Confabulationes Tironum Litterariorum (Cologne, 1525)

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.