius Secundus wrote for him, from which it emerges that the young Steyndörffer was his comrade in the Schmalkaldic War. It is not known what Steyndörffer died of.

Works

There are only four printed works by him:

• a congratulatory poem from 1539 to Prince Count Günther XL, who has just entered the government. from Schwarzburg (VD16: S 8976),
• a Latin comedia in the style of the Plautus and Terence dramas from 1540 (VD16: S 8975),
• an anonymous translation of this prose drama into German from the same year, but it is very likely that it also came from him (VD16: ZV 14697), it was published in Frankfurt a. M. applied a second time (VD 16: H 5681),
• Another Latin school drama based on Lucian (VD16: ZV 9916) from 1544, which is dedicated to the Würzburg canon Heinrich von Würzburg.

The translation of the Latin drama, which is based on a fluctuating plot from the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles (on the motif cf. Encyclopedia of the Fairy Tale Vol. 2 “The Talkative Bride”), is because of the rarity of German-language prose dramas in the 16th century and because of For the time, unusual liveliness of the dialogues of particular interest in the history of literature.

Title of the comedia: A pretty, funny and useful comedia in which to draw many points of marriage ... we learn to read not only seriously but also ridiculously.

The plot: The son of a wealthy village mayor impregnates a poor young goose girl and is cast out by his father, who had provided a rich widow for him. Eventually the son agrees to marry the daughter of a neighbor he is staying with in order to be reconciled with the father. But when an unintentional confession turns out that she is no longer a virgin either, the son returns to his first bride, who has meanwhile given birth to a child, and the village mayor is convinced by his neighbor to agree to the connection.

While various characters repeatedly emphasize the importance of obedience to the parents' wishes when choosing a bride, in the plot the love of the young couple prevails over the father's ideas.

literature

• AL Stiefel: An unknown imitation of Albrecht von Eyb's dramatic translations. In: Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 36 (1892), pp. 225–233.
• Hans Kleinstück: To Maternus Steyndorffer. In: Studies on the History of Literature. Festschrift Albert Köster. Leipzig 1912, pp. 51-57.
• Walter Behrendt: Maternus Steyndörffer. A forgotten poet of the 16th century. In: Communications of the Association for the History and Archeology of Erfurt 61 (NF 8) 2000, 9–15.
• Johannes Bolte :  Steyndorffer, Maternus . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, p. 160 f.

Web links

• Steyndörffer, Maternus; A nice, funny and useful Comedia Mainz 1540 in Cinquecentine.de