, a gentleman of Westphalia, and provost of the cathedral church
, a gentleman of Westphalia, and
provost of the cathedral church of Minister towards the end
of the fifteenth century, distinguished himself by his learning, and by his zeal for the restoration of polite literature.
He went through his first studies at Deventer, and was
afterwards sent into Italy, where, under the greatest masters in literature, Laurence Valla, Mapheus Vegius, Francis Philelphus, and Theodore Gaza, he acquired an elegant
Latin style both in verse and prose. His fellow-travellers
in this journey were Maurice count of Spiegelberg and
Rodolph Agricola, who, on their return to Germany, were
the first to introduce proper methods of classical teaching,
and to restore the purity of the Latin language. Langius
being sent to the court of Rome by the bishop and chapter of Munster, under pope Sixtus IV. acquitted himself
with great credit, and came back with letters from this
pope and from Lorenzo de Medici, which gave him so
much consequence in the eyes of his countrymen, that he
was enabled more successfully to banish from the schools
the ignorance which prevailed there. He was obliged,
however, to struggle some years with those who objected
that the introduction of a new method of teaching was
dangerous; but at length he overcame those prejudices,
and persuaded his bishop to found a school at Munster,
the direction of which was committed to learned men, to
whom he pointed out the method they were to follow, and
the books they were to explain, ann gave them the use of
his fine library. This school being thus established a little
before the end of the fifteenth century, became very
flourishing, and served as a nursery of literature to all
Germany till the Revolutions which were occasioned at
Munster by the anabaptists in the year 1554. Langius died
in 1519, at the age of fourscore. He published some poems
at Munster, 1486, 4to, by which, says Bayle, it appears
that there were Latin poets of some reputation in Germany
before Conrad Celtes. Rodolph Agricola dedicated his Latin
translation of Plato’s “Axiochus
” to Langius.