Hermann von dem Busche's Vallum humanitatis (1518): A German Defense of the Renaissance Studia Humanitatis*

Abstract

Hermann von dem Busche typifies the younger, more aggressive generation of humanists who became embroiled in the literary feuds and controversies of pre-Reformation Germany.' While Peter Luder and Conrad Celtis had preceded him as "apostles of humanism" in Germany, Busche carried the tradition of the "wandering poet" into the early sixteenth century. His major prose work, the Vallum humanitatis, exemplifies an important literary genre of the humanists, the "defense of poetry," usually approached as a defense of humanistic learning against scholastic opponents. Several recent studies need to be taken into account when assessing the literary and historical significance of Busche's Vallum humanitatis. Concetta Greenfield's analysis of Italian "defenses of poetry" between 1250 and 1500 lends further credence to Kristeller's wellknown thesis regarding the simultaneous development of scholasticism and humanism in Renaissance Italy.