George Hermonymus (; before 1435 – after 1503), also known as Hermonymus of Sparta, was a 15th-century
Greek
Greek may refer to:
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 of all kno ...
scribe, diplomat, scholar, and lecturer. He was the first person to teach Greek at the
Collège de Sorbonne
The College of Sorbonne () was a theological college of the University of Paris, founded in 1253 (confirmed in 1257) by Robert de Sorbon (1201–1274), after whom it was named.
The Sorbonne was disestablished by decree of 5 April 1792, after th ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
.
Life
Although he claimed to originally be from
Sparta
Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...
, that city no longer existed in the 15th century, so it most likely referred to
Mystra, the second largest city in the rapidly decaying Byzantine Empire of the time. Mystra was located in the hills overlooking the ancient ruins of Sparta, was the centre of a major revival in Greek literature at the time, and was the home of
Gemistus Pletho.
Hermonymus first went to
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
, where he worked as a copyist and then to Paris as there was a great need for a Greek teacher and translator at the time. Hermonymus arrived at Paris in 1476, worked as a copyist at the French court.
Later, as a lecturer at the Sorbonne he took advantage of the vast collection of
ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
books in the libraries of Paris to start his scholarly activities. He became renowned as a teacher of Greek and among his pupils were
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
,
Budaeus,
Reuchlin,
Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and
Beatus Rhenanus.
Hermonymus was also involved in diplomacy. In 1475 he was sent to the
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the late 9th century, when it was unified from various Heptarchy, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland to f ...
by
Pope Sixtus IV
Pope Sixtus IV (or Xystus IV, ; born Francesco della Rovere; (21 July 1414 – 12 August 1484) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 August 1471 until his death in 1484. His accomplishments as pope included ...
, in order to lobby for the release of
George Neville from imprisonment by
Edward IV of England
Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...
.
Manuscripts written by Hermonymus
*
Minuscule 30 (Gregory-Aland)
*
Minuscule 70 (Gregory-Aland)
*
Minuscule 287 (Gregory-Aland)
*
Minuscule 288 (Gregory-Aland)
*
Minuscule 880 (Gregory-Aland)
See also
*
French humanism
*
Greek scholars in the Renaissance
The migration waves of Byzantine Greeks, Byzantine Greek scholars and émigrés in the period following the fall of Constantinople, end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 are considered by many scholars key to the revival of Classics, Greek stu ...
References
Sources
* Jonathan Harris, ''Greek Émigrés in the West, 1400-1520'' (Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995).
* Jonathan Harris, 'Greek scribes in England: the evidence of episcopal registers', in ''Through the Looking Glass: Byzantium through British Eyes'', ed. Robin Cormack and Elizabeth Jeffreys, Aldershot UK: Ashgate, 2000, pp. 121–6.
* Maria P. Kalatzi, ''Hermonymos: A Study in Scribal, Literary and Teaching Activities in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries'', Athens, 2009.
External links
The Christian Renaissance.
15th-century Byzantine people
People from Sparta, Peloponnese
Greek academics
Greek Renaissance humanists
Medieval European scribes
Greek scribes
15th-century Greek writers
15th-century Greek educators
Academic staff of the University of Paris
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