Geldenhaur

Geldenhaur GERARD (Gerardus Noviomagus, Gerard of Nimeguen), an eminent German writer, was born in 1482 at Nimeguen, and educated at Louvain and at Deventer, where he had for his instructor Alexander Hegius, the preceptor of Erasmus. In 1517 his skill in Latin versification obtained for him the laurel crown from the emperor Maximilian I. He afterwards became chaplain and secretary to Philip of Burgundy, bishop of Utrecht. He was sent to Wittemberg in 1526 to visit the schools and Church, and found that he "could not oppose a doctrine so consonant with that of the prophets and apostles" as that of Luther. He renounced popery, and retired towards the Upper Rhine, where, at Worms, he married, and became a school-master. Afterwards he was called to Augsburg, and eventually became professor, first of history, and then of theology, at Marpurg. Erasmus, who at one time was his friend, attacked him violently on his secession to Lutheranism. Geldenhaur died of the plague in 1542. He wrote Historia Batavica: — Historia suae AEtatis, lib. 7: — Descriptio Insule Batavorum: — Catalogus Episcoporum Ultrajectinorum: — Epistolae Zelandiae: — De Viris illustribus Inferioris Germaniae, and several controversial pieces. — Hook, Eccles. Biog. 5:285; Bayle, Dictionary (London, 1736), 3:145.