birth. Beginning with the year 1584, he seems to have been occupied for some years chiefly with the publishing of Schwenkfeld's works. Neither the editor's name nor the place of publication, Strassburg, appears in any of these editions. It will be remembered that the Sixteenth Century was the great age of the German "master-singers" and their "Singschulen," and for a few years (1589-91 ) Sudermann practiced the Meistergesang—the writing of lyric poetry according to the strict rules of the guild of the Meistersänger. Many of his poems of this period are included in his manuscript collections of later years, and are usually indicated by the marginal note: "Disz ist ein Meistergesang." That Sudermann joined the "master-singers" of Strassburg, or that he was acquainted with his contemporary Johann Fischart can not be said with certainty. However, Fischart was a staunch Protestant and began his literary career by writing satires on Catholicism. Of these, the most important, Der Bincnkorb (1579) and Das Jesuiitenhütlein (1580), were issues of the printing-press of Jobin, Fischart's brother-in-law, in Strassburg, the press which soon after printed some of the Schwenkfeld literature published by Sudermann.
In his next period, 1594 ca.—1610, we find Sudermann wholly absorbed in his study of the mystics. In these years his unresting enterprise is applied in part to the collecting of old and rare manuscripts of the writings of such Christian teachers as Bernhard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), Bonaventura (1212-74), Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1327), Heinrich Sense, or Suso (1295-1366), Johann Tauler (ca. 1300-61 ),[1] Johann Geiler of Kaisersberg (1445-1510), Heinrich Vigilis of Weissenburg (1489) and numerous other exponents of the belief in the direcness of the soul's communion with God. From these writings he made selections of the choicest passages, which he compiled and added to his library. A number of the manuscripts collected he himself transcribed with the greatest care. Indeed, it may safely be said that the recognition which is due Daniel
- ↑ Cf. Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum, I, 389.
