Biography

Gresemund was born at Speyer

Speyer

Speyer is a city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located beside the river Rhine, Speyer is 25 km south of Ludwigshafen and Mannheim. Founded by the Romans, it is one of Germany's oldest cities...

. His father, also named Dietrich, was a native of Meschede

Meschede

Meschede is a town in the Hochsauerland district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the district Hochsauerlandkreis.-Geography:Meschede is situated in the Ruhr valley, near to the Hennesee, south of the nature-park Arnsberger Wald...

 in Westphalia

Westphalia

Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...

.

Gresemund was educated first at Erfurt

Erfurt

Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...

, where he became magister

Magister (degree)

Magister is an academic degree used in various systems of higher education.-Argentina:...

, and subsequently in Italy. Having graduated in medicine at Speyer, he became court-physician and councillor to the Elector

Prince-elector

The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...

 of Mainz Bertold von Henneberg-Römhild

Bertold von Henneberg-Römhild

Bertold von Henneberg-Römhild was Archbishop of Mainz and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 1484 to 1504.The son of George, Count of Henneberg and Johanna, daughter of Count Philipp I of Nassau-Weilburg entered the ecclesiastical profession and, after passing through its lower stages,...

, in which city young Dietrich grew up and attracted attention at an early age because of his learning and ability. As early as 1493 he became associated with Jakob Wimpfeling

Jakob Wimpfeling

Jakob Wimpfeling was a Renaissance humanist and theologian.- Biography :Wimpfeling was born in Sélestat, Alsace. He went to the school at Sélestat, which was run by Ludwig Dringenberg, the founder of the Humanist Library of Sélestat...

, Adam Werner von Themar, and Abbot Trithemius

Johannes Trithemius

Johannes Trithemius , born Johann Heidenberg, was a German abbot, lexicographer, historian, cryptographer, polymath and occultist who had an influence on later occultism. The name by which he is more commonly known is derived from his native town of Trittenheim on the Mosel in Germany.-Life:He...

, and in 1494 he published his first work. Even at that date Trithemius admitted him to his Catalogus illustrium virorum with warm eulogies, on the ground that the youth had surpassed many men of mature age, including even doctors.

Having received a thorough classical education from his father and attended lectures in dialectics at the University of Mainz, Dietrich studied law at Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

 in 1495, and at Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

 in 1497. In 1498 he received the degree of doctor legum at Ferrara

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

, and in 1499 he matriculated at Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

. About 1501 he was in Rome to study antiquities, but soon had enough of the city, and wrote two very caustic epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s regarding Alexander VI. On his return to Mainz a succession of honours awaited him during the brief remnant of life that was allotted to him. In 1505 he became canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

 at St. Stephen's Church, Mainz

St. Stephen's Church, Mainz

|right|300 px|thumb|St. Stephan at Mainz. View of the great belfry, the highest spot in the city for centuries, and the nave.The Collegiate Church of St. Stephan, known in German as St. Stephan zu Mainz, is a Gothic hall collegiate church located in the German city of Mainz.-History:St...

, in 1506 vicar-general, in 1508 prothonotary

Prothonotary

The word prothonotary is recorded in English since 1447, as "principal clerk of a court," from L.L. prothonotarius , from Greek protonotarios "first scribe," originally the chief of the college of recorders of the court of the Byzantine Empire, from Greek protos "first" + Latin notarius ; the -h-...

 and judex generalis, in 1509 diffinitor cleri minoris at St. Stephen's, and in 1510 scholasticus in the same chapter.

His first work was called Lucubratiunculæ (1494) and dedicated to Trithemius. The book is divided into three parts. The first of these, a dialogue in which is discussed the value of the seven liberal arts

Liberal arts

The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...

, met with applause and was reprinted several times. It is worth remarking that this book contains the first plea from the Rhenish country for a reform in the teaching of grammar. His dialogue on the Mainz carnival

Mainz carnival

The Mainz Carnival is a months-long city-wide carnival celebration in Mainz, Germany that traditionally begins on 11 November but culminates in the days before Ash Wednesday in the spring...

 deals with a humorous subject (1495) at Mainz, he delivered a discourse at a synod

Synod

A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...

 presided in the light of a stern censor of the moral life of the clergy. His longest poem tells in moralizing fashion the story of the mutilation of a crucifix

Crucifix

A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....

 by an actor (Historia violate crucis, written about 1505, but not printed until 1512).

Gresemund's hobby was the collection of ancient coins and inscriptions. In 1510 he issued an edition of short texts in Roman archaeology. Death prevented the publication of his works on antiquities, and the manuscripts had been lost. Individual poems were written for the publications of his friends. He died young of hernia

Hernia

A hernia is the protrusion of an organ or the fascia of an organ through the wall of the cavity that normally contains it. A hiatal hernia occurs when the stomach protrudes into the mediastinum through the esophageal opening in the diaphragm....

, at Mainz.

Erasmus paid him a splendid tribute in his edition of St. Jerome in 1516, and Hieronymus Gebwiler describes him in the following words: "Dietrich was slender of body and of medium height, with well-moulded features, dark hair, grey eyes, even-tempered, without rancour, without presumption, without pride, without affectation, gentle in his manner, and truthful".