Born: c. 1500 Birthplace: Sprendlingen, Germany Cause of death:
unspecified Race or Ethnicity: White Executive summary: German
humanist, supporter of Luther German humanist, reformer and
poet, a native of the village of Sprendlingen near Frankfurt-am-
Main, where he was born about the year 1500. Although his father
was a schoolmaster, his early education was neglected.
Ultimately in 1518 he found his way to the University of
Wittenberg, where he studied theology. He had here the good
fortune to attract the attention of Martin Luther and Philipp
Melanchthon, and subsequently became one of Luther's most active
helpers in the Reformation. Not merely did he fight for the
Protestant cause as a preacher and theologian, but he was almost
the only member of Luther's party who was able to confront the
Roman Catholics with the weapon of literary satire. In 1542 he
published a prose satire to which Luther wrote the preface, Der
Barfüsser Mönche Eulenspiegel und Alkoran, an adaptation of the
Liber Conformitatum of the Fra