Nicolas Cleynaerts

Educated at the University Of Louvain , he became a professor of Latin , which he taught by the conversational method. He applied himself to the preparation of manuals of Greek and Hebrew Grammar , in order to simplify the difficulties of learners. His ''Tabulae in grammaticen hebraeam'' ( 1529 ), ''Institutiones in linguam graecam'' ( 1530 ), and ''Meditationes graecanicae'' ( 1531 ) appeared at Louvain . The ''Institutiones'' and ''Meditationes'' passed through a number of editions, and had many commentators. He maintained a principle revived in modern teaching, that the learner should not be puzzled by elaborate rules until he has obtained a working acquaintance with the language.

A desire to read the '' Koran '' led him to try to establish a connection between Hebrew and Arabic . These studies resulted in a scheme for Proselytism among the Arabs, based on study of the language, which should enable European s to combat Islam by peaceful methods. In pursuit of this, he travelled to Spain in 1532 , and after teaching Greek at Salamanca was summoned to the court of Portugal as tutor to Don Henry , brother of Joao III .

He found another patron in Louis Mendoza , Marquis of Mondexas , Governor General of Granada . There with the help of a Moorish slave he gained a knowledge of Arabic. He tried in vain to gain access to the Arabic manuscripts in the possession of the Spanish Inquisition , and finally, in 1540 , set out for Africa to seek information for himself.

He reached Fez , then a flourishing seat of Arab learning, but after fifteen months of privation and suffering was obliged to return to Granada, and died in the autumn of 1542 . He was buried in the Alhambra .

See his Latin letters to his friends in Belgium, ''Nicolai Clenardi, Peregrinationum ac de rebus machometicis epistolae elegantissimae'' (Louvain, 1550 ), and a more complete edition, ''Nic. Clenardi Epistolarum libri duo'' (Antwerp, 1561 ), from the house of Plantin; also Victor Chauvin and Alphonse Roersch , "Etude sur la vie et les travaux de Nicolas Clenard" in ''Mémoires couronnes'' (vol. lx., 1900-1901) of the Royal Academy Of Belgium , which contains a vast amount of information on Cleynaerts and an extensive bibliography of his works, and of notices of him by earlier commentators.

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Nicolas Cleynaerts