Johannes Trithemius

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Johannes Trithemius

Johannes Trithemius (1 February 1462 - 13 December 1516) was born Johann Heidenberg. He was an abbot 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

Trittenheim

Trittenheim on the Moselle River is a commune in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, between Bernkastel-Kues and Trier.External links...
on the Mosel

Mosel

Mosel may mean the following:* Moselle River, a European river often spelled Mosel for its section in Germany* Mosel , a German appellation, formerly known as Mosel-Saar-Ruwer...
in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
.

Life
He studied at the University of Heidelberg. Travelling from university to his home town in 1482, he was surprised by a snowstorm and took refuge in the Benedictine

Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy....
abbey of Sponheim near the Bad Kreuznach

Bad Kreuznach

Bad Kreuznach is the capital of the district of Bad Kreuznach , Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is located on the Nahe River, a tributary of the Rhine....
.

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Trittenheim

Trittenheim on the Moselle River is a commune in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, between Bernkastel-Kues and Trier.External links...
on the Mosel

Mosel

Mosel may mean the following:* Moselle River, a European river often spelled Mosel for its section in Germany* Mosel , a German appellation, formerly known as Mosel-Saar-Ruwer...
in Germany

Germany

Life

He studied at the University of Heidelberg. Travelling from university to his home town in 1482, he was surprised by a snowstorm and took refuge in the Benedictine

Benedictine

Bad Kreuznach

Bad Kreuznach is the capital of the district of Bad Kreuznach , Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is located on the Nahe River, a tributary of the Rhine....
. He decided to stay and was elected abbot

Abbot

The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery....
in 1483, at the age of twenty-one. He set out to transform the abbey from a poor, undisciplined and ruinous place into a centre of learning. In his time, the abbey library

Library

A library is a collection of information, sources, resources, books, and services, and the structure in which it is housed: it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual....
increased from around fifty items to more than two thousand. However, his efforts did not meet with praise, and his reputation as a magician

Magic and religion

A belief in Magic as a means of influencing the world seems to have been common in all cultures. Some of these beliefs crossed over into nascent religions, influencing rites and religious celebrations....
did not further his acceptance. Increasing differences with the convent

Convent

A convent may refer to a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or it may refer to the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion....
led to his resignation

Resignation

A resignation is the formal act of giving up or quitting one's office or position. It can also refer to the act of admitting defeat in a game like chess, indicated by the resigning player declaring "I resign", turning his king on its side, extending his hand, or stopping the chess clock....
in 1506, when he decided to take up the offer of the Bishop of Würzburg, Lorenz von Bibra

Lorenz von Bibra

?Lorenz von Bibra, Duke in Franconia , was Prince-Bishop of the Bishopric of W?rzburg from . His life paralleled Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, , who served as Holy Roman Emperor from to which Lorenz did serve as an advisor....
(bishop from 1495 to 1519), to become the abbot of St. James's Abbey, Würzburg

St. James's Abbey, Würzburg

St. James's Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in W?rzburg. It was founded as a Scotch monastery by Embrico, Bishop of W?rzburg, about 1134....
, the Schottenklöster
Hiberno-Scottish mission

Irish people and Scottish people missionaries were instrumental in the spread of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish Empire during the 6th and 7th centuries....
in Würzburg. He remained there until the end of his life. Trithemius was buried at the Schottenkirche St. Jakob with a tombstone by the famous Tilman Riemenschneider

Tilman Riemenschneider

Tilman Riemenschneider was a Germany sculpture and woodcarving active in W?rzburg from 1483. He was one of the most prolific and versatile sculptors of the transition period between late Gothic art and Renaissance, a master in stone and Tilia....
. In 1825 the tombstone was moved to the Neumünster church, next to the cathedral. In 1945 it was damaged in the firebombing and subsequently restored by the workshop of Theodor Spiegel.

Among his pupils were Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a German magic , occult writer, theology, astrology, and alchemy....
(1486-1535) and Paracelsus

Paracelsus

Paracelsus was a Medieval physician, botanist, alchemy, astrologer, and general occultist. Born Phillip von Hohenheim, he later took up the name Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, and still later took the title Paracelsus, meaning "equal to or greater than Celsus", a Roman encyclopedist, Aulus Cornelius Celsus fro...
(1493-1541).

Steganographia

Trithemius' most famous work is Steganographia (written c.1499; published Frankfurt

Frankfurt

is the largest city in the German States of Germany of Hesse and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants in Germany, with a 2008 population of 670,000....
, 1606, placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum
Index Librorum Prohibitorum

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of publications censorship by the Roman Catholic Church.It was abolished on June 14, 1966 by Pope Paul VI....
in 1609). This book is in three volumes, and appears to be about magic

Magic (paranormal)

Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a conceptual system that asserts human ability to control or predict the nature through Mysticism, paranormal or supernatural means....
- specifically, about using spirits to communicate over long distances. Since the publication of the decryption key

Key (cryptography)

In cryptography, a key is a piece of information that determines the functional output of a cryptographic algorithm or cipher. Without a key, the algorithm would have no result....
to the first two volumes in 1606, they have been known to be actually concerned with cryptography

Cryptography

Cryptography is the practice and study of hiding information. In modern times cryptography is considered a branch of both mathematics and computer science and is affiliated closely with information theory, computer security and engineering....
and steganography

Steganography

Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no-one apart from the sender and intended recipient suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity....
. Until recently, the third volume was widely still believed to be about magic, but the "magical" formulae have now been shown to be covertexts for yet more cryptography content. The work has lent its name to the modern field of steganography.

