REMBERTUS FRESEN AND HIS WRITINGS

DENNIS E. RHODES

T H R E E small books in the British Library, all printed in northern Germany towardsthe end of the sixteenth century, are of unusual interest both for their author and fortheir printers. Unfortunately it has to be confessed that all three were accidentallyomitted from the British Museum's Short-title Catalogue of. . . German books, 1453-1600,published in 1962, the result being that there is no mention in the printers' index tothat volume of the little-known printer at Emden who was responsible for the secondand third books which we are studying here. The first, however, was printed at Marburg,and the title-page reads as follows: Carmen gratulalorium in honorem . . . Domini M.Edonis Hilderki Ieverensis, Academiae Heydelbergensis in facultate Theologica Professorisprimarii . . . scriptum per Rembertum Fresen Frisium Orientalem. Martispurgi Cattorumper Augustinum Colbium, 1578. Quarto. 6 leaves. A^ (British Library, 837.h.3(32)).

The poem congratulates Edo Hildericus on the conferment of a doctorate in Theologyat Marburg on 15 December 1578. Edo, native of the small town of Jever in Oldenburg,was also a considerable classical scholar who translated the Elementa astronomiae ofGeminus from Greek into Latin, and edited certain speeches of Aeschines andDemosthenes. From these publications it is clear that, at least between 1581 and 1590,he was living at Altdorf, near Nuremberg, where the Gerlach press printed his Aeschinesin 1581. Rembertus may well have been a pupil of Edo at Marburg or Heidelberg.^We presume that Edo had left Heidelberg for a chair at the new University of Aitdorf,founded in 1576. The Marburg printer, Augustin Kolbe, was hitherto represented inthe British Library by four other books printed between 1571 and 1585.

Rembertus Fresen, an East Frisian as he tells us himself (his surname is taken fromhis native district) appears to have been born about 1550 or 1555. His next publicationis an anonymous one, printed without date or imprint. Strangely enough, although thisand a close reprint of it bearing the author's name and a full imprint and date havestood next to each other in the Grenville Library for a century and a half (G.9859 andG.9858), no connection between the two has ever been made in the British Museumcatalogue: the anonymous edition has never had either its authorship revealed or itsprinter identified, and has been given the wrong date, nothing more than a wild guessof [1600?]. In fact, as we shall see, it was in all probability printed about 1580-2, whilethe non-anonymous edition is dated 1584.

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The title of the anonymous edition is as follows:

TRAGICA I HISTORIA DE MISERAN-|DA ET ABOMINOSA ILLA LA-|niena, Annoa partu virginis Mariae salutifero M.Parisina, post Nuptiarum Nauarrei-

D.LXXII. die xxiiij. Augusti in Regia Metro-jpoli vrbecarum, ibi celebratarum, festiuitatem, | alijsque vrbibus,

edita, reddita | Carmine Heroico | PER I F.R.E.F.O.O. || [ornament] IN FIDE ET | PATIENTIA.

Octavo. 70 leaves, the last (blank) missing. Sig. AB'̂ C^ D"̂ E -L^ The dedicationis 'ad generosum, magnificumque virum, Dominum Ikonem a Knipens, LiberumBaronem in Elter & Vogelsanck, Capitaneumque in Knipens & inhausen, dominumsuum clementem, ac moecenatem dignissimum'. At the end of the book is a list of'errata typographica'. As to the initials on the title-page, we can only make a partialguess at their meaning with any accuracy; possibly 'Fresen Rembertus E. [Emdensis?]Frisius OrientaUs O.[?]'. But another possibility suggests itself. On B4V and Ci'' theauthor has the following phrase: \ . . hoc opusculum scribere aggressus fuerim, sedvt saltem Domini P.O.R.F. patris mei charissimi postulatis aequissimis atque voluntatipiae satisfacerem'. In the second edition, however, this sentence has been altered toread: '. . . hoc opusculum scribere aggressus fuerim, sed vt saltem Domini OcconisFrisij, arcis Emdanae praefecti & vrbis Consulis dignissimi, patris mei charissimipostulatis aequissimis atque voluntati piae satisfacerem'. So in 1584 Rembertus Fresenabolished not only his own anonymity but also his father's, and we see that his father,prefect of the citadel or garrison of Emden, was named Occo Frisius. The initials onthe title-page of the first edition may therefore alternatively be interpreted as: 'FrisiusRembertus E. [Emdensis?] Filius Occonis Orientalis[?]'.

