David Chytraeus or Chyträus (26 February 1530 – 25 June 1600) was a German

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

, reformer and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. He was a disciple of Melancthon. He was born at Ingelfingen. His real surname was Kochhafe, which in

Classical Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

is χύτρα, from where he derived the Latinized pseudonym "Chyträus". Chytraeus was professor of the

University of Rostock The University of Rostock (german: link=no, Universität Rostock) is a public university located in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Founded in 1419, it is the third-oldest university in Germany. It is the oldest university in continen ...

and one of the co-authors of the

Formula of Concord Formula of Concord (1577) (German, ''Konkordienformel''; Latin, ''Formula concordiae''; also the "''Bergic Book''" or the "''Bergen Book''") is an authoritative Lutheran statement of faith (called a confession, creed, or "symbol") that, in its tw ...

. He is known for his work as the author of a Protestant catechism. His original Latin text was published in 1554, then reprinted in 1599. Now it has been translated for the first time in German. It has been published, together with editorial notes and commentary by Michael. He is the author of a treatise on music, ''De Musica''.Joachim Burmeister, ''Poétique musicale. Suivi de David Chytraeus – De la Musique'', translation, introduction, notes and lexicon by Agathe Sueur and Pascal Dubreuil, Rhuthmos, 2017. Chytraeus died in

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state ...

, aged 70.

Notes

References

* Joachim Burmeister, ''Poétique musicale. Suivi de David Chytraeus – De la Musique'', translation, introduction, notes and lexicon by Agathe Sueur and Pascal Dubreuil, Rhuthmos, 2017.
The Protestant Theological and Ecclesiastical Encyclopedia
by John Henry Augustus Bomberger, 1860, p. 714.

article in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge 1530 births 1600 deaths People from Ingelfingen 16th-century Latin-language writers 16th-century German historians German Lutheran theologians University of Rostock faculty 16th-century German Protestant theologians German male non-fiction writers 16th-century German male writers {{Germany-historian-stub 16th-century Lutheran theologians 17th-century Lutheran theologians