Other works

Other works include De Laude Scriptorum (In Praise of Scribes) (written 1492, printed 1494), De septum secundeis (The Seven Secondary Intelligences, 1508), a history of the world based on astrology

Astrology

Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of astronomical object and related details can provide useful information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters....
; Annales Hirsaugiensis (1514); and Polygraphia (1518).

Annales Hirsaugiensis. The full title is Annales hirsaugiensis...complectens historiam Franciae et Germaniae, gesta imperatorum, regum, principium, episcoporum, abbatum, et illustrium virorum, Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
for "The Annals of Hirsau...including the history of France and Germany, the exploits of the emperors, kings, princes, bishops, abbots, and illustrious men". Hirsau was a monastery near Württemberg
Württemberg

W?rttemberg [], formerly known as Wirtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
, whose abbot commissioned the work in 1495, but it took Trithemius until 1514 to finish the two volume, 1400 page work. It was first printed in 1690. Some consider this work to be one of the first humanist
Humanism in Germany

Humanistic studies were late in finding entrance into Germany. They were opposed not so much by priestly ignorance and prejudice, as was the case in Italy, as by the scholastic theology which reigned at the universities....
history
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
books.

Influences

The Cipher Manuscripts

Cipher Manuscripts

The Cipher Manuscripts are a collection of 60 folios containing the structural outline of a series of magical initiation rituals corresponding to the spiritual elements of Earth, Air, Water and Fire....
were encrypted using the Trithemius cipher, a simple substitution crypto which Trithemius describes in his book Polygraphia. The Cipher Manuscripts was used to found the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a Magic order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, practicing a form of theurgy and spiritual development....
, an initiatory

Initiation

Initiation is a rite of passage ceremony marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components....
secret society

Secret society

Secret society is a term used to describe a variety of organizations. Although the exact meaning of the term is disputed, several of the definitions advanced indicate a degree of secrecy and secret knowledge, which might include denying membership or knowledge of the group, negative consequences for acknowledging one's membership, strong ties...
that heavily influenced Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian Era of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the period of Victoria of the United Kingdom reign from June 1837 to January 1901....
and modern European occultism.

Works

Annales Hirsaugienses, 1509-1514
Antipalus maleficiorum, 1508;
Catalogus illustrium virorum Germaniae, 1491-1495
Chronicon Hirsaugiense, 1495-1503
Chronicon Sponheimense, ca. 1495-1509 - Chronik des Klosters Sponheim, 1024-1509; Eigenverlag Carl Velten, Bad Kreuznach 1969 (German)
Chronicon successionis ducum Bavariae et comitum Palatinorum, ca. 1500-1506
Compendium sive breviarium primi voluminis chronicarum sive annalium de origine regum et gentis Francorum, ca. 1514
De cura pastorali, 1496
De duodecim excidiis oberservantiae regularis, 1496
De institutione vitae sacerdotalis, 1486
De laude scriptorum manualium, 1492 - Zum Lob der Schreiber; Freunde Mainfränkischer Kunst and Geschichte e. V., Würzburg 1973, (Latin/German)
De laudibus sanctissimae matris Annae, 1494
De origine gentis Francorum compendium, 1514 - An abridged history of the Franks / Johannes Trithemius; AQ-Verlag, Dudweiler 1987; ISBN 978-3-922441-52-6 (Latin/German)
De origine, progressu et laudibus ordinis fratrum Carmelitarum, 1492
De proprietate monachorum, before 1494
De regimine claustralium, 1486
De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, 1494
De septem secundeis id est intelligentiis sive spiritibus orbes post deum moventibus, ca. 1508
De triplici regione claustralium et spirituali exercitio monachorum, 1497
De vanitate et miseria humanae vitae, before 1494
De visitatione monachorum, about 1490
De viris illustribus ordinis sancti Benedicti, 1492
Exhortationes ad monachos, 1486
In laudem et commendatione Ruperti quondam abbatis Tuitiensis, 1492
Liber octo quaestionum, 1515
Liber penthicus seu lugubris de statu et ruina ordinis monastici, 1493
Nepiachus, 1507
Polygraphiae, 1508
Steganographia, ca. 1500

Compilations

Marquard Freher, Opera historica, Minerva, Frankfurt/Main, 1966
Johannes Busaeus, Opera pia et spiritualia (1604 and 1605)
Johannes Busaeus, Paralipomena opuscolorum (1605 and 1624)

External links

, PDF, 208 kB
(includes links to photographs of various Trithemius first edition
First edition

The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed ?from substantially the same setting of typesetting,? including all minor typography variants....
s.)

Johannes Trithemius

Life

Steganographia

Other works

Influences

Works

See also

External links