Benedict Chelidonius or Schwalbe (also Benedict Chelydonius or Caledonius; born c. 1460; died 1521) was an abbot of the Scottish monastery at Vienna. A scholar of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and a

neo-Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

poet, he worked with the artist

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...

. In some of his publications he took the name Musophilus.

Life

The 17th-century historian

Thomas Dempster Thomas Dempster (23 August 1579 – 6 September 1625) was a Scottish scholar and historian. Born into the aristocracy in Aberdeenshire, which comprises regions of both the Scottish highlands and the Scottish lowlands, he was sent abroad as a yo ...

claimed Benedict to have been of Scottish origin, presumably on the basis of his surname (actually taken from the Greek ''cheridon'', meaning swallow), and possibly also because of his association with the so-called Scottish Abbey in Vienna (actually of Irish foundation). In fact he came from around

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, and became a monk at the Abbey of St Aegidius in Nuremberg. Chelidonius wrote Latin poetry on the

passion of Christ In Christianity, the Passion (from the Latin verb ''patior, passus sum''; "to suffer, bear, endure", from which also "patience, patient", etc.) is the short final period in the life of Jesus Christ. Depending on one's views, the "Passion" m ...

and the life of the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...

to accompany woodcuts published by Albrecht Dürer in 1511. He moved to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1514, becoming abbot of the Scottish Abbey in 1518.Asaph Ben-Tov
Review of Posset, Franz, Renaissance Monks: Monastic Humanism in six Biographical Sketches
H-German, H-Net Reviews. March 2007. Accessed 23 February 2013. In 1519 he published an edition of the ''Libri quatuor sententiarum'' by Bandinus, a 12th-century theologian - an abridgement of

Peter Lombard Peter Lombard (also Peter the Lombard, Pierre Lombard or Petrus Lombardus; 1096, Novara – 21/22 July 1160, Paris), was a scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of '' Four Books of Sentences'' which became the standard textbook of ...

's ''

Sentences ''The Four Books of Sentences'' (''Libri Quattuor Sententiarum'') is a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the 12th century. It is a systematic compilation of theology, written around 1150; it derives its name from the ''sententiae'' o ...

'' which Chelidonius mistakenly thought to have been Peter Lombard's model. He was a close friend of the theologian

Johann Eck Johann Maier von Eck (13 November 1486 – 13 February 1543), often anglicized as John Eck, was a German Catholic theologian, scholastic, prelate, and a pioneer of the counter-reformation who was among Martin Luther's most important inter ...

, the opponent of

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...

, and the ''

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'', following Dempster, ascribed to him a tract against Luther, ''Contra Lutherum apostatam''. However, the tract cannot be identified. Benedict died on 8 September 1521.

Works

* ''Voluptatis cum Virtute disceptatio'', 1515. * ''Bandini Sententiarum de Rebus Theologicis'', 1519. Reprinted, Louvain, 1557.

References

Sources

16th-century German theologians 16th-century Latin-language writers German male non-fiction writers German Renaissance humanists Benedictines Medieval German theologians German abbots 15th-century births Year of birth unknown 1521 deaths 16th-century German writers 16th-century German male writers {{germany-poet-stub