The second edition is a close reprint of the first, but has on the title-page, insteadof the mysterious initials, the author's name in full: 'PER REMBERTVM FRESEN.'At the foot of the page is the imprint: '^JEMDJE, Excudebat Evvardus Frisius.M.D.LXXXIIir . The second edition also has two extra leaves (the first incongruouslysigned Aij) inserted between Ci and C2, making a total of 72 leaves, the last two blank,of which the last only is missing here. These two extraneous leaves bear two poemsone of which, 'Ad iuuenem clarissimum Rembertum Fresen', is signed by ArnoldusAetius, minister of the Divine Word in Medium.

The two editions, one of no date and one of 1584, are so close typographically, usingthe same ornaments and type-faces, that there can be no doubt that they were printedby the same press. This is revealed by the second edition to have been the press ofEwardus Frisius at Emden. He is a printer not represented in the German S.T.C.,but it is recorded that he printed at least three, possibly four, works in Low German,all apparently in 1584: needless to say, none of these is in the British Library.^They are:

1. Proeve des Ghelovens. Unsigned and undated. 48 leaves. Borchling-Claussen, 2300.2. Spiegel der Aanvechtinge des Satans an der Ledematen der Appingadammer Gemeente

(Emden: [Eewardus Oostfreese.^], 1584). Brandes, 15: 'Harkenroht gives the date as

1583'.

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3- Savonarola, G., Spieghel der Anvechtinghen des Sathans. 76 leaves. Borchling-Claussen,2303. Brandes, 513. Apparently not the same work as no. 2.

4. Eirt trouhertige unde droevighe Vermaninge an de verstroyde Ingesetene der VriefischenOmmelanden. 52 leaves. Borchling-Claussen, 2307.

A point worth noting between the two editions of Rembertus Fresen's poem on theMassacre of St. Bartholomew is that none of the errata listed in the first edition hasbeen corrected in the second. Why this is so I cannot explain, but there seems to beno doubt that the anonymous edition preceded that with the author's name, especiallyin view of the two inserted leaves in the second. An attempt to correct these printing errorshas been made in ink in the British Library's copy of the second edition, which Grenvillehad washed, as was his usual practice.

The study of these three httle books has added three more imprints to the GermanS.T.C., one for Augustin Kolbe at Marburg in 1578, and two for Ewardus Frisiusat Emden, one of them dated 1584. Several unsolved details remain: there is the questionof the exact meaning of the initials; the date of the anonymous edition; and the desireto know why the young author, Rembertus Fresen, and his printer decided so soon tobring out a second edition revealing his name, that of his father, and the full imprint.The savage events of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew had taken place in Paris andother cities of France on 24 August 1572, a full twelve years before the dated editionof the poem appeared at Emden. In any case, the subject matter was not such as todemand anonymity in a poem published in another country a decade or more after theevents which it chronicled.

At least we have been able to bring the bibliographical record of Rembertus Fresenup to date, and to correct the serious lacunae of the British Library's catalogues. Tomy knowledge, there were no further publications from his pen, and his fate after 1584is a mystery.

1 I have been unable to find any mention ofRembertus or Edo in the published matriculationlists of either Heidelberg or Marburg which wereavailable to me.

2 Josef Benzing, Die Buchdrucker des 16. und ly.Jahrhunderts im deutschen Sprachgehiet (Wies-

baden, 1963), p. 99. References are to: ConradBorcbling and Bruno Claussen, NiederdeutscheBibliographie, Band I, 14/J-1600 (Neumiinster,1931-6); Walther Brandes, Bibliographie derniedersdchsischen Fruhdrucke bis zum Jahre 1600(Baden-Baden, i960).